This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
This being my first big camping music festival (my only experience with the giant outdoor stuff is ACL, where at the end of the day you head home for showers and a real bed), I'm pretty excited/nervous about the whole late night sets thing. Excited, because I think it's going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see some killer shows under crazy cool circumstances - MGMT from 2:15-3:45 a.m. comes to mind - and nervous, because I'm pretty sure the whole late night thing's going to reveal me as the old lady I am, when after a day of hot bands in the hot sun, all I want to do is crawl into my tent and call it a night.
But the whole late night thing is pretty cool, and of the bands on the Bonnaroo lineup that I'm unfamiliar with, I think I'm most intrigued by the ones that are scheduled in the wee hours of the morning. Like Ki: Theory, who's set to play a 1-2 a.m. set on Friday night during the festival.
Joel Burleson is the man behind the Ki: Theory moniker, and as it turns out, I'm not as unfamiliar with him as I first thought. In fact, there were already a handful of Ki: Theory remixes on my hard drive when I set out to learn more about the arist - and pretty stellar ones at that, for UNKLE, Ladytron and Computer vs Banjo. Burleson is based in Richmond, Virginia, and his original material is just as great as his remixes - self-described as "glitchy cut-n-paste songs" that he sings along to. In 2006 he released an EP, Brittle Branches, (I spent a good chunk of Friday's work day listening to it on repeat), and a new EP is just about set for a release this summer.
Sounds like Ki: Theory is giving me a pretty good reason to stay up late.
"The Smallest Piece" (new song - unreleased)
"True Lovers' Knot"
Ki: Theory will play the Troo Music Lounge on Friday night/Saturday morning from 1-2 a.m. Check out the full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
