This year's annual week of parties features Modeselektor, James Blake, Hercules & Love Affair and many more.
The lineup has been announced for this year's 5 Days Off festival, taking place in Amsterdam during the first week of March.
Originally a spin-off of Belgium's 10 Days Off, the week-long festival has brought dozens of electronic artists to the Dutch capital each spring for the past decade. This year's action is split between two of the city's foremost downtown venues, Melkweg and Paradiso, plus the Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst for more arts-oriented events.
The programming highlights a few different electronic niches: disco gets its due with Aeroplane and Hercules & Love Affair, and Matthew Dear and Caribou deliver some indie-flavored sounds on the opening night (the former plays live, the latter DJs). UK bass gets special attention, dominating the lineup at two different parties, one with Digital Mystikz, Skream, James Blake and Kode9, the other with Joy Orbison, Pearson Sound, MJ Cole and Ikonika.
German duo Modeselektor have curated a night of their own that Sunday, featuring themselves, Apparat, Hudson Mohawke and Kyle Hall (plus a return appearance from Pearson Sound). Each night of the festival has at least two parties on at once, except for the second night, when Belgian party rockers 2 Many DJs get Paradiso all to themselves.