The Golden Age is a vast sea to jump into – this pre-festival evening gives a first idea of its endless fluidity by showcasing artists with very different approaches, yet a common resoluteness when it comes to conceptualizing the dance floor as an arena for restless experimentation off the beaten paths of today’s club culture.

As Sensate Focus Mark Fell explores musical patterns that layer off-kilter beat structures with funk and flair, making decades-old ideas sound brand new. Risk-taking of another kind is the expertise of Justice Yeldham, notorious for smashing contact-mic’ed glass sheets onto his face to produce unearthly squalls. Pete Swanson renders Techno dysfunctional with his wild and entirely improvised 4/4 noise extracted from erratic hardware. Heavylistening explore aural perception and sonic phenomena by spinning several copies of their latest release, WOW, a vinyl record that contains a single, ultra-low bass tone that rings at the frequency of 33,3 Hz when played at 33 1/3 rpm. The night is rounded out with DJ sets from label founders known for running imprints that fully embrace today’s radically open aesthetic; Kontra Music’s Ulf Eriksson, and PAN’s Bill Kouligas, who plays back-to-back with Morphine’s Rabih Beaini.