Compilation Review: ‘Cocoon 100’ (Cocoon)

Cocoon 100

★★★☆☆

A generally thoughtful 17-track collection, aiming to unlock minds by extolling the virtues of dance floor dehydration inside the Cocoon bubble, is the outline for what are slightly low key celebrations. Far from being an oversized retrospective — okay, some merchandise bonuses are added for the occasion, and Cocoon fans are never far from a new release anyway — it’s an onward and upward declaration from Sven Väth, planning the label’s next hundred-strong discography upon the techno institution receiving its ton-up telegram.

As to whether it should have gone all out on the catalogue classics blueprint, or at least included a mixed format, at the very least there are big names to mark a big deal. But reading beyond the headliners is where the compilation makes more of the anniversary. Out of the concentration searching for both oxygen and daylight, where veins bulge at the temple but composure never deserts, Sante & Frank Lorber methodically get window panes quivering. Timo Maas is in grouchy, bass is my master mood, Pig & Dan operate between both of these giving the neighbours what for, and Minilogue turn a foam party into a smothering, stifling swamp of techno worry as physical pressure is added to your cranium. Dominik Eulberg and Secret Cinema hold instructions to the lighting of a blue touch paper for the birthday cake candles.

File under: Extrawelt, Gregor Tresher, Loco Dice

Contest Alert! Win Tickets to Ultra Music Festival

Ultra Music Festival 2012, taking place March 23-26, at Bayfront Amphitheater in Downtown Miami, sold-out almost instantly thanks to its stellar lineup of talent including: Tiësto, Kraftwerk, Carl Cox, Skrillex, Afrojack, Miike Snow, Pretty Lights, New Order, Groove Armada (DJ set), Dirty South, Loco Dice, A-Trak, Dada Life, Avicii, Justice, Fatboy Slim, Duck Sauce, M83, Carl Cox, Laidback Luke, 2manydjs, Metronomy, David Guetta, Armin Van Buuren, Kaskade, Bassnectar, Chase and Status, Bloody Beetroots (DJ set), Fedde Le Grand, Knife Party, Magnetic Man, John Digweed, Steve Aoki, Ferry Corsten, and many more.

Tickets are impossible to get, but Big Shot is giving away a precious pair of tickets to the three-day blowout courtesy of our friends at UMF.

Excited? You should be!

To enter the contest tweet the following:

I want to win @ultramusic tickets from @bigshotmagazine

Remember: you only need to tweet the above sentence once in order to enter the contest. Good luck!

The Rules:

• Entrants must be following @bigshotmagazine and @ultramusic
• Winner is responsible for transportation to/from UMF 2012
• Anyone found using multiple accounts to enter will be ineligible
• Contest ends at 12:00pm EST on March 22, 2012

Like Big Shot on Facebook. It’s free!

And the winner is…

Big thanks to everyone who entered the contest!