The time has come! Festival season has begun, and artists in every genre are lining up dates in cities around the world. Our man Bassnectar is not immune to the lure of the open road. The festival veteran is scheduled for a massive, four-month block of dates, touching three continents during the first two months alone. The Vava Voom Tour with VibeSquaD kicks off in April after several dates for Bassnectar at places like Miami's Ultra Music Festival and Brazil's Lollapalooza. As a bonus to the tour news, Bassnectar's camp has given us a video recap of last year's festivities--consider it a teaser for what's in store.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Bristol’s Al Tourettes returns with the new track "Inventing," lifted from his forthcoming EP on Sneaker Social Club. With pulsating, stabbing basslines, vibrant oscillating waveforms and some killer beats, it's Tourettes to a "T." The video itself is just as creative, blending together images of biological experiments, naked women, and outdated technological machinery. Rumors are rife that Al Tourettes will one day be affiliated with Warp Records, and with this record, as well as his previous on Aus and Apple Pips, it’s easy to see why.

Watch this video on Beatportal

Zeds Dead members Hooks and DC started their journey as the instrumental hip-hop crew Mass Productions. After one album under their former title, the two eventually morphed into one of Canada's biggest electronic music exports. Tight production and a sense for formulas that work the crowd into frenzy have turned their name into one of the most buzzed-about names on the net. And offline, when Zeds Dead struck out on their 2010 Let There Be Bass tour, they pulled massive crowds of (Zeds) Deadheads, packing feverish fans at shows all over North America. Celebrating their latest release on Inspected Records, the Adrenaline EP has been a successful highlight of what the group does best, reaching the number one album slot on Beatport after its debut over a week ago. We bring you a special look into the guys that make Zeds Dead such a success.

Read more on Beatportal

oOoOO (Christopher Dexter Greenspan) is one of the core artists on 2011's hotly tipped Tri Angle Records; he and the label are both known for dark, brooding electronic music that takes cues from ambient, hip-hop, dubstep and goth. (The style was known for a time as "witch house," but we're going to put the kibosh on that term right here and now.) This spring, oOoOO drops a follow-up to 2010's oOoOO EP titled Our Love Is Hurting Us, and this free download, provided by the fine folks at Stereogum, certainly grabbed our attention—it's foreboding, haunting and hazy electro-pop at its finest. You can pick up the first single from the album, "NoWayBack feat. Butterclock," here. If you're in Berlin, you can catch oOoOO performing live tonight at alongside Tri Angle's Holy Other and Balam Acab and Planet Mu's Kuedo; the show, a part of the Club Transmediale festival, kicks off at 21:00 at Berghain. See here for details.

Read more on Beatportal

In this week's selection of our editors' Must Hear tracks, you'll find that we're experimenting with the format a bit. In addition to charts for genres like tech house, progressive house, dubstep, etc., you'll find a brand-new category, Club Tracks, to showcase the burgeoning crossover between electro house, progressive and pop; we've also added a chart for hard dance, and fleshed out our funk/R&B category with some classic disco. Read on to check 'em all out.

Read more on Beatportal

The New York duo Blondes have been working at their unusual fusion of live, analog house and techno with Baleraric and Krautrock overtones for a couple of years now, winning over both indie listeners and "proper" club-music types; not many other artists have remixed art-rockers Health and performed at Space Amnesia. Next week, they release their debut album on RVNG; the record has been in heavy rotation here in Beatport's Berlin headquarters, and promises to stay there for a while. Get a sneak preview at SPIN, where you can stream the album in full. We caught up with the band to find out about their unusual approach; read on for the interview, and check out their Campania International Moderne chart, featuring tracks from Kassem Mosse, Bicep, Carsten Jost, and more.

Read more on Beatportal