Klub Dramatik Festival takes place at Nachtegalenpark, Antwerp on Saturday June 15. More info can be found here - or click here for the last remaining tickets.

Antwerp’s biggest house and techno institution enters its 5th year in existence with a massive one-day festival on Sunday August 25. Linkeroever’s Middenvijver site will host over 5 stages with a wide variety of established and upcoming electronic artists that represent the ever-expanding nature of house, techno, electro, jazz and electronica. The cherry on the cake? The international streaming powerhouse Boiler Room will take over one of the stages for a marathon live emission.

The first line-up announcement looks a little something like this (more artists to follow soon):

JEFF MILLS - LEN FAKI - MARCEL DETTMANN  - RECONDITE LIVE - RARESH & PRASLEA PRESENT PRASLESH - AWANTO 3 - BEN HAYES - BOROKOV BOROKOV LIVE \nDAN SHAKE - DAVID VUNK – DJ ASSAULT\nELENA COLOMBI - DONNA LEAKE – GABRIELLA VERGILOV - HIELE LIVE - PALMBOMEN II & BETONKUST LIVE - PABLO VALENTINO - RENAAT VANDEPAPELIERE - ROD - SAN PROPER - SYNKRO LIVE - SKY H1 LIVE - STELLAR OM SOURCE - HAISSEM\nARKLINE – ARNO LEMONS – DJ BOATS - FBQ - JUICY ‘THE DJ’ - LIL LAWAW - LOLA HARO - PIRRÈS

Ampere Open Air will take place on Sunday, August 25th at Middenvijver (Linkeroever, Antwerp). Tickets go on sale on Wednesday June 12 at noon. Please visit event page or follow Ampere on Facebook to stay up to date.

Year after year, the monstrous house and techno festival that is Extrema Outdoor seems to be getting bigger and bolder. Located on a truly enchanting lakeside location in Limburg’s Houthalen-Helchteren, this festival exclusively caters to the fans of quality dance music. Immersive stage design, powerful sound systems and a lineup that includes the likes of established names (Amelie Lens, Loco Dice, Tiga and Marcel Dettmann for example) and upcoming producers (Milo Spykers, Joyhauser to name just two) alike. While we’re counting down the days to June 7, 8 and 9, we spoke to a few members of the core team about Extrema Outdoor and its place in the Belgian festival landscape.

Extrema Outdoor Belgium has sprouted from a Dutch organisation, right? Tell us again how this festival was born and how it has evolved from those early years.

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Extrema was one of the first purely electronic music festivals in the world, alongside Dance Valley. The Dutch edition was mostly a crossover event with big commercial acts like Afrojack or Swedish House Mafia mixed with more underground names on dedicated stages. From its start in 2011, the Belgian branch of Extrema did things a little different by focussing exclusively on house and techno. We’re proud to say that this has remained unchanged.

Your lineup is packed with major A-list names. Some say festivals like yours only make line-ups from a limited selection of artists that can guarantee ticket sales. Do you agree? If so, what can events like Extrema Outdoor do against this?

We always try to find a nice balance between the international artists and our national heroes. At least 50% of our headliners have to be ‘upcoming’ in some way. We don't want a lineup filled with just established names. Discovering and pushing new talent really is essential for us. That said, you do have to maintain a balance as you fill a poster with just niche names. Luckily, our visitors trust us to provide a complete experience. A good way to measure this are the pre-lineup ticket sales. Every year, we're selling a lot of tickets before we even drop the first names. These people already know it will be a good one.

For this edition, you’re expanding the capacity once again, aiming for 60.000 visitors. Doesn’t expansion endanger the genuine experience? What’s your take on this?

From the very beginning we tried to keep the same vibe and protect the brand as much as possible. We believe in strong relationships, that's why our sponsors and partners haven't changed since day one. In this way, everyone involved with the festival knows the brand, the concept and the team inside out. We also like to keep our team members on board: everyone involved in our core team started as an intern once.

The Belgian festival circuit seems to be reaching a level of saturation. Do you believe there’s still room for growth or will we see the bubble burst eventually?

Billy Paul once said \"only the strong survive\" and we firmly believe there's a certain truth in that. We've got a lot of cool festivals in Belgium, but many of them don’t have a real personality or soul. We believe these kinds of festivals are slowly disappearing. Only the ones with a strong identity will remain. If you go to Tomorrowland, you know you can expect some ‘madness’, right? If you're going to Extrema, you know you can expect a crazy family feeling, a unique production and world's finest house, techno and everything in between.

You guys run a club edition, Extrema Noir, after the festival season too. It’s said that young people don’t go to clubs anymore and rather save money for festivals. Is this something you’re experiencing as well?

(Young) people aren't traveling to clubs on a weekly basis anymore. Almost every weekend, we have the option to see an international headliner in Antwerp, Ghent or Brussels. There are plenty of choices, we just pick the event with the most Facebook responses. We believe social media has done an awful lot of damage to the club circuit over the years. We always always hear the same thing: \"This event only has 300 people on attending? I'd rather stay home\". Nowadays, promotors have to pay thousands of euros to convince people to press that damn ‘interested’ button. It’s great to think about the golden era of clubbing, when people go to a venue for the music without knowing who would play, just because you know it will be good.

As for Extrema Noir, we've been working hard on the coming edition already. Some major changes are coming. More info on that soon!

What are the biggest challenges ahead for Extrema Outdoor?

Currently, our first day of festival is not reaching its full potential. The festival starts at 5PM on Friday with 4 stages open for business. On Saturday and Sunday, the number rises to 7 stages – and the music starts a lot earlier. In the future, we hope to extend the duration so that we have at least 3 full days of festival.

Extrema Outdoor takes place in Houthalen-Helchteren between June 7 and 9. The complete lineup and last remaining tickets can be found here.

The nightlife circuit in Belgium’s second city has been getting punches left and right recently. It’s hard to say things are going well when both established and new clubs like Café d’Anvers and Bar Helder closed their doors in the space of a few months. At least things are looking a little better now. Café Capital, the much-praised micro-club in the green oasis Stadspark that rocked the city’s underground house and techno scene between 2004 and 2010 is reopening as Grand Café Capital soon. In its 6-year lifespan, the cosy venue attracted visitors from all over the country with big names like Robert Hood, Luciano, Green Velvet, Martyn, Marcel Dettmann, Four Tet, Theo Parrish, Netsky and more – which is quite remarkable if you consider its small capacity of only 200. 9 years ago, the club was tragically destroyed in a fire. It never managed to get back up on its feet – until now.

“Anthony (Van Isacker, founder and manager red.) has been working to reopen the club for years now”, says co-manager Carlos Michielsen. The current building, designed by architecture firm Bulk Architecten, looks impressive, offering an impressive terrace and restaurant for visitors of all ages the daytime, but downstairs the club kept its low capacity to retain the intimate atmosphere it was known for. “Like in the beginning, we’re going for cosy family vibes, something Antwerp’s nightlife desperately needs more of”, explains Michielsen. With its HK sound system, wooden DJ-booth and Japanese inspired interior designed by the renowned creative agency Going East, it does indeed look like the cosy kind of club you’re bound to have some good times in. For now, Grand Café Capital is not going to rush things. “We’re going to take it easy at first by predominantly hosting a couple of established concepts, B2B events and private evenings”, says Michielsen. “After that, we’ll see where things go, although I’m sure we’ll do the reputation of this special place justice”.

Grand Café Capital’s first announced dates (all hosted by local promoters) look a little something like this:

- June 9: Café au Lait

- June 15: One More Time

- June 22: The Love Below

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- June 29: Hush Hush

Follow Grand Café Capital on Facebook to stay up to date.

If you are kind of a music lover, chances are this happened to you too: you put a 45 rpm record on your turntable while it’s still playing at 33 rpm. The effect might eventually add an extra dimension to your record or it might sound like a huge monster is trying to break out of your speakers. It’s a technique that is as old as turntables are, but some DJ’s have refined it and made it their trademark. Meet DJ Athome (Maurizio for his friends) and Hugosan (or Ugo) - together they are better known as Front de Cadeaux. They met in 2006 through a gay website for bears (a subculture of large and hairy men within the gay community, ed.). In that period, Ugo organized the Subwoofer techno parties for bears in Rome as a counter reaction to the dominant gay culture. Maurizio was part of the Brussels PNEU label and started the weekly 'Brussels Alternative Show' on Radio Panik in 1996. Ugo wanted to invite Felix Kubin to one of his parties, Maurizio had just collaborated with him and so they got talking, became friends and started playing at each other's parties. However, a few more years would go by before Front de Cadeaux was born.

Maurizio: “When Ugo visited me in Brussels, we regularly spent the entire night listening to 45 rpm records at 33 rpm. I have a lot of new beat, acid, breakbeat and techno records from the early 90’s and we were always very curious about how these records sound when you play them on a slower speed than intended. It was an interesting experiment for mixing too: the lower speed gives you extra time and options. These nocturnal listening sessions formed the basis for this technique that was later called 'supreme rallentato”.

Ugo: “I have always been into hip hop, funk, dub and black music. Around 2000, when a lot of my friends from the techno scene stopped DJing and gave me their records, the music was way too fast for me. I think that music sounds much better at 33 rpm.\"

Both Ugo and Maurizio have Italian roots. When one of their Italian friends asked to play a Front 242 song and pronounced the classic Belgian EBM group as 'Front de Cadeaux', Maurizio thought it was so funny that the name stuck. In 2013, after several nightly sessions, they decided to raise their experiment to a higher level. When they started looking for a name for their project, Maurizio didn't have to think twice: Front de Cadeaux was born. Besides their DJ sets, they released their first two EP's in 2014 and 2015 on the Roccodisco label by Hugosan and Rodion. In the ensuing years, a number of releases followed slowly, whereby they further refined their signature sound. In 2018, 'Supreme Rallentato Volume 1' followed.

What exactly does 'supreme rallentato' mean?

Maurizio: “In the 70’s, popcorn DJ’s were already playing soul records at 33 rpm instead of 45; new beat was created in the 80’s by applying the same technique to coldwave and EBM. We didn't reinvent the wheel. It is not a trend nor is it a gag. The technique ensures that you experience the music differently: deeper and more sensual. It becomes easier to dance to and there is more sensuality on the dancefloor. In the beginning of our sets, confusion usually reigns the dancefloor. The audience is not always sure what’s happening. We often get the reaction from people that they feel like they are on drugs (when we aren’t). It's like you're dancing to slow motion music in realtime. Do you know the feeling when you walk on an escalator that doesn't move? That’s how it feels. Once the audience gets used to it, they like it. It’s only the music that counts; who cares if the tempo is fast or slow, or if the DJ plays with vinyl or digital files?”

Ugo: Sometimes it feels like an unwritten rule applies in many clubs or festivals: the higher the bpm, the better. We couldn’t disagree more. Many promoters and DJ’s say we’re crazy when we start our set at 98 BPM at 3 AM. For us, the pace is just a side issue; it's the groove that counts. Our sets are a counter reaction to what we call this 'peak time BPM fascism'. This unwritten rule does not only apply in clubs; you can also find it in the online music shops. We think it is absurd to buy music on web shops based on the number of beats per minute, regardless of artist or label”.

Are certain genres better suited for the 'supreme rallentato' technique than others?

Maurizio: “Based on our experience, there are two factors that make music suitable for this technique. First and foremost, we use music that was produced before the turn of the century. Until then, most breakbeat, beat, acid and techno was analog. If you slow it down, you still have a very full sound. If you apply the technique to digital productions, you feel something is missing. Secondly, the quality of the vinyl pressing is important too; tracks covering an entire side on the record are better. The grooves are deeper and there’s more space, which results in a deeper and fuller sound”.

You have made a handful of EP's over the years. Do you have a fixed production workflow?

Maurizio: “As Ugo lives in Rome and I live in Brussels, it is not always obvious. We have no rules; everything is possible. Sometimes Ugo starts a track in his studio and sends it to me; sometimes vice versa. Or we work on a track at the same time, each from his own studio. We see each other at least once a month and we always try to free up some time to make music. Above all, we are very good friends.\"

Ugo: \"After a number of singles and EP's, we wanted to make a compilation of our edits. That resulted in ‘Supreme Rallentato Volume 1’. We just bundled the remixes we often used in our DJ-sets. It gives an insight in what the ideal dance floor tracks for us sound like. Sometimes people ask us where they can buy that record, upon which we have to answer that this record does not exist. It’s a modified version of an existing track we released digitally. We couldn't find a label for it, so we released it ourselves. Volume 2 has just been released now too”.

“The next step is a Supreme Rallentato vinyl series. We will select a number of tracks that we often play in our DJ sets and we will hide all the information of the original track. You can see it as an anti-capitalism statement. We don't have to make new music to express ourselves, everything has already been done. The majority of the records that we play aren't even worth a penny; they are for sale on Discogs for half a euro or less”.

In February, you released the single ‘We Slowly Rot’, accompanied by a manifesto. I quote: \"our sound is the sound of destruction, the sound of the process of rot”. Is that the ultimate description of your sound?

Maurizio: 'For us, the sound of destruction is the sound of records at the wrong speed. At the same time, we intend an epistemological rupture. It is important to break with certain accepted ideas in order to make progress. Nowadays, the DJ culture is mainly about music that has to be sold, which results in a huge overproduction. It has become impossible to listen to all the promos we receive. With that, there’s an excess of podcasts and DJ mixes. People no longer really listen: they scroll through a mix, listen for two minutes and then proceed to ask the DJ for track ID's (when you want to know the artist and song title of a certain track, ed.). It has all become very momentary. After our Boiler Room set last year, we received some bizarre reactions from people because Shazam could not tag our music. Since we play the records at the wrong speed, the algorithm does not recognize our music (laughs)”.

Ugo: “In the manifesto we state: “dance music was fun, dance music was new, dance music was high, dance music became a standard”. A lot of dance music today is characterized by a fixed formula, so everything sounds the same. This stands in sharp contrast with the early days, when freedom used to be the essence of dance music; everything was possible. We miss those times”.

Any more Front De Cadeaux releases planned for the near future?

Maurizio: “Our remix of Tapan's track 'Ghana' on the Malka Tuti label came out on vinyl in May. All the above mentioned releases are linked to our DJ-sets, so consider them as tools for the dance floor. After this, we want to devote more time working on our album. We already have a number of unfinished tracks, so by 2020 we should be able to release an album”.

“Besides Front De Cadeaux, we each have our side projects too. Ugo runs Tropicantesimo with a bunch of Roman friends, which is not only a monthly party at the Fanfulla cultural centre in Rome, but also a collective of singers, musicians and visual artists. He also runs the Pescheria studio, where he regularly hosts workshops, concerts and listening sessions. It’s a label as well: he just released a 7 inch by Torbido, which includes a Tropicantesimo remix”.

Supreme Rallentato Vol. 2 is out now (get it here). Follow Front De Cadeaux on Facebook to stay in the loop. Maurizio releases solo under the DJ Athome moniker. Just the other week, a new track of him was released on the Serenades compilation.

The nightlife circuit in Belgium’s second city has been getting punches left and right recently. It’s hard to say things are going well when both established and new clubs like Café d’Anvers and Bar Helder closed their doors in the space of a few months. At least things are looking a little better now. Café Capital, the much-praised micro-club in the green oasis Stadspark that rocked the city’s underground house and techno scene between 2004 and 2010 is reopening as Grand Café Capital soon. In its 6-year lifespan, the cosy venue attracted visitors from all over the country with big names like Robert Hood, Luciano, Green Velvet, Martyn, Marcel Dettmann, Four Tet, Theo Parrish, Netsky and more – which is quite remarkable if you consider its small capacity of only 200. 9 years ago, the club was tragically destroyed in a fire. It never managed to get back up on its feet – until now.

“Anthony (Van Isacker, founder and manager red.) has been working to reopen the club for years now”, says co-manager Carlos Michielsen. The current building, designed by architecture firm Bulk Architecten, looks impressive, offering an impressive terrace and restaurant for visitors of all ages the daytime, but downstairs the club kept its low capacity to retain the intimate atmosphere it was known for. “Like in the beginning, we’re going for cosy family vibes, something Antwerp’s nightlife desperately needs more of”, explains Michielsen. With its HK sound system, wooden DJ-booth and Japanese inspired interior designed by the renowned creative agency Going East, it does indeed look like the cosy kind of club you’re bound to have some good times in. For now, Grand Café Capital is not going to rush things. “We’re going to take it easy at first by predominantly hosting a couple of established concepts, B2B events and private evenings”, says Michielsen. “After that, we’ll see where things go, although I’m sure we’ll do the reputation of this special place justice”.

Grand Café Capital’s first announced dates (all hosted by local promoters) look a little something like this:

- June 9: Café au Lait

- June 15: One More Time

- June 22: The Love Below

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- June 29: Hush Hush

Follow Grand Café Capital on Facebook to stay up to date.

“Fooling you, it’s that trick of mine / Loving you, it’s my alibi”. The Ghent-based Tsar B clearly admits to being a little sneaky behind her boyfriend’s back in the lyrics of ‘Alibi’, the track featured in our newest See.Hear.Now live session. Since the drop of her debut album ‘The Games I Played’, the cheeky producer, violin player and vocalist has been appearing on many charts, playlists and magazine covers (like our very own Red Bull Elektropedia magazine in January).

On ‘Alibi’, the tsarina balances a catchy electronic beat with a layer of thoughtful verses. “I sometimes look for instruments that I play around with and after that I start to build a track by adding gibberish on top”, she says. “What I’ve learned over the years now is that this gibberish is often my subconsciousness. That’s where I often get my inspiration from”. With a tour in Brazil and lots of new material on the way, this won’t be the last we hear from this homegrown pop queen.

Follow Tsar B on Facebook, Spotify and Instagram to keep track of her latest adventures.

If you dig laid-back electronica and immersive soundscapes full of emotion, Oaktree would have been a great artist for you to follow. Luckily, the man behind the moniker has broken the year-long silence with a message we like to hear: a new album announcement. Apparently, this news was a package deal with a name-change. From now on, you can call the Antwerp-native by his given name. Curious to hear where your favourite Belgian ambient act has been all this time (tl;dr in an isolated cabin) or what he sounds like now? We asked the artist for an interview and we got an exclusive track premiere to go with it:

Hi Adriaan, why the name change?

I’ve always played with the idea to release under my given name, it feels more genuine. Even though I made this new record before that decision, the time felt right, maybe because I hadn’t put out new music in a long time. This new music may sound different from what I’ve made before too, I find that hard to judge on myself. For me, it’s all still pretty much up the same alley, a continuation of a path I'm exploring.

How does this chapter then differ from the previous one?

Throughout the last few years, I received commissions for theatre, performance arts, documentaries,... Making soundtracks for stuff like this really had an impact on me. It gave me time and an excuse to just focus on sound and vibe, and play with a different sense of structure and time. I was allowed to let a track evolve at its own pace, without having to rely on rhythms or big melodies.

So does that mean we can expect an ambient album?

I wouldn’t say it’s a calm background record (laughs). It’s anything but easy to digest chill out music. Even though there’s no focus on traditional song-writing structures, some parts are actually really busy. Like I said: it’s more about the creation of a certain atmosphere, rather than delivering a catchy hit. And that atmosphere isn’t always comforting, I like to put in some annoying sounds as well, so in that way, it’s definitely not ambient.

On which label can we expect the record to come out?

I’m releasing it myself. I’ve come to enjoy this freedom of doing everything myself, keeping things small, using my own name,... Of course I can imagine some labels I would love to work with. But creating my own platform feels good. Music, publications, artwork, etc. Whatever it may be. It gives me freedom to work on my own, and maybe other peoples unfiltered creations in this way. It entices me to be creative in different ways.

You have this very peculiar way of making music in total seclusion. Is this the only way you can focus?

I’m most productive when I’m in complete isolation. It’s hard to focus when I’m in the daily routine of living and working in Antwerp. Coming home from a day of work, or just having some appointments or social contacts; that makes it tough for me to get into the right flow. So for the new record, I’ve gone to a cabin in the faraway village of Erezée in the Ardennes. I went there 4 times for around 10 days. When I’m alone in a secluded place like this, I get into a different mindset and I become so much more productive. In this cabin, there are no phones, no internet, no luxury (there’s a wood stove to keep me warm however) and most importantly, no other people. Even the convenience store in the village is a 6 kilometre bicycle ride away. I spend those slow days over are with producing music, going on long walks in the forest, reading books, contemplating stuff, cooking, listening to other music, etc. I’ve learned that the mindset you make your music in is really important for the outcome. This simple cocoon life has made my music more spacious and it has allowed me to get inspired by the most mundane, simple things in life. Or at least, things we tend to consider as simple.

Why don’t you move to a quieter place than Antwerp then?

I’ve thought about that, but I can’t bring myself to completely retract from the social life I share with the people close around me. I think this whole thing is rather a question of discipline. As long as I’m able to zone out in the Ardennes every now and then, this formula works.

We’ve seen you on stage as Oaktree with a full live band (that even included a harp). What does the show look like now?

I am very proud of everything we did with the band, and I really enjoyed that, but it was time to explore different ways of performing this music on a stage. I just did some solo shows, which was quite scary, but the freedom was so exciting. That said, the try-outs also made me realise that I needed an additional drummer. So now I will start rehearsing with drums. I’m building everything from scratch, basically. A live show shouldn’t be a fixed outfit for me; it should be a continually evolving formation that’s open to change.

So the track you’re premiering with us lasts for a whopping 15 minutes. How come?

This track was born when I was making the soundtrack for a light installation with Thomas from Nacht Collectief. It found place on Antwerp’s Grote Markt. It’s divided into 3 different parts, which I’ve linked to the ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ (‘Tuin der Lusten’, red.) by Bosch. This painting gave me directions when I rediscovered the track last year and decided to finish and share it: it’s about the origin of humanity, the moment we lose ourselves in beauty and our downfall. Not the most light-hearted material for a song, I know (laughs).

So what’s going to happen with you in the coming months?

The album is done and should hit the internet after the summer. I’m currently working hard on the live shows, which will start as soon as the release drops. Before that happens I still have a documentary soundtrack and other music to work on.

Follow Adriaan de Roover on Soundcloud and Facebook to stay in the loop.