Seth Troxler, Sonar Tour: Visionquest DJ Discusses Traveling Festival, Offers Stream of 3 Hour Set

Posted on Oct 16th 2012 3:12PM by Theo Bark
Comments

Seth Troxler

For close to two decades, electronic music fans have gathered in Barcelona, Spain for Sonar, a three-day festival celebrating progressive music and modern art, and this year, the festival comes to America.

Kicking off in Chicago on Oct. 31, Sonar on Tour will hit eight North American cities, featuring some of the electronic music's best live performers and DJs, including Seth Troxler, Azari & III, Paul Kalkbrenner, Tiga, Gesaffelstein, Nic Fanciulli and Die Antwoord.

In anticipation of the tour, Spinner spoke with Seth Troxler about the eight-date traveling festival, his upcoming Visionquest tour, and also scored a live recording from a recent three-hour DJ set in Brussels, which you can listen to below.

"I'm hugely excited about this tour for a number of reasons, not least because the Sonar guys are making a very carefully thought out attempt to introduce some of Europe's (and South Africa and Canada) more established underground dance music acts to the wider U.S. audience," the Visionquest founder explained. "It's going to be a fantastic showcase of some really interesting artists, but delivered in more of a concert format than a straight up club show."

Listen to Seth Troxler Troxler Live at Fuse Brussels 07/04/12 (Part 1)

Listen to Seth Troxler Troxler Live at Fuse Brussels 07/04/12 (Part 2)

Listen to Seth Troxler Troxler Live at Fuse Brussels 07/04/12 (Part 3)

Expressing excitement about the tour in general, Troxler revealed that his most highly anticipated stop along the way is Montreal, hometown of tour mate and "funniest man in dance music," Tiga.

"It's Tiga's hometown and the after show party is licensed to stay open really late so things could get crazy!" he said. "Tiga is hands down the funniest man I know in dance music so getting to let my hair down in his hometown can often lead to fireworks!"

Meanwhile, Visionquest, Seth's label with fellow tech house luminaries Ryan Crosson and Lee Curtiss, will also be hitting the road in the near future.

"We are currently planning a series of thirteen Visionquest showcase shows to be held at clubs and festivals across the world in 2013, kicking off at Timewarp in Germany next March," Troxler explained. "I can't really say much more at this stage, as more will be revealed in time but I'm really excited with a lot of the shows that we have lined up. I've also just delivered a new remix of Matt Dear for Spectral, which is out Nov. 13."

The Sonar Tour is not for fans of "bubble-gum EDM," as the festival's press release states, rather it will attempt to "celebrate the avante garde and experimentation, and to explore the boundaries of electronic music and its cultural iterations."

Sonar on Tour Dates:
10/31/2012 Chicago @ Congress Theater
11/2/2012 New York @ Roseland Ballroom
11/1/2012 Toronto @ Sound Academy
11/3/2012 Montreal @ Metropolis
11/4/2012 Boston @ House of Blues
11/7/2012 Denver @ Sonar Music Festival - Fillmore Auditorium
11/9/2012 Oakland @ Fox Theater
11/10/2012 Los Angeles @ Shrine Expo Hall (sans Tiga)

Post-Millennial Political Songs