The biggest New Years event within the dance music scene this year boasted one almighty line up of players across a number of genres; and went by a new name this year: Sun Electric. It was hosted in the multi-level surrounds of Belmont Racecourse and was set across four arenas; the Automatic Arena was situated on the top level and although relatively small in size, it had a decent system and good lighting set up for the occasion.

After a late start of half past two, doors opened and many punters had already created a line in anticipation. Strolling into the Automatic Arena, local DJ Puff was banging out the tunes to an empty room. It was promising to note that even though his tracks were ridiculously upbeat and banging, the sound of the day was minimal and because the system was handling the bang-bang well, it would be perfect for the good beats when they commenced. Clint W and Cee continued on this note and it managed to grab the attention of a few passers by. Considering the flavour of the day was predominantly minimal techno, it seemed a little weird having these locals bust out hard and fast loops based techno sets; many of tracks were quite old also.

The final local set of the day was JDubs and he straight up lost that bangity bang vibe and transformed it into a jackin’ tip. By this stage, the sun was beginning to set outside and the room was filling up at a much steadier rate. Damian Lazarus was the first international act of the day and he appeared shortly before his set was due to start with a seriously eccentric outfit; straw hat and a bright and loud fluro swirl shirt. As he took over from JDubs, he slowly faded out the last track and then introduced a drawn out light vocal laden track. As the vocals continued for some time, many began to look around wondering where he was going to take it; then the beat layers gradually made their way in and a perfectly executed minimal set ensued. Whilst his sounds may have seemed monotonous to some, it appeared as though the majority were enjoying every second of his set. Every mix was so intrinsically layered and when it was clear that Smagghe was going to be late due to plane delays, Lazarus still managed to continue a coherent flow in his extended set.

As Ivan Smagghe appeared behind the decks, the crowd applauded Lazarus and before long, found themselves dancing to a much more different beat. Smagghe’s dark and shadowy presence behind the decks seemed to resemble the tracks he was playing; the dark, crunchy and twisted beats were a welcome to change to the previous set. The entire room from the stage all the way to the back entrance was pretty much dancing and this was quite an impressive sight considering it was after all the Automatic Arena. Smagghe kept his progression of tracks on a constant level and never took it to a crescendo nor did he ever drop it too far.

Due to the many flight delays that seemed to occur, Zombie Nation was re-scheduled to play down in the Breaks Arena which meant that following on from Smagghe, was Richie Hawtin and Magda. They appeared up at the DJ console and proceeded to plug in their laptops and do a quick sound check as Smagghe finished off. The entire room packed out almost instantly as though this was the set they had all been waiting for. Starting out with some serious mixing errors, it appeared as though neither of the duo were really into their set or being in Perth in general. They continued on however, and managed to pick up their standard somewhat, however the odd trainwreck was not uncommon.  Working to a much louder sound, it was weird to think that two of the world’s most renowned minimal DJ’s were playing; as the tracks they played were mostly of the slightly harder variety and there wasn’t much subtlety in anything they did or played. Perhaps it was due to their extensive touring schedule for the day; but either way it was a shame to see two DJ’s who are renowned for such quality just put together a slap dash job. What was impressive though, was the amount of people in the room who didn’t seem to mind the sloppy mixing or random track selections; and they continued to dance the night away until their set ended abruptly at 2am.

Whilst many techno room line ups seem to get stuck with the same old internationals on the bill, it was a good change to see the room pack out just as much (if not more) to a line up full of minimal techno artists. Let’s hope this is the start of something new because judging from the huge amount of punters stoked with the room and what they were hearing; it looks like the start of excellent things to come!