13 tracks from the wildest Desert Hearts festival yet

In between their notorious gatherings on the outskirts of San Diego, California, the West Coast-raised Desert Hearts crew have been spreading their tech-house and quirky camaraderie vibes across North America with a non-stop City Hearts club tour. After skipping their regularly scheduled Fall festival in 2016 to continue the tour, their Spring 2017 event was destined to be huge. All the hype led to 3000 tickets purchased, and a sold-out festival at the end of March.

Over the past two years, the Desert Hearts founders Mikey Lion, Lee Reynolds, Marbs and Porkchop have bonded with the well-known Dirtybird crew, making appearances at each other’s festivals and piggybacking on one another’s shows. To little surprise, Dirtybird brothers Justin Martin and Christian Martin topped the line-up of this year’s Desert Hearts, with more names from the label sprinkled throughout, including Ardalan and Sacha Robotti. Other artists on the bill included Hot Creations regular Detlef, Fayer records founder Edu Imbernon, old-skool UK DJ (and former editor of Mixmag) Dave Seaman, and West Coast legends Doc Martin and Marques Wyatt. If there was one thing that was always certain, it’s that festival goers were in store for a hefty load of tech-house.

The Desert Hearts newbies quickly learned that it’s not the easiest trek to get to Los Coyotes Indian Reservation, but there’s a reason why the party needs to be so far off the grid. Cut from the Burning Man cloth, there’s a ‘choose your own adventure’ element that’s key to Desert Hearts. With non-stop music beginning at 10AM Friday morning and banging on all the way until Monday at 4PM, you can really rinse it on your own time.

Bass rattles the campgrounds coming from the stacked Funktion-One speakers of the single festival stage. Shaped like a giant lotus flower, the setup is always built a little larger and situated in a slightly different spot than the previous event. There’s the essential disco ball hung from the peak and the mirrored Desert Hearts symbol strung up directly above the DJ booth. Part of the charm of every Hearts event is the open invitation to hop on stage behind the artists, where the energy typically rivals that of the crowd. In fact, the festival photos would look naked without the funny totems, fur coats and bouncing bodies packed on stage. While they could fit more people on site, in order to keep it as intimate as it is, it’s likely that the venue has reached capacity.

The festival began to pick up around 4PM Friday and by 8PM as most people were arriving, it was full-on. There were plenty of familiar faces as the number of Desert Hearts regulars has grown rapidly in the past two years, yet even the veterans were sometimes unprepared for the cold drop in temperature that happens as soon as the sun goes down. By 9PM, the layers and whiskey blankets became dance floor essentials and by 2AM people were really pushing themselves to dance through the frigid hours of the night. With a lot of self-motivation and penguin huddling, we managed to make it until sunrise.

Aside from the overused drug tropes and handful of repetitive tech-house bangers, this was the best Desert Hearts festival to date. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the support acts on the line-up really stole the show this year, which is always a nod to the overall curation of the line-up.

Check out our top track selections from the festival below.

Sacha Robotti, Sunday: By Sunday at 10pm, we really, desperately needed some techno. While we knew what we were getting into when the initial line-up was released, it was still surprising that none of the primetime slotted DJs on Friday or Saturday had managed to move beyond party tech-house. This moody 2017 release from Ejeca appropriately changed the vibe and reminded everyone that you don’t have to drop another Latmun track in order to rouse the Desert Hearts crowd. ‘Dizorn’ is out now on Sasha’s Last Night On Earth label (unfortunately Sacha's edit isn't online yet).

Sacha Robotti, Sunday: Sacha mashed these two killer tracks together, crafting a hefty edit that ignited a fire in the crowd, just as any version of ‘Limit To Your Love’ tends to do. This 2012 Bortz edit is a distinctive techno tune that was an easy one to ID, but it was thanks to Sacha that we were able to find the name of the 2015 Oscar L track that filled out this mix.

Sacha Robotti, Sunday: We can’t stress enough how important Sacha’s set was for the festival. This abrasive Len Faki mix was actually another Sacha edit that unfortunately we don’t have access to, but this track from 2009 managed to be one of the essential songs of the weekend. This song as well as some of the other prime techno selections from this standout set showed us that Sacha Robotti is in no way married to the Dirtybird sound.

RYBO, Sunday: Just in time for the final night, Rybo showed up on Sunday and laid down a prime, original tech-house set at 8pm, right ahead of Sacha Robotti. It’d been a fun weekend of course, but it was time for someone to put together a tech-house set that didn’t include Detlef’s ‘Swag On’. ‘Hey Boy’ is a certified dirty select with cheeky vocal samples that are sure to give you the giggles. This tune is set to be released on Friday, April 7 on Incorrect Music.

RYBO, Sunday: A clear festival favorite happened to be Rybo and fellow festival regular Kevin Anderson’s collaboration ‘Jones’n’ out on Desert Hearts Records. This one has been a regular play from the label since its release last summer on the very first Desert Hearts Family and Friends Compilation. Although artists are often reluctant to play the DH greatest hits, the people wanted ‘Jones’n’ and RYBO delivered.

Super Bash Brothers, Saturday/Sunday: Right as we were about to take our much needed break in the RV, one of the Super Bash Brothers (aka Justin Martin, Christian Martin, Mikey Lion and Porkchop) dropped this 2009 favorite from Tiga. It’d been a bit repetitive and a tad uninspired for a minute so the crowd was cooling down. ‘Mind Dimension’ is a stop-you-in-your-tracks electro-acid house heater that never gets old.

Super Bash Brothers, Saturday/Sunday: During the Bash Bro’s set, someone played out the brand new Adana Twins techno track which was released in March on Diynamic. We could use all the drama we could get and ‘Uncomprimising’ has the energetic bassline and fluttering synth that we so desperately wanted.

Ardalan, Saturday: Ardalan had the coveted 2AM spot on the first night for the festival. He knew he had to bring something different to the table after a long run of tech-house, and after testing the water with some breaks and trying to change up the crowd, he found his groove when he played his vibey 2017 edit of ‘All Night Long’. It has a classic house hook with that deep Ardalan bass and it’s a definite crowd pleaser. ‘All Night Long’ is out now on Justin Jay’s Fantastic Voyage label.

Fritz Carlton b2b Lubelski, Monday: It’s the truth that people at festivals love a good Radiohead mix. By 4AM on Monday morning, newcomers Fritz Carlton and Lubelski had tapped into the serotonin depleted brains of the festival goers and got only a tad emotional with this superb 2011 SBTRKT remix of ‘Lotus Flower’. Sometimes it’s nice to have a little sing along towards the end of a long weekend, and without getting too cheesy and the boys got this.

Fritz Carlton b2b Lubelski, Monday: Lubelski discretely teased this 2017 Catz N’ Dogz interpretation of Geeman’s ‘Wanna Go Bang’ out on AUS Music throughout the two-hour performance on Monday night. It fit perfectly into their breaks-meets-acid-house-meets-techno style and is one of the only more recognizable tracks from their set as majority of their selections were unreleased originals.

Fritz Carlton b2b Lubelski, Monday: As a bonus from their set, this track from producer Pilo which we can’t yet share is set to be released on BNR next month. This neurotic techno banger sounds like it was made for a Berlin warehouse and is guaranteed to be big – just ask those who were begging for the ID of this song booming from the Funktions at 3AM.

Marques Wyatt, Sunday: West Coast hero Marques Wyatt has certainly been around the block, so when it comes to reading the vibe of a party, Marques can always be trusted. This was one of the few times (if not the only time) we remember hearing an Innervisions track played out over the weekend and it was a pleasant surprise for a midday set on Sunday. By Sunday at 12pm, DJs are catering to a mixture of fresh faces who called it a night by 1AM and the zombies who decided that sleep is for the weak. There’s the right amount of tribal chanting and glitchy sounds in this 2017 release that actually fit Desert Hearts perfectly, so it made us wonder why more artists hadn’t gone down this path at the festival. Word has it Marques was one of the crowd favorites from the weekend.

Kevin Anderson, Friday: Kevin Anderson had the pleasure of revving up the festival at 4PM on Friday afternoon. Kevin is known for leaning on the House-y side of Desert Hearts, and he tends to always know how to get everyone going. He played ‘Kablaam’ which is a collab track with the producer Ghostea, and set up the vibe for the rest of the night. ‘Kablaam’ is forthcoming on Desert Hearts records and is an instant tech house classic. You can hear a clip of it here.

Carré Orenstein is Mixmag's Business Development And Partnerships Manager. Follow her on Twitter here