Do Lab’s Lightning in a Bottle festival kicks off this month, coming to Buena Vista Lake, California on May 22 to May 27, 2024. The immersive 5 day experience filled with music, art, yoga, dance and other activities is often dubbed “mini-Burning Man.” This year, three of the headliners and many of the other acts are women.
Starting off strong, M.I.A. is a first-row headliner. While M.I.A. is known best for her 2007 song “Paper Planes” and her 2012 song “Bad Girls,” her most recent work is a reflective genre-bending album titled MATA (2022). The album is centered around socio-political statements and also reflects her conversion to Christianity. With her most recent album extremely diverse compared to her prior discography, M.I.A. will be sure to put on a surprising and exciting live set.
Courtesy of The Fox Oakland
On the second row of headliners, we see CloZee and Nora En Pure. Both artists have sent shockwaves throughout the industry in recent years. CloZee has found great success among a diverse range of EDM fans, from collaborating with GRiZ for “Color Of Your Soul” and her remix of INZO’s “Overthinker.” Nora En Pure, on the other hand, has gained amazing traction in the deep house world. While I have not been to a Nora En Pure set myself, I have heard rumblings that she puts on one of the best live sets.
As we look through other artists on the lineup, the artists that I am most excited for are Aluna, Qrion, and Nia Archives.
Courtesy of EDM.com
This past summer, I saw Aluna — a British pop house icon with iconic green hair — at Diplo’s Higher Ground in Seattle. Despite having an earlier daytime set, Aluna put on one of the most engaging sets I have seen thus far. Watching Aluna mix live and sing for the crowd, nobody left her set disappointed. With her original break-out hits under the duo AlunaGeorge, Aluna has made a name for herself as a solo artist in recent years. Her hit with Chris Lake, “Beggin,’” took the house community by storm. I’m sure she will stun crowds at Lightning in a Bottle.
Image by Eliza Scheer
Qrion, who makes danceable deep house, also puts on a phenomenal live show. At The Midway in San Francisco this past fall, she had the entire venue engaged throughout her entire set with beautiful production, fantastic mixes, and overall great energy.
Courtesy of NME
Finally, Nia Archives has had indisputable deserved success in recent years and is proud of her “representation of the generations of Black women in jungle and dance music.” Her Drum-and-Bass take on the iconic “Baianá,” is full of fun beats and surprises. As seen on live streams of her sets, she has iconic stage presence and gets the entire venue dancing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nia Archives has one of the liveliest sets at LIB.
Overall, as a typically male-dominated industry, I am most excited to see these iconic femme artists at LIB with full-scale Do Lab production.
You can see more information about the lineup and buy tickets at https://www.libfestival.org/.