While we are grateful for Together and the local electronic scene’s efforts, the wait between electronic festivals can be an excruciating one.

While we’re not necessarily advocating for some mid-winter, all-thermal dance party (although we’re kinda curious to see how that’d turn out), Boston’s growing and diversifying electronic scene could only be nurtured by fests that showcase our local talent. As such, the 1st Evlv Tech Festival, happening next weekend throughout venues in Cambridge, feels serendipitous in its timing.

Evlv Tech is a Boston-based community for self-identified female, transgender, genderqueer, and non-binary DJs, producers, live performers, and event curators/promoters in music technology working to raise and redefine the standards and norms of music technology. With daytime events range from music production lessons to panel discussions on creating safer spaces in nightlife and club culture, Evlv Tech have put together a weekend that truly inspire social awareness as much as it does jubilant dance.

Although we recommend checking each of the acts on the festival’s Facebook page and purchasing advance tickets here, here are some of the DJs/producers we think you should know ahead of next weekend:

Moor Mother

If you’re looking to find a singular, clearcut genre that accurately describes Philadelphia’s Moor Mother, I simply suggest one thing: don’t. The production work of Camae Ayewa masterfully evades complacency in genre as evidenced by the twenty-one(!) possible descriptors on their Soundcloud page. With soundscapes that yield visceral spoken word pieces, tributes to Sun Ra, and some of the festival’s most inventive work in lo-fi electronic, Moor Mother’s promise of “a history lesson, a future lesson, and a comment on the present all at once” is the one promise that can absolutely assured of.

Volvox

Hailing from the rising Discwoman collective, Volvox’s headlining set at Evlv comes after a landmark year for the Brooklyn-based collective, who have been major advocates for more female-identifying representation in their city’s electronic scene. If Volvox’s acid-heavy set for Boiler Room last month was any indication, this may be a set you’re gonna brag about seeing for a long time to come.

Kidaudra

The first time I saw Kidaudra, it was in a cocoon of string lights in the basement of a show house predominantly known for pop punk shows. Regardless of how you’d imagine pop punk kids responding to electronic music, the setting was perfectly fine for an ambient-rich set from the New York-based project. With producer/vocalist Audra Kizina’s sound landing somewhere between the minimalistic electro pop of Lorde and the haze of Cocteau Twins, Kidaudra finds an immediate kind of likability that could pull even the most disparate of crowds together.

Jlin

Coming off of an incredible 2015, it would be easily to call Jlin’s set at Evlv a victory lap of sorts before considering the Indiana producer will probably still bring one of the most intense sets of the entire festival. Dark Energy, her debut full-length last year, combined the tenants of footwork with some of the most ominous production the genre has seen, garnering near-unanimous praise from the likes of Resident Advisor and Pitchfork. Her follow up EP, Free Fall, in November confirmed what felt apparent from the first few listens of Energy: Jlin has found a sound so neatly between familiarity and singularity, it’s possible there will be many more victory lap sets to come.

MSG

Other than the ominous signs in restaurant windows banishing its use, I never really put much worry into the flavor enhancing MSG. Honestly, I think I would’ve preferred to remain in the dark, but of course, I had to go and WebMD it, which led to finding fun symptoms of over-MSG use like:

• Burning sensations of the mouth, head and neck
• Weakness of the arms or legs
• Hives or other allergic-type reactions with the skin.(2)
• Tingling
• Facial pressure or tightness
• Chest pain or difficulty breathing
• Nausea
• Rapid heartbeat
• Drowsiness

While I’m going to frantically inspect all of the seaweed snacks I have in my kitchen, we can all rest assured that there’s at least some MSG out there that your body won’t outright reject. Local DJ Vicky Cai’s sets are a joyous mix of house, techno, and disco that promise the “addicting flavor” of the actual MSG, but (hopefully) minus any of the allergic reactions.

DJ Clickbait

I’m going to be honest: how you receive the fact that there’s someone DJing under the name Clickbait is likely a fair estimate of how you’ll react to a DJ Clickbait set. Predominantly filled with sped up, doctored bubblebum pop tracks reaching the euphoric heights PC Music aims for, a Clickbait set will either overload your senses or make you pogo until collapse. Either way, what a way to go…