Ministry of Sound Classical, Example, Tall Paul, Seb Fontaine, und Utah Saints

It’s a strange old journey that Example’s been on these past few years; he first emerged into the public consciousness in 2009, when his second record, Won’t Go Quietly, suggested that he was ready to ditch the sound that had carved him out a reputation as one of the underground’s most exciting prospects - the straight-up grime and hip hop crossover that characterised his debut, What We Made - and instead pursue something altogether more commercially viable. This began, with the likes of ‘Dirty Face’, as a blend of house, dance and rap, but alongside it were tracks like ‘Kickstarts’, which had a genuine pop sensibility and hit number one in the charts as a result. That success, in turn, elevated Example to somewhere that nobody - even himself - could have imagined six or seven years ago; arena status, as he toured the UK with Benga last year in support of his fourth album, The Evolution of Man. To those shows, he brought the same basic blueprint that made his many high-profile festival slots a roaring success; a live band, a laser-heavy light show, and the utilisation of every possible opportunity to have a surely-exhausted crowd jumping. He’s done all of this at the expense of a fair bit of credibility, but really, the swagger with which he’s pulled off his reinvention is to be commended.

Despite their name, there;s no discernible link between Utah Saints and the U.S. state from which they’ve taken their name; instead, they hail from Leeds, and are an electronic dance music duo who’ve been prominent in the genre since 1990. Over the course of an illustrious career to date, Jez Willis and Tim Garbutt have become well-known within their own scene and beyond for the manner in which they’ve brought sampling into the dance genre, often taking classic pop songs - like Kate Bush’s ‘Cloudbusting’ on their single ‘Something Good’ - and mashing them up against dance beats in order to present them in an entirely new context. For the first decade or so of their existence, Utah Saints played live shows with a full band, but despite maintaining a strong live following across Europe, they decided to move in a different direction in 2001, and since then have only performed in front of crowds as DJs. Not that that’s had an adverse effect on their live stock, though; their set at Wickerman Festival in Scotland in 2009 was so influential that it was nominated for a raft of festival awards that same year, and the pair continue to tour the UK and Europe frequently; they’re cult icons within their own scene.