Covering the entire spectrum of electronic music culture, Bloc Festival will return to Butlins resort in Minehead for its fifth birthday following four sold-out events to date.
Forward-thinking, informed, innovative and brain-shatteringly diverse, Bloc’s hallowed stages have so far been graced by everyone from electronica icon Aphex Twin to hiphop royalty Salt N Pepa via dub legend Lee Scratch Perry and dubstep figureheads Skream and Benga.
Held at Butlins in Minehead, (which has a fun fair, sandy beach and water park if your head needs a break from the techno), Bloc is the king of the music lovers weekender, unashamedly geeky and always technically pioneering, both in audio and visual terms. It’s not for the feint-hearted, the but if you’re serious about your electronic music than this is the one for you.
To wet our tastebuds Bloc have released the first 10 acts to be confirmed on the line-up, and already it’s set to be an enormous tech-fest of electronic goodnesss.
The Warp records originator and UK techno godfather will be playing his first UK show since 2008. It’s impossible to overstate LFO’s impact on the scene we now cherish via genre-defining chart hits ‘L.F.O’, and ‘We Are Back’, collaborations with Aphex Twin and a long-standing creative partnership with the incredible Bjork, dating back to her 1997 album ‘Homegenic’
Moderat /// BPitch Control / DE
Moderat = Modeselektor + Apparat. “Sounding like an electronic offspring of Burial, Aphex Twin and Radiohead spliced with the classic German sound of Sven Vath’s Eye Q records”. Bloc will see them laying their last live show until 2013.
Vitalic /// Citizen Records / FR
If you were compiling a list of the definitive peaktime techno anthems then Vitalic’s panel-beating 2001 detonator ‘La Rock 01’ would be up the top every time. Taking his sound to the next level, the French maverick’s most recent album ‘Flashmob’ represented his rave-ready take on techno, electro, disco and electronica and he’s ready to drop his many bombs on the Bloc faithful for the first time.
Claude Von Stroke /// Dirtybird / US
Few producers have ripped up the house and techno rulebook like San Fran’s Claude Von Stroke in recent years. Coming from a totally fresh angle every time, Von Stroke has given us modern underground house classics like the quirky bumper ‘The Whistler’, the utterly mental ‘Chimps’ and the alien thump and dark drum & bass-influenced atmospheres of ‘Who’s Afraid Of Detroit?’, as well as two albums in 2006’s ‘Beware Of The Bird’ and last year’s ‘Bird Brain’.
Joy Orbison /// Doldrums / UK
In around 18 months, Peter O’Grady aka Joy Orbison has achieved more notoriety than most producers manage in a lifetime. Changing the game entirely when he dropped the ubiquitous ‘Hyph Mngo’ last year, O’Grady has since lived up to his hype as the wunderkind of post-dubstep electronica with remixes for US garage god Todd Edwards and Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood’s Recordings, and dubby experimental excursions on Will Saul’s Aus label and his own Doldrums imprint.
Visionquest feat. Seth Troxler, Shaun Reeves & Lee Curtiss /// Spectral Sound / US
Digital Mystikz /// DMZ / UK
Mala, Co-founder of Brixton’s legendary dubstep dance (and label) DMZ and the man behind the Deep Medi Muzik label, a true bedrock of the global dubstep scene.
Beardyman /// Bitches Brew / UK
Festival favourite and two times UK beatbox champion Bearydman loops up beats, bars and mad mouth-made sounds in the most jaw-droppingly impressive and side-splittingly funny way imaginable.
Dopplereffekt /// Dataphysix / US
Purist Detroit electro at its most envelope-pushing, the unique Dopplereffekt sound has often been mimicked but rarely bettered. Their EP’s collected on the ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ LP on DJ Hell’s International Deejay Gigolos and releases on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex are essential bedrocks in any serious electro heads collections.
Originally released in 1978, Black Devil’s ‘Disco Club’ EP was an epic journey into the furthest galaxies of experimental, electronic disco. A masterpiece in cosmic sound, it remained a rare, sleeper sensation of the past until its creator – onetime French library music writer Bernard Fevre – returned in 2006 under the guise of Black Devil Disco Club with more dark disco delights and gothic electronic funk. He will be performing live at Bloc.
Bloc. 11th/13th March 2011
Butlins Minehead Resort
Somerset UK
TA24 5SH
Tickets are now available:
£140 +BF per person in a standard apartment
£160 +BF per person in an apartment with a living room & kitchen
£180 +BF per person in a ‘Gold’ apartment with a living room & kitchen
All tickets include four nights private accommodation, access to all Bloc arenas and all of the resort’s facilities – including the water park.
Telephone booking:
0844 414 2464
