In Session: Floorplan

It's Sunday and we're at Amsterdamse Bos, an idyllic woodland park just outside the centre of Amsterdam and it's the last day of Dekmantel Festival. After two days of solid, rigorous partying at one of our favourite events of the year, we're ready for one final workout. The weather might be glorious outside but around 6pm we head to the UFO tent, a haven for all things techno and there's one set that promises to be one of the weekend's highlights, as it has been for the last three years.

Robert Hood is about to take to the stage and that can only mean one thing; the workout we've been waiting for. Over the next hour and a half Hood delivers a sermon like no other, one that beautifully delves between punishing and gospel-tinged techno. This year there are more of his own tracks included in the set than ever before. Why? Because he's just released the second Floorplan album 'Victorious' and every notable DJ on the circuit is drawing for the tracks from it.

This time around though he's not alone, for Floorplan is now a family affair. Robert's daughter Lyric has been instrumental in the making of the second album and the alter-ego of Hood has become a duo. Over the last year, Lyric has joined her father on the road and the two now play together when adopting that moniker. Just a month or so before Hood's jaw-dropping Dekmantel set, the two headed to Village Underground for our flagship Mixmag Live party and delivered what has now become not only one of our favourite parties of the year but our favourite cover too.

Labelled as an uplifting house and techno set, the description couldn't be more accurate. While Robert often opts for the harder, pacier cuts, Lyric brings a bouncy house element to proceedings and when added together, it's a full realisation of the Floorplan sound. The new album's backbone follows this principle too. Tracks like 'They Can Tell', 'Ha Ya' and 'Push On' maintain the harder, more relentless techno aesthetic while the happiness-inducing 'Spin' and 'Tell You No Lie' are the all out, arms-in-the-air moments that bring it back to a level ground.