The weather is warming, the days are growing longer, and the trees are beginning to bloom in full force. All signs point to Spring finally arriving and bringing with it one of our favorite festivals, CounterPoint. Nestled in the rolling hills of Kingston Downs lies a 3-day retreat for music and art lovers alike. With a beefed up lineup and a Silent Disco Stage that will keep attendees going into the wee hours of the morning, there is plenty to be excited about.
We can’t wait for the three day extravaganza and all the fun that’s bound to come with it, but we’d be lying if we said we weren’t most excited for Sunday and the Summer Vibes Stage. Featuring Manic Focus, Michal Menert, Minnesota, Ott and Tipper, we’re yet to see a one-day stage bringing heat like this. If you’re not yet familiar, no need to worry we’ll get catch you up to speed with the amazing talent closing out what is sure to be an awesome weekend in the Georgia hills.
Manic Focus
After having a great come up year in 2014 punctuated with an album released in October, we have been seeing Manic Focus‘ name come up everywhere. He collabed with GRiZ on Say It Loud, toured with the All Good Records crew, and is slotted to play some of the best festivals this summer (besides CounterPoint) like Shambhala, Summer Set, and Paradise Music and Arts fest to name a few. With all the news and hype surrounding Manic, we fully expect him to throw down hard on the Summer Vibes for all the electro soul loving heads that CounterPoint attracts. We featured Manic Focus earlier this year for our Artist Pick of the Week series, you can learn more about him here.
Minnesota
Bringing bass laden melodies to the Summer Vibes is Christian Bauhofer, aka Minnesota. Bauhofer is a California transplant (originally from Minnesota, hence the name) who was influenced to take up electronic music after attending a Symbiosis event in 2009 that featured names like Bassnectar, Pretty Lights, and The Glitch Mob. Since that experience and excursion into the world of electronic, Bauhofer has set his mind to creating melodic and dynamic music rooted in bass. We’ll be sure to get a taste of his latest “Thunderdome” along with some bassy snacks to munch on during his set.
Michal Menert
Coming in hot off his LP Space Jazz Michal Menert is like an astronaut holding an MPC riding a soul train into the future. Menert is a Colorado native (originally from Poland) who has been involved in the electro-soul genre since its inception. He was childhood friends with Derek Vincent Smith aka Pretty Lights, and the two started their first band together, worked on PL’s first album Taking Up Your Precious Time, and essentially invented the electro soul genre. You can search high and low, but you’ll be hard pressed to find better electro soul than Menert. Check the album for free download here, and get your moon shoes on because Menert is going to be blasting us off into the far reaches of the universe at CP.
Ott.
If Menert takes us on a ride to outer space the next two artists will keep us out there with their musical productions. After his 2014 set was suddenly cancelled, Ott is back in 2015 to make up for lost time and then some. After spending a lot of time in the studio this past winter “plugging wobbly old machines into each other and capturing the results” we’ll be sure to hear lots of fresh concoctions from the mind of the Englishman. His tracks could be categorized as “ballads” in terms of length, and are like a journey within a song. Head over to his Bandcamp page to get familiar with his music
Tipper
Last but certainly not least is the man bringing glitchy goodness and lush melodies to the SV Stage, Tipper. If you’re not familiar with Dave Tipper, he is another legend in electronic music on this list (alongside Ott and Michal Menert) within his respective genres of glitch-hop and ambient as well as one of the most well respected sound designers and audio master-ers ever. He’s been around since about ’97 and boasts a discography that rivals anyone in the scene, with an astounding 12 albums and 11 EP’s. In February he released Fathoms, a five-track EP that left fans donning scuba gear and crying with joy. We’re not sure how much of Fathoms we can expect at CounterPoint, as his live sets mainly consist of unreleased tracks. We’re hoping for some “Ambergris” or at least “Spunion” to get our jelly legs moving. Catch me out there looking like a Tentacruel during his set.
If you haven’t already, there are only a few more days to enter our giveaway of Two GA Passes + Camping. If you’d rather not roll the dice tickets are available here at $185 until the end of April. Can’t wait to see you all there!
Photo Cred: The DoLab, Wakarusa, bassfeedsthesoul, barcodezine.com
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