Boorman's Picks: Top 5 Mint Festival Acts

Photo: Maceo Plex

Mint Festival will arrive at their new Lightwater Valley home in magnificent style, with an absolute beast of a line up. Here are my five highlights that you simply must see:

Martin Buttrich:

I will forever associate Martin Buttrich with this most sinister of remixes he did for The Far East Band, which is utterly timeless. Or at least that's what the Berghain crowd thought when I saw it dropped there last year:

But it is hard to pick a winner from his discography because he's done so much. You may have only noticed his name as a performer and artist in the last few years, but he's been going a hell of a lot longer than that, most notably as producer/engineer for Timo Maas and Loco Dice. The man is an absolute technical master, with an intense industrial edge that is ideal for the Mint crowd.

Paul Woolford:

You've got to admire Paul Woolford. He can just pick a style of music and make it work. A lot of the Mint crowd will remember him rocking out twisted techno at Back To Basics, but this last couple of years he's reinvented himself as Special Request and is kicking ass in the land of bass, on labels like Hotflush. Check out 'Untitled' below. 

And this isn't the first time he's taken a gamble and changed direction either - his earliest days at Basics were spent playing jackin' Chicago house - so with the added license of a festival, he could play absolutely anything, and probably will. Can't wait to see it.

Maceo Plex:

An absolutely prolific talent, his DJing is every bit as exciting as his production, as you can hear from this varied set from Movement Detroit. 

It's basically the meeting of his two monikers, with the unforgiving Maetrik side of him combining with the spacey melody of his other work. He absolutely rocks it.

Robert Dietz:

If you've DJd house for any length of time, you'll have something by Robert Dietz (his latest offering on the excellent Desolat is below). 

He's just so consistently on the money - his DJing will no doubt be the same. 

MK:

It's amazing how things come around. MK was one of the hottest producers of the early nineties, with his own hits like 'Burning' and a whole host of collaborations from Masters At Work to Celine Dion. His work on Nightcrawlers - Push The Feelin' On (below) was probably his most revered over here.

He disappeared off the radar for a lot of people on the dance scene (although he still kept busy as a producer for people like Will Smith), but then as deep house began to reference the MK-esque 90s basslines, he came back with a vengeance and is now one of the most in-demand acts at the moment - just look at how busy he is in Ibiza this summer if you're in any doubt. 

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