With summer in full swing, the July 3^rd long weekend edition of Piknic is about to slap you with a solid helping of techno, and much of it comes courtesy of some of Montreal’s hottest ladyfingers on the decks. Getting the day underway on the main stage are two of Montreal’s loveliest DJs: Claire, whom many will recognize as the Friday night resident at Laïka; and Stefny, who’ll be releasing an album on Third Ear Records later this year. Together, Claire and Stefny are S.W.A.C.K. (2pm). At 5:30pm, electro-house jock Alix is back from a prolonged sojourn in Australia and ready to remind Montreal just what it’s like to really let loose under The Calder. At 7:30pm, France’s Sébastien Léger raises the bar on just how tough techno can get by showcasing his rough blend of industrial-inspired EDM to the dance floor.

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In association with Piknic Électronik, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) will create a participatory video in celebration of Jean Paul Gaultier at the Piknic Électronik at Jean?Drapeau Park onJuly 3.

Festival?goers will be invited to pay tribute to the famous couturier by creating an original performance to the soundtrack of “How to Do That,” sung by Jean Paul Gaultier in the late 1980s and remixed by Quebec DJ Boogat.

« How to do that » – de Jean Paul Gaultier – Remix 2011 par DJ Boogat by Piknic Electronik

The 2011 version of “How to Do That” will be unveiled at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts on July 7 at a celebratory 5 à 7, complete with a DJ and door prizes.

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Komodo in action!

Microzoo | Nathan Burns & Elio Krass @ GURU Stage :

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Some tweets!

DJHosta
@untoldhemlock nice meeting you @Piknic. I hope you enjoyed your stay in Montreal. Amazing set!

MitchKadenz
Damn. Untold at @Piknic! Too bad, I'm broke and have to do work today. #middleclasspoverty

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July is a busy month for Piknic! The event will change sites for two weeks, take a break on July 24th, and participate in the OSHEAGA festival at the end of the month. Yes! That's a lot of information on your plate. Yes! To help you out, we've prepared an easy-to-digest calendar, as you can see here:

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CISM joins Piknic this Sunday as official presenter of the day! For the occasion, their team will be on hand with some original activities, of the pocket game and a banner full of love notes. Why's that? Because this year, CISM celebrates its 20 years and its slogan is J'aime CISM! The concept? Piknicers are invited to write love notes for CISM on their banner. People will also have a chance to the meet station personalities and to win t-shirts.

Little reminder: CISM's mandate is to discover and nurture new talents as yet unknown to more mainstream media. CISM, it's youth radio dedicated to stimulating diversity and innovation.

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In the 2.0 era, we’re working hard to keep our website on the cutting edge!

°°° Our webmaster has undertaken a colossal project: it’s now possible to sort through programming for all Piknic seasons, all the way back to our first one in 2003. To do just that, click on “Programming” and scroll down the page to “Archives”. Reminisce with little souvenirs, and marvel at how the Piknic has grown over the years: we had 28 artists in 2003... and in 2010 we brought in 134!

°°° Another new feature of the site: a “Search” function. You can use it to search the site. Not much more to be said there.

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Goooood moooooorning Montréal!
Malgré les caprices de Dame Nature, le Piknic d'aujourd'hui (26 juin) aura lieu! Cependant, le site sera en mode allégé et «minimal»: les jeux pour enfants et certaines installations ne seront pas montés (Bar Express, Bar Amarula, Terrasse MOJO, Boutik Piknic).

Rendez-vous à 14h ; on vous attend pour la journée Komodo Dubs!
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HORAIRE

14:00 : R-Star (Ca)
16:00 : Hosta (Ca)
18:00 : Komodo (Ca)
19:30 : UNTOLD (GB)

Scène GURU:
15:00 : Microzoo avec Nathan Burns & Elio Krass

This week we move away from the woozy after-hours underworld of driving minimal techno and into the dayglo bass effects of the UK nu-garage scene!

As always, the Piknic gets underway at 2pm with rising local talents, with Laika DJ and bass femme fatale R-Star helming the decks as the crowds settle under the Calder. Starting at 4pm, we’re in for a treat: a back-to-back subwoofer attack by the Burton brothers. First up is Hosta (aka Nick Burton), who many of know from the popular Komodo Dubs nights around the city. After that, at 6pm we’re primed for Komodo himself (aka Matthew Burton), who arrives at Piknic with his recently released second album in tow, the excellent Shadow Dance.

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(A warning: my first paragraph again discusses the weather. The urge is stronger than me.)

What a contrast with our last newsletter! This past weekend, instead of being flooded with rain, we were drenched in hot sunlight. As a result, piknicers were out in droves. As for me, I was posted at the main entrance watching them all pour in, while the sun beat down on my face and threatened me with delirium. I was about to complain, but then I remembered standing there the previous Sunday, in the rain, and so I bit my tongue. Frankly, I prefer to support a sun that cooks me over a bank of dark clouds that would rather drench me to pneumonia.

YES, weather is important. But in the recipe of a Sunday Piknic, a bit of music goes a long way too! After a propulsive set of techno served up by local DJ Hear for the first three hours, Dominik Eulberg took to the stage and presented his first-ever set on Montreal soil. Maybe you heard the moment of silence around 5pm? Maybe while you’re reading this, you’re thinking, “Oh yeah, what was that all about?” Well, it was all part of our absurdity of the week: Mr. Eulberg wanted tea. Not a bottle of vodka, a twelve-pack of beer, or inflatable plastic gorillas (yep, we already had a request for those last year, from the guys in Nôze), but tea.

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This weekend, after two weeks of doubling up, we’re finally back down to one Piknic. But boy is it a good one for fans of non-nonsense minimal techno! The afternoon under The Calder gets going at 2pm with Made in Montreal’s Hear, who’ll feed us a deep and densely groovy marathon mix designed to get our feet tapping. He’ll be followed at 5pm by German techno renaissance man Dominik Eulberg, whose blend of forest field recordings and burning rhythms make a perfect fit for the natural surroundings of Parc Jean-Drapeau.

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Make no mistake, Vancouver is not only the pride of the country given how far they went in the hockey finals. And we know you’re disappointed and a bit angry over not winning, but we’re heading your way to cheer you up! It’s the return of Piknic @ Vancouver, which takes place June 24^th, as part of the Festival d'été francophone de Vancouver!

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Saturday, everything was going well.
In spite of rain on the forecast for the afternoon, a lot of Fringe festivalgoers and other Piknic fans came out to Parc des Amériques to check out Audio Sin, Tony the Tiger, and Mateo Murphy. Collectively, the DJs pulled a musical tarp over our heads and kept the rain at bay.

The next day, however, was literally an inversion... or an aversion, depending on how you want to looks at it. Mother Nature, I thought we had a deal! We agreed that if everything was cool by mid-morning, you’d give us a pass for the day, that you wouldn’t dump on us once we made the decision not to cancel the day. I guess that means nothing to you. You were predicted to give us 1mm of rain. Instead, you dumped 67mm on us. Sometimes in life, you just can’t find an explanation...

Here’s what happened: during the first minutes of the event, the Place de l’Homme was transformed into an immense open-air shower stall. This wouldn’t have been so bad had we been filming a video shoot for “It’s Raining Men”, but for our exposed DJ’s it was less than ideal.

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She's colorful, playful, a bit clumsy, but soooo endearing! Here is our famous Décibelle Dolby, on her way to have a good Piknic...or not!

Director: Maxime Lamontagne
Music: Majik - Black Tiger Sex Machine (Don't miss them at the Piknic, on August 21st!)

For those of you asking if the Grand Prix is going to cancel your Piknic next weekend, the answer is NO, quite the opposite! In fact, the Grand Prix has convinced us to hold two Piknics, the first on Saturday as part of the Fringe Festival (at Parc des Amériques, corner St-Laurent/Rachel) and the second at the regular spot, at Place de l’Homme, on Sunday. A warning to drivers: avoid coming down to the island with your car. Access to many roads in the area will be disrupted during the day because of the F1 Grand Prix, and circulation will be a problem.

First off, on Saturday, June 11, Piknic Électronik joins the theatre community at Parc des Amériques for our annual day of music as part of the Fringe Festival. This year’s Piknic @ Fringe gets underway at 1pm with local DJ Audio Sin, who brings with him an arsenal of house music. At 3pm, Tony the Tiger breaks out his DJ bag, filled with his eclectic remixes of club classics. At 4:30pm, we move a little deeper into the techno sphere with local producer Mateo Murphy, who’ll lead us through the end of the day with his dark and propulsive pursuit of minimalism.

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O-she-a-ga! At the sound of those syllables shooting off in my mind like a Mohawk war chant, I dive back into the world of a younger but no less famous festival, where neo-hippies and hipsters melded with rockers, all there for music from across the board. For a third year in a row, Piknic Électronik will be part of this festival of “music and art”, adding its touch of electronic programming. New for this edition: the Piknic space will be our regular spot, under the Calder, which will help us showcase the most authentic Piknic experience possible. Among the artists you’ll hear over those three days (29-30-31 July), are Girl Unit (GB), DâM FunK(US), Robot Koch (DE), Claude VonStroke (US) and Jamie XX (GB)!

***IMPORTANT: the three Piknic @ Osheaga events are not part of our regular season program. To attend, YOU MUST HAVE AN OSHEAGA TICKET OR PASS (buy here).

COMPLETE LINEUP

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