[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPiCO9y4V2Y]
When: July 19-21
Where: Ferropolis, Germany
Lineup includes: Atoms for Peace, Tricky, James Murphy, Simian Mobile Disco, MS MR, The Knife, James Blake, Purity Ring, Local Natives, Flying Lotus, Joy Orbison, Django Django, Disclosure
With both Radiohead’s Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace and LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy on the bill, alongside trip-hop godfather Tricky, 90s heroin-chic act Babyshambles, and buzzy newcomers like Sinkane and Chvrches, it’s hard to beat Melt!’s lineup. But artists have to be impressive lest they be overshadowed by the festival’s foreboding setting.
Melt! is held in Germany’s Ferropolis (literally, “the iron city”), at a coal mine that was in operation up until 1991 and now serves as an open-air museum filled with dauntingly large industrial equipment. The festival also offers some of the most unique transportation/accommodation options with its “Melt! MiXery Beds on Wheels Hotel Train,” which lives up to its name by transporting guests from Cologne or Munich aboard a train outfitted with a DJ and a bar. Once at the festival site, the train turns into a hotel.