Dekmantel announces new festival in São Paulo with Nicolas Jaar, Jeff Mills, Nina Kraviz

Can you give us a clue about the kind of acts you'll be putting on the lineup? We're real enthusiasts when it comes to Brazil's rich musical history, hence the bookings of bonafide Brazilian legends such as Hermeto Pascoal and Azymuth. Secondly I think the international part of the lineup announced so far (even though it is not yet complete) is a nice representation of what we've done in these past years. We're proud that a lot of firm favourites—who we've featured for years—chose to join us in this adventure. And since São Paulo has a very vibrant party scene, there's obviously place for plenty of local DJ talent as well. Why did you pick São Paulo as the city to host your new festival? All through 2016 we’ve done a lot of label showcases across the world, and we've got to meet a lot of like-minded and inspiring people. We weren't necessarily looking to start a second Dekmantel Festival abroad, but after having spent lots of time with the Gop Tun crew, who not only produced a killer party, but also showed us around their beautiful city, I guess we just fell for it completely. São Paulo is in many ways completely the opposite of Amsterdam, which is also why we thought that in this city we could do a festival that's genuinely different from what we do in Amsterdam. Obviously it doesn't hurt either that we get to spend Europe's cold winter in the tropics. Tell us about how you decided on the exact locations. We decided to head back to São Paulo not long after our first trip to check out this venue called The Jockey Club, and it blew us off our feet. The open field where the horse races take place offer an amazing view of the city's skyline, but it was the little corners and buildings around it that really caught our attention. The festival in Amsterdam essentially takes place in an open field in a forest; here we get to incorporate beautiful architectural structures into our festival's design. Then at night we get to continue it all in an open-air courtyard of an old industrial warehouse, which has a very raw and different atmosphere to it. How will you create a Dekmantel feel at this festival? I don't actually think we're trying to recreate what we've done elsewhere. Of course we'll try and offer a tight production, clean sound and a quality lineup. But Brazil's culture in general and the people who will visit the festival will hopefully turn it into something very different and unique. It will be interesting to see how this first edition is going to be perceived and where we can take it in the years to come.