To many people neither Caprices nor Crans-Montana will ring a bell. But up there, in this mountain village in the Valais region of Switzerland, they definitely know how to throw some parties...
In the past 8 years, DJ's like Carl Craig, Laurent Garnier, 2manyDJ's, Jeff Mills, Luciano, Marco Carola, Radio Slave and Guy Gerber (just to name a few really!) all played at Caprices and on the non-electronic end of the festival, the crowd got pampered with live performances from Deep Purple, Morcheeba, Keziah Jones, MC Solaar and Gotan Project - again, just to name a few.
So the question remains; why is this festival still unknown to many a clubber? Is it because it always takes place after the Miami WMC / Time Warp Mannheim shenanigans and the international clubbing crowd is in desparate need of a break to prepare for the summer? Or is it simply because it's still quite a small festival on a global scale? Anyhow, it's not like we'd need to push this festival, because even though it's not known to everyone, it's still a hugely successful affair. And the line-up for the 9th edition, happening between 11th April and 14th April 2012, looks nothing short of impressive.
Kicking off things on Wednesday 11th April, the Club will host techno legend Carl Cox and prog pioneer John Digweed. Acoustic music preferred? Then head for Charlie Winston's concert or Earth, Wind & Fire Experience's performance.
Thursday 12th April will be all about the Gorillaz Sound System's live appearance. Other than that, there are also Guillaume & the Coutu Dumonts and Ibiza resident Nima Gorji doing their thing. The big news on this day though is the start of modernity@Caprices, a festival within the festival. You need separate tickets for it, but it's definitely worth it, because the party takes place during the day, high above Crans-Montana at a breathtaking altitude of 2'200 meters above sea level! Partying in the sun, surrounded by snowy mountains doesn't sound too bad, right? And the line-up starring Ricardo Villalobos, Âme, Tobi Neumann and Mirko Loko should be a good reason to call in sick at work.
Friday 13th April sees Sven Väth debuting at Caprices and Papa Sven will host the Club for one of his infamous all-nighters. And those who were early and got a ticket for the daytime modernity fiesta will be experiencing aural pleasures brought by Loco Dice, Derrick May, Art Department and Mike Shannon (Friday modernity tickets are sold out already).
The festival then closes with a final climax on Saturday 14th April. Daytime mayhem on the mountain top at modernity with almost the complete Visionquest gang featuring Ryan Crosson, Shaun Reeves and Lee Curtiss, plus Jamie Jones and Swiss talent Ezikiel. Again...only if you already have a ticket, the Saturday event was (quite understandably) the first one to sell out. To finish it all off, Carl Craig (together with pianist Francesco Tristano), Timo Maas and Steve Lawler will close out Caprices on Saturday night so better save up some energy for that! We'll be there...and you?
More Info, Tickets and full line up:
http://www.caprices.ch/2012/en/
