LEME 2014: The Final Countdown

With just three days to go, LEME announce a keynote from Ninja Tune founder Matt Black, a Korg showcase and insights from industry Polymath Jay Ahern (Hard Wax).

The days are quickly fading in the countdown to this year’s London Electronic Music Event and the line up announcements just keep coming.

To complement a keynote from dance music visionary Theo Parrish (which will be pure gold if his appearance on NTS yesterday is anything to go by), Matt Black will be reflecting back on his own career spent pushing boundaries in electronic music, and looking at how multimedia innovation can forge the future of music consumption. Not only the founder of one of the most successful indie labels to date, Ninja Tune, Matt Black is one half of the legendary DJ and multimedia pop outfit Coldcut. The duo were instrumental in the development of the mashup remix style, as well as genres such as big beat, trip-hop and electro swing. Coldcut also created pioneering multimedia and audiovisual software, an interest which Matt has continued to pursue with his recent iOS app creation – Ninja Jamm.

For the tech-obsessed, the freshly announced Korg showcase will be a highlight – Product Specialist Luke Edwards will be presenting Volcas, the MS-20 Mini, KingKORG and Kross. The Korg showcase adds to live performances and demonstrations from the likes of Ableton and Roland. Meanwhile Jon Lee, Head of Marketing for Traktor (previously responsible for the online launch of NME) will debate The Art of DJing with Kirk Degiorgio and Rob Anderson from Pioneer.

Further industry brain-picking will come via Jay Ahern’s appearance on the Crate Digging and the Resurgence of Vinyl panel, where he’ll be in discussion with Jay Robinson from Fear of Flying and Mark Maxwell from Rubadub. Having been a label owner, producer, distributor and relationship manager over his two-decade career, Jay will muse on the future of vinyl drawing from his expansive experience at companies from Beatport, Domino Records and PIAS to his current home, Hard Wax.

New Forms: The Future of Music Journalism will have an injection of comedy with newest recruit Tonka (of WRDM fame) while Dominic Butler from Stanton Warriors steps up to a panel on the ever-growing and mysterious power of social media.

If you can’t make it to LEME, a selection of Saturday’s sessions will be live-streaming over at BE-AT.TV so keep your eyes peeled.

Tickets for LEME are available here, and start from just £10.