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DJ Mag finds itself in a desert, 200km from the nearest city and surrounded by enormous soundsystems for Monegros Festival, but is the music as far out as the location?

Congo Natty has a rich history of involvement in the music scene for the last 25 years. Formerly known as the Rebel MC, he had chart hits such as 'Just Keep Rockin'' and 'Street Tuff' in the late '80s with the Double Trouble production kru before hankering down into — and helping to pioneer — the early jungle scene.

This Take 10 feature could almost have been invented to showcase the Optimo duo's magnificently eclectic influences. Renowned for their legendary Sunday night sessions at the Sub Club in Glasgow in the nineties and noughties.

DJ Harvey is one of the UK originators of the dance music scene. From his beginnings in Cambridge punk band Ersatz, he discovered hip-hop and DJing on a fateful trip to New York City, and later alighted upon an eclectic mishmash DJ style inspired by the B-Boy everything-in-the-pot approach of the NYC scene's first DJs. 
Later becoming a leading light for house music in the UK, his night Moist at London's Gardening Club cemented his reputation as a true original, where his mammoth sets became the stuff of legend, and where he also invited the legendary likes of Larry Levan as guests.

In the mid-‘90s, drum & bass was the most futuristic, kick-ass, innovative UK-derived music around. After a gestation period in the underground, breakbeat science exploded into the mainstream, although that led to assorted TV ads and theme tunes and suchlike co-opting a d&b element to them. But because the scene itself was controlled by the DJs — Bryan Gee, Fab & Groove, Goldie, Hype etc — it was able to be steered back underground, so that by the end of the 20th century d&b was largely associated with the dark tech-step sound of No U-Turn et al.

There’s a lot of truth in saying that size doesn’t matter — especially when we’re talking about the new Traktor S2 controller. The boys in...