One of the big draws due at the run of winter festivals around the country this June – that’s We Love Sounds, Winter Sound System and All Our Friends, count ‘em! – is Canadian club man Tiga and his Turbo Recordings stable of artists. Prepare to get even more excited as Tiga told ITM that his visit to Australia will be a ‘test run’ of sorts for the new Planet Turbo live show he’s been working on.

“It’s something that we’ve never done before,” Tiga said in a late night studio haze. “We’re working with a guy who did all of the visuals for The Knife’s live show. It’s the first time that he’s done something that’s kind of more upbeat and so far it’s just been fantastic to collaborate with him. It’s something that we’ve been looking at doing for a long time, to change it from just having a banner up behind us while we’re playing. We’re trying to combine a kind of all-night warehouse rave feel with a little bit more a cinematic visual concept. So it’s like a really really long concert where we just play together. That’s what’s going to make it a little different, it won’t just be fans hearing me or Erol Alkan play records.”

Following the recent moves into the live arena by fellow DJs like Deadmau5 and The Bloody Beetroots with their Death Crew 77 live band, we quizzed the Turbo boss as to the reasons behind his live switch-up, asking him if he thought it was a trend we’d be seeing more of.

“I think it’s a bit of a domino effect how all this has begun to build up,” Tiga began. “Nobody is really confident about making money on records anymore, that part of the industry is either dead or dying. So that leaves people with a lot more urgency to tour, and that means there is more people touring and it’s a more competitive market place, so everyone has to offer a little bit more. That and there’s always a natural desire to try something new, especially if you’ve been doing this for as long as I have.”

As well as the want to try and evolve his shows, Tiga affirmed that the idea of a live show is also about him ‘stepping up’ his game, the seed for which was planted on an Australian tour, funnily enough.

“One of the first times I was playing in Australia, I think it was five or six years ago at Field Day, maybe, I distinctly remember the feeling of ‘fuck, I have to up my game’, because I was coming on after De La Soul I think it was, and they were dominating the stage with like fifteen guys, and I was just a skinny little DJ with a record box on a massive stage. It was absurd. How do you even compete with that? I’m glad that we get to come back there and show it to you guys. It’s definitely going to be a lot of fun, and Australia’s essentially going to be the testing ground for the show with a big tour before we take it back to Europe for the rest of the summer.”

Stay tuned for more details about Tiga’s Turbo show and for all the juice on We Love Sounds and Winter Sound System, check the festival pages and get in the game!