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Studio Party Mad Racket Plaid (UK) live A/V set (18+) plus Mad Racket DJs Ken Cloud, Simon Caldwell Jimmi James, Zootie

2 June 2023

In the Studio | Contemporary Music

Beloved Sydney DJ collective Mad Racket are back and ready to turn things up at Vivid LIVE’s legendary Studio Party, with a little help from special guests – and electro dance pioneers – Plaid.

Plaid

Music that twists geometric runs through nostalgic synth textures into minor key shifts like dimension folds gone wrong.

The Wire

Beats, bleeps and bangers as electro legends join Sydney’s favourite DJs

No Vivid LIVE experience is complete without a trip to Mad Racket’s legendary Studio Party, the long-running night curated by Sydney’s beloved inner west DJ collective of Ken Cloud, Simon Caldwell, Zootie and Jimmy James. After returning with a bang in 2022, the city’s dance music tastemakers are ready to take things even higher for this year’s edition, unleashing a night of their signature ‘well rolled, well bowled’ sounds in the Sydney Opera House Studio.

Joining Mad Racket this year are very special guests Plaid, the revered British electronic duo famed for their playfully innovative beats, tricky time signatures and gorgeously twisted melodies. Near-mythical figures on the electronic dance music scene, Suffolk childhood friends Ed Handley and Andy Turner first came to attention in their early incarnation The Black Dog and their production on Warp’s seminal 1992 Artificial Intelligence compilation. As Plaid, their classic records Not For Threes (1997), Rest Proof Clockwork (1999) and Double Figure (2001) helped shape and define the sound of ‘intelligent dance music’ alongside Warp labelmates Aphex Twin, Autechre and Squarepusher, while the duo collaborated with Björk on remixes from her iconic Post (1995) and Homegenic (1997) albums. Last year saw Handley and Turner celebrating 30 years on Warp with their acclaimed Feorm Falorx, a high-concept intergalactic opus full of the band’s indelible melodies and mercurial grooves.

Two fixtures of the dance music community converge for a massive night of irresistible beats, bleeps and bangers.

Presented by Sydney Opera House

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