Exclusive Desert Hearts Mix for EDC Vegas 2017

From: Founded in and still operating from the San Diego fringe, the Desert Hearts family was a love child born in Encinitas, CA, and nurtured at desert festivals and renegade campouts. It has grown to include like-minded DJs and producers from all over, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Britain, and Berlin.

The crew: Mikey Lion, his brother Porkchop, and best friend Marbs were throwing a party called Jungle when they heard about Moonshake, another local tech-house biweekly thrown by “Papa” Lee Reynolds, who had relocated to Southern California from the UK in 1988 for the BMX scene. “We saw this old, crazy-looking dude killing it,” laughs Lion. The four partnered in what Reynolds calls a “very symbiotic union. Their crowd was this sea of gorgeous, 20-something people that were super enthusiastic, super smart and super conscious, and my crowd was a little bit more of an older throwback mix. We came together in this scene fragmented by all these subgenre parties and just played everything we loved that was fun, tribal, [and] strengthened our connections.”

When & where: Friday, June 16 on the Kalliope Art Car

Why you should care: Because you want to share one stage and one pulse with thousands of smiling strangers. “Our entire vibe is to spread as much positivity as possible—to create this back and forth where we feed the party energy and then feed off what it gives back,” says Lion. “Music is vibrations, love is vibrations, everything is vibrations,” adds Reynolds. “So, we work to put out the good ones and to get everyone on the same frequency.”

For fans of: Wonky-cheeky-deep-hooky-stripped-down-crispy-electro-acid trax. Surveying the EDC stages, names like Lee Foss, Jamie Jones, DJ Tennis, Cut Snake and Sacha Robotti register as contemporaries and compatriots. There is probably no better way to get a taste of Desert Hearts than to explore its website, which features free-to-download original productions that often debut and evolve in live sets.

Sounds like: A cross between a lenticular image and a stereoscopic poster. Formed by ripples and flickers, diffuse builds and pointillist melodies, the Desert Hearts’ hiss, flutter, clap and camaraderie reveals animation no matter the angle of approach, as long as the mind’s magic eye is open to multiple dimensions.

Take a spin: Desert Hearts’ mix, assembled by Marbs, shows how the partners approach an entire night of programming: traveling the rainbow bridge, the swaying road between the realms of body jackin’ and mind expanding. The selections feature a spectrum from tweaked-out house heaters to super-driving and spacey techno bangers, with all manner of burbling, bleary, serotonin-replenishing crowd-movers in between. “You’ll certainly begin somewhere and end somewhere entirely different,” says Marbs. “Let’s take the ride together, and remember to keep exploring.”

Desert Hearts Mix For EDC Las Vegas Tracklist

Andreas Henneberg “Totally In”
Cuartero “Up to the Roof” (POPOF Remix)
Brandon Lee “Keep Them Up”
Danny Serrano “Root”
Kaiser Souzai “Takute”
Los Pastores “What Swat”
Maksim Dark “Dizziness”
Kyle Watson “Creatures”
Sacha Robotti “Low Key Goddess”
Thomas Gandey “Pieces of Me”
Ackermann, ft. Violet “Harm”
Rodrigo Cortazar, Replicanth “Colossus Purple”
Bontan “The First Time”
Jonatas C “Jack”
Del-30 “Judgemental”
Timboletti “Illegal Juice”

EDC Las Vegas 2017 takes place Friday, June 16, through Sunday, June 18, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Tickets are available now. For more information, visit the official website.