springeight

21ST – 25TH MAY 2008

Every year since 2001, the beautiful city of Graz has been transformed into a clubbing cultural hotspot for the springfestival, the biggest festival of its kind in Austria and her neighbouring countries. What started as ‘springone - festival for electronic art and music’ has considerably increased in size and scale each year. In 2007, springseven took place in 14 venues all over Graz, with more than 250 artists playing for almost 20,000 people, making it one of the most important modern music events in Central Europe.

The musical program spans nearly all the genres - from drum’n’bass to dubstep, electro and techno to house, breakbeat to hip hop, downtempo and ambient to dub, reggae and raga and beyond. There is a strong emphasis on live, often exclusive performances - such as Carl Craig’s live performance during the Detroit Night in 2007, composed especially for the springfestival – as well as label specials from the likes of Chew The Fat!, K7, Metalheadz, Ed Banger, Kitsune, Kompakt, Compost, and Ninja Tune.

An important part of the springeight experience is the daytime programming, which features Red Bull Music Academy sessions and soundlabs, workshops (such as dubplate cutting, producing, Final Scratch tutorials, and video production and visuals workshops with the University for Applied Sciences), book presentations and readings (e.g. Bill Brewster), a video exhibition in the local museum for contemporary art, various symposiums… the list goes on and on!

This year’s festival highlights are almost too many to mention. Kicking off on the first night is an incredible line up from Exit vs. Integral, featuring some highly established drum and bass producers and MCs such as Fabio, Bryan Gee, dBridge, A.I., Break, Lynx, and LowQui. Renowned video artist Mox will present an audio-visual performance composed by two award-winning pianists, Francesco Tristano and Kelvin Sholar. This world premiere will be performed on the Bix Facade of Kunsthaus Graz, the city’s museum for contemporary art. Then there’s the Synthesizerpark exhibition and workshop. This analogue synthesizer exhibition is comprised of analogue synthesizers, beatboxes & drummachines and analogue stepsequencers dating primarily from 1972 to 1982. Some of them will be synchronised to one another, giving visitors the chance to create more complex multi instrumental arrangements.

Joining springeight this year as partners are prestigious London club The End. This state of the art club has been an integral part of London’s underground dance music’s history for over a decade and is a guarantee of quality for any dedicated clubber. This partnership is another step towards the springfestival’s further expansion, providing sophisticated clubnights to an international crowd.

The End will take over the whole Dom im Berg - the festival’s main venue - on Saturday 24th May, with a lineup that represents the club’s wide musical spectrum of some of the world’s finest DJs holding residencies at The End. As part of the coop with The End, springfestival is happy to be hosting a promo event on Friday 28th March in the course of the next Marky & Friends event in London.

Current Line Up Includes:

Arabian Prince aka Professor X
Artificial Intelligence
A-Trak
Bushwacka
Busy P
Chateau Flight
dBridge
DJ Mehdi
Dub Pistols (Live)
Egyptian Lover & Jamie Jupiter
Fabio
Fierce
Gilles Peterson
Hot Chip (DJ Set)
Inner City Dwellers live
Josh Wink
Juan Atkins
Larry Heard
Luke Vibert
Lynx & Kemo
Marky & Stamina MC
MC Lowqui
Mr C
Rainer Trüby
Robert Owens (Live & DJ Set)
Roisin Murphy
Roni Size Reprazent (Live)
Sabre
Solomun
Soul Jazz DJs
SP:MC
The Streets
Survival
Tayo
Whighnomy Bros
XRS ft Drumagick (Live)

…and many more

Some of this year’s highlights:

OPENING CONCERT AT THE KASEMATTEN OPEN AIR STAGE

www.kasematten.at

AUDIO-VISUAL PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SPACE

www.kunsthausgraz.at
http://tinyurl.com/2lxbto

SYNTHESIZERPARK EXHIBITION AND WORKSHOP

EXIT VS INTEGRAL RECORDS NIGHT

springfestival JOINS UP WITH THE END (LONDON)

Room 1: Marky & Friends (Marky, Stamina MC, Mr. C, Bushwacka, Gilles Peterson)
Room 2: Rant DJs and Don Mac
www.endclub.com

WEST COAST ELECTRO // HIP HOP
Arabian Prince aka Professor X (Ex-NWA)
Egyptian Lover
Juan Atkins

BRAZIL SPECIAL
DJ Marky, Bungle, Mix Hell live, DJ Edgar, Brasilintime (Movie and Concert) and more

TAYO PRESENTS COOL AND DEADLY

and many more…

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If you would like some more information or you want to cover this event, please contact lou@rocketsciencemedia.com or simon@rocketsciencemedia.com