One might suspect that the self-proclaimed “facilitator of non-commercial, transgressive, underground culture,” would have choice words to say about Burning Man’s recent popularity. However, the former festival proprietor says that is not the case.

“I’m not going to talk shit about anybody, I’m going to talk about the people in the beginning who made this into a magical thing, so magical that it’s become gigantic,” Law told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I’ve got my feet up on the desk, and I’m downloading Curtis Mayfield.”

The Beginnings of the Burn

Law is one of three original owners of the festival having co-founded Burning Man in 1986. He became disillusioned with his creation by 1995 and hit a breaking point after a deadly incident in 1996. Guns and high-speed cars took over the playa, killing one man and severely injuring several others. 

After the incident, Law’s vision for Burning Man seemed to have spun completely out from underneath him. He formally departed the festival in 1997.

Since leaving Burning Man 20 years ago, Law has taken up many different pursuits, ranging from his role as an outspoken member of San Francisco’s anarchist Rotary Club to becoming a partner in a web hosting company. Law commonly takes issue with consumer culture and is an advocate of anti-consumer street art reminiscent of early Shepard Fairey.

Law is speaking Thursday, August 17 at 6 PM for the “City of Dust: The Evolution of Burning Man” exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art, which will run through January of 2018. Find out more about the exhibit here.

Source: Your EDM

Sanders, the new CEO, accepted the leadership position at TIDAL, leaving his role as president and chief revenue officer of Kobalt Music Group. Sanders will be the fourth CEO that TIDAL has hired since 2015.

Bringing on a former chief revenue officer appears to be a push in a positive direction for Tidal as the company’s issues chiefly revolve around revenue.

TIDAL lost an estimated $28 million in 2015, a nearly threefold increase since 2014, when they reported loss of only $10 million. Royalties appear to be the company’s largest expense; it paid $35 million to labels and artists in 2015.

Large-scale streaming companies such as Spotify and SoundCloud also constantly battle paying fair royalties against meager revenues from users reluctant to invest in their higher service tiers. Subscription costs rarely scale proportionately to royalty expense increase, often turning the finances of streaming platforms further upside down.

TIDAL appears to be approaching this cash flow issue by creatively pursuing new cash flow-generating partnerships. Earlier this year, the company announced that it landed a $200 million deal with telecom giant Sprint. The cell phone carrier hopes to integrate TIDAL into its business model, directly competing with Apple Music and Google Play.

Kanye West, once a part-owner of TIDAL, reportedly left the company this summer over unpaid royalties from an exclusive streaming deal. Daft Punk, deadmau5, and Calvin Harris are assumed to still be major shareholders of the streaming platform.

Source: EDM Tunes

In recent interview by The i Paper, Goldie was asked to recall some of his favorite club and career moments across his 26 years of tastemaking in the UK dance music scene. “I’m part of the fabric of this country,” he stated plainly, “the only thing we have is the freedom in our music.”

Among reminiscent talks of early club nights with Grooverider and the start of Goldie’s label, Metalheadz, the 51-year old producer had this to say about the current UK club scene:

They’re all gentrified. Gentrification has fucked clubbing. If you’ve got to get searched with someone’s finger up your arse to search for a pill just so you can go and see some live music, there’s something very wrong with the system. Because the last time I checked, this wasn’t an airport.

Goldie’s response echoes sentiments expressed by other long-established artists. Many believe that dance music’s club culture has lost the character it once had to mass commercialization and government regulation.

Goldie later likened himself to UK pop artist Ed Sheeran, saying that he regularly attended the famous drum and bass club The Blue Note after becoming the equivalent of a teenage heartthrob, something that would be unprecedented by a modern music celebrity.
Goldie recently released his seventh album The Journey Man, which can be found in multiple formats here.

Source: Mixmag

After his performance, Voorn proudly tweeted a video of himself playing the iconic breakdown of Corsten’s remix in front of a large crowd at the United Ants event at the Ibiza open-air club.

Now that it’s OK for techno dj’s to play trance, here’s my #guiltypleasure @ferrycorsten remix from the 90’s at @unitedants @ushuaiaibiza pic.twitter.com/zUUZZjbuvy

— Joris Voorn (@jorisvoorn) July 22, 2017

Progressive house superstar Eric Prydz supported Voorn’s selection, tweeting that “It is always OK to play what ever [sic] you want.”

Historically, techno DJs and trance DJs have avoided each other’s music. Both genres are steeped in two of the longest pedigrees in dance music and carry longstanding traditions that can deter their purveyors from supporting other styles.

While it is common for mainstream EDM artists to integrate hip-hop and multiple genres of dance music into their sets, classical dance music artists rarely venture outside their respective genre. However, trance has recently become more popular among a handful of techno tastemakers – Joris Voorn being the latest example.

Joris Voorn continues his tour with a performance at WILD LIFE at DC-10 in Ibiza on July 28th.