FRIDAY

Richie Hawtin

From: Berlin via Williamsburg via Windsor via the Shelter

Sounds like: A one-man history of techno, with the coffee table book and box set (Arkives) to show for it, Richie Hawtin was techno's most post-modern DJ, visionary, gearhead and media dabbler a decade before anyone else was doing it. As far as sound, Hawtin's music tends to click and clop challengingly and thrillingly, everything great and terrible about techno with as minimal information as possible, only energy.

Danceable?: Eminemently. Hawtin has made his presence at Movements in the past famously felt (he transformed the City Club one year, for god's sake), and although his more-is-less brand of techno can seem more kinetic than compelling, he commands a fan base and fervor with his DJ sets that make his set Monday night the fest's most danceable.

When: Friday, May 28, 10 p.m.-midnight, Beatport Stage.

Website: bit.ly/mqOwq6

SATURDAY

Brian "Starski" Gillespie

From: Detroit and neighboring cities.

Sounds like: Everything great and terrible about Detroit dance music and beyond — call it ghetto-tech, juke, footwork, etc. "It's funny. I think every five to 10 years someone coins a new name of style of music so that generation can claim it's theirs," the typically salty Gillespie quips.

Danceable?: Hells yes. Irony is, between the labels Gillespie has run (Blue Collar, Electrobounce, etc.), the parties his Poorboy crew used to throw (at the Packard, etc.) and the artists he's been in cahoots with (DJ Godfather, Todd "Clutch" Osborne, the other half of "Starski &"), he's the Kevin Bacon of the music actual Detroiters actually dance to.

When: DJ set as part of "Electrobounce Presents" Saturday, May 28, 2-5 p.m., Red Bull Music Academy Stage.

Website: on.fb.me/kQneLO

Space Time Continuum aka Jonah Sharp

From: San Francisco via Edinburgh, Scotland

Sounds like: Jonah Sharp is an electronica O.G., back when that term wasn't quite so cringe-inducing (you wanted "acid jazz"?), who still makes the pulsing bleep-n-beat chill-out symphonies that made most fall in love with the genre to begin with. In the '90s Sharp worked with Terence McKenna, Ursula Rucker, Mixmaster Morris, Bill Laswell and more recently activity as one half of Reagenz (a collaboration with Germany's Move D) whose album Playtime is out on Workshop Records

Danceable?: STC's recent re-emergence marks a return to his original live format of a hardware-only rig. Says Sharp, "The laptop stays at home and freeform electronic grooves reign." Ponytail house forevah!

When: Live set, Saturday May 29, 4 p.m. Torino Stage.

Website: twitter.com/#!/jonahsharp, soundcloud.com/reflecto

Daedalus

From: Los Angeles

Sounds like: Goth-house-soul-hop-theartformformerlyknowsasIDM-yeah. Daedalus has emerged over his last two records as a sort of more Danger(ous) Mouse for his ability to transcend, elude and embrace genres with almost European aplomb. Now signed to the Ninja Tune label, which gave the world "trip-hop," the classically trained Alfred Darlington is more a composer with a more advanced sense of rhythm than a traditional beat-maker, which explains and excuses his busier indulgences and makes his more straightforward hip-hop tracks so weirdly good.

Danceable?: That depends. Darlington covered Ghost Down DJ's early '90s bass hit "My Boo" (retitled "My Beau" for 2008's Love to Make Music To), while his newer Bespoke breaks down under more recognizable uptempo house and hip hop for such outré emcees as Busdriver.

When: Saturday, May 29, 6-7 p.m., Red Bull Stage.

Website: twitter.com/daedelus_music

Aril Brikha

From: Stockholm, Sweden

Sounds like: Detroit in a parallel universe where techno and house have spawned and fawned and spanned and fawned again. Over the course of a decade-plus career (including an album on Derrick May's Transmat label), the Iranian-born Brikha has proven himself a true electronic dance music artist by defying subgenre ghettoization with a fearless, nave-in-a-good-way aplomb.

Danceable?: Intuitively and wondrously. Brikha's M.O. is to sound like he's inventing his own genre — which sounds uncannily Detroit-influenced — from the familiar kick sounds and synth-rapture of his vintage gear.

When: Live set, Saturday, May 28, 6:30-8 p.m., Made in Detroit Stage

Website: facebook.com/pages/Aril-Brikha/103772879661290

Dam Funk and Master Blazter

From: Los Angeles

Sounds like: The Roots slow jamming the news on Jimmy Fallon, only the news is the greatest slow dance in need of an early Rick James-Prince ballad. It's hard not to like L.A.'s Dam Funk, but it's even harder not to love his OK-OK-we-get-it, straight-to-CD recordings of cheesy but earnest synth-pop-soul. Which is why Master Blaster is a live trip with him on key-tar backed by a live drummer — it's nothing if not bold, and maybe amazing, in a sort of Lil' Jon-fronting-a-group-on-Aphex-Twin's-Rephlex label way.

Danceable?: Funkk Yeahh. But just as interesting to watch and marvel at. Key-tar, c'mon. And he's probably the original owner.

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