10 Must-See Acts at III Points 2023

Ten years after its first edition, III Points has expanded beyond recognition. What was once a small party designed to bring the coolest musicians in the world to Miami is now a massive two-day festival with a footprint stretching across multiple city blocks and more than half a dozen stages. It brought the likes of Rosalía, LCD Soundsystem, King Krule, Gorillaz, Arca, SZA, and Nicolas Jaar to the city and has emerged as a crucial launching point for local talent such as Nick León and Coffintexts. It has fought significant challenges since its inception, from hurricanes and pandemics to scandals over water.

But while the festival is bigger and more visible than ever, with more out-of-towners invading every year, it still manages to make good on its founding promise to bring rarely seen acts to Miami. As usual, the most interesting artists aren’t the ones at the top of the bill, like Skrillex and John Summit – instead, they can be found further down. Here are ten acts New Times has dug up that you won’t want to miss at III Points.

Caribou/Daphni

Dan Snaith is pulling double duty at the festival. The Canadian producer will play twice under both his aliases. On Friday, he takes the stage as Caribou, his long-running indietronica project. Early records such as Up in Flames and Andorra feature folksy arrangements similar to Four Tet. Much like his English contemporary, he shifted into a more danceable mode in the early 2010s, dropping house-influenced tracks like “Odessa” and “Can’t Do Without You.” Around the same time, he started a side project under the name Daphni for even more synthy, clubby goodness, and he’ll deliver that and more on Saturday.

Caroline Polachek

A veteran of the late 2000s indie-pop band Chairlift, Caroline Polachek has made a remarkable creative transformation in recent years as one of the most acclaimed and polished artists in the hyperpop scene. Her solo work on alternative-pop albums like Pang and Desire, I Want to Turn Into You has earned comparisons to Kate Bush thanks to her distinctive songwriting voice, furnished by time absorbing Japanese pop while living in the country as a child, and the use of PC Music veterans like A.G. Cook and Danny L. Harle on production. Her signature song, “Bunny Is a Rider,” which Pitchfork declared the best song of 2021, is a perfect example of her weird and wonderful world, blending springy, tropical production and catchy, simple lyrics about the mysterious title character.

D. Tiffany and Roza Terenzi

The Australian pair have become one of the most sought-after acts in the international dance underground, playing high-profile festivals such as Amsterdam’s Dekmantel and clubs like Berghain in Berlin and Nowadays in New York. Their collaborative album, Edge of Innocence, displays what makes them so appealing: a hypnotic, rhythmically diverse brand of techno full of mysterious voices and dreamlike ambiance. If you’re heading to III Points to explore the best the underground has to offer, look no further than this thrilling B2B set.

Despacio

You could spend all weekend in the darkened corners of Despacio, and it would still be a valid use of your III Points time. The collaborative disco sound system project of 2manydjs and James Murphy is the only act on our list that appeared at last year’s fest. It’s also the only act that the festival is giving its own separate area, and it’s because Despacio is simply that good. Stepping into the darkened room – and it really is pitch black, can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark – feels like going back in time to a bygone era of dance music where clubbers didn’t face the DJ or take videos of every moment in on the dance floor. Between the peerless, custom-made speaker setup, the privacy of the dark, and the incredible mix of classic disco, house, soul, and synthpop, Despacio succeeds at offering what so many clubs promise but fail to deliver: a space where self-expression and togetherness are achievable. It’s the best club in the world, and it’s here for two nights only.

Fred Again..

Everyone seems to have an opinion about Fred Again.. He’s a generational touchstone and a Gen Z electronic music idol to some. To others, he’s an industry plant, a nepo baby, and a posh interloper upon the once-egalitarian dance music scene representing everything wrong with the industry. To tell a straight story, Fred Gibson was indeed born with a silver spoon in his mouth – the “early life” section of his Wikipedia page lists his links to literal English nobility, and, to compound things, he was a protégé of his neighbor, legendary producer/musician Brian Eno. He mostly spent his career behind the scenes as an acclaimed, prolific producer in his own right until 2019, when he began his “Actual Life” project. Gibson gathered samples from various sources such as social media and his voice notes into intimate electronic tracks and began broadcasting his life extensively on social media to an increasingly rabid fanbase. But he exploded after a July 2022 Boiler Room set where he dropped what is now his signature song: “Rumble,” a collab between himself, Skrillex, and Four Tet that featured a verse from UK rapper Flowdan. Fred, Skril, and Four Tet took the world by storm, selling out Madison Square Garden earlier this year and closing Coachella after Frank Ocean dropped out. There’s a lot of hype behind this guy, and between the annoyance of that and his background, arguments rage as to whether his massive success was truly earned. Whatever you think of him, his presence is a noteworthy event in and of itself.

Jeff Mills

The man, the myth, the Wizard. Few techno artists will ever reach the iconic status of Detroit-bred legend Jeff Mills, whose style as a DJ remains closely studied and whose influence on the genre remains indelible. As part of Underground Resistance and later as a solo artist, he defined the dark, radical sound and aesthetic of Detroit techno as it exploded in popularity overseas. Upon leaving the group in 1991, he ventured into a solo career marked by explosive sounds and futurist explorations. Many electronic music fans know him for earlier, celebrated tracks such as “The Bells” and for legendary mixes such as his 1995 set at the Liquid Room in Tokyo. But he’s expanded techno and DJing into strange new worlds, writing futuristic soundtracks for silent films by Fritz Lang, such as Metropolis, and performing in the jazz group Tomorrow Comes the Harvest with a rotating cast of global musicians. For any self-respecting music fan, watching his set at III Points won’t just be an unforgettable experience – it’ll be an educational one. Take Eminem’s advice: “I say it to this day if you ain’t listened to the Wizard/You ain’t have a fucking clue what you was missing.”

Nia Archives

In case you haven’t heard, jungle is back, and Nia Archives is leading its next generation. The storied, breakbeat-centric, and newly trendy genre founded in the ’90s is often misinterpreted by people born in that era and don’t know their Amens from their Funky Drummers. Thankfully, Manchester-bred Nia doesn’t have that problem – she’s lived and breathed jungle for years, and her music shows a Ph.D. level of expertise in breakbeat science. She’s also wise enough to know that the genre’s not stuck in amber. Tracks like Brazilian-influenced banger “Baiana” and the crooning vocals on “Forbidden Feelingz” show her willingness to experiment and integrate shades of pop without betraying what makes jungle so massive. Get ready for 160 bpm of bliss at her set on Friday.

Sbtrkt

Once a fixture of the early 2010s post-dubstep scene, where he performed in a series of African tribal masks, Sbtrkt gained acclaim for genre-defying tracks that spanned house, hip-hop, R&B, and pop. His work often featured high-profile collaborators such as Vampire Weekend and A$AP Ferg, and his debut album arguably launched his career and that of Sampha, now a much more famous vocalist often seen as a British answer to Frank Ocean. He was silent for years following a 2016 mixtape, but earlier this year, he finally made his comeback with the ambitious new album The Rat Road. With tracks blending soulful vocals from George Riley, Teezo Touchdown, and others with strong orchestration, the 22-song record’s size and breadth feels like a conscious attempt to make up for that long absence.

Tiga and Hudson Mohawke

Out of a few choice B2B sets at III Points this year, this pairing of Montreal stalwart Tiga and Glaswegian great Hudson Mohawke. Both have paved truly unique paths through dance music. Tiga gained prominence in the bloghouse era of the late 2000s and garnered acclaim for his indelible take on house. HudMo, meanwhile, gained acclaim for hyperactive trap-EDM in the wonky scene of the early ’10s, worked on a Kanye track or two, and dropped his best album yet, the gloriously hyper Cry Sugar, last year. The two perform together under the name Love Minus Zero and have already released a series of dreamy, euphoric tracks that culminate with an album, L’Ecstasy, later this year. On Friday, they’ll play a special, rave-inspired set at III Points under the Love Minus Zero moniker.

Two Shell

Britain seems to have a thing for producer/DJ duos, from Orbital in the ’90s to Disclosure in the 2010s and Bicep and Overmono today. But the latest of these fearsome twosomes is the weirdest yet. Much like Daft Punk before them, Two Shell prefers to perform masked, but they’ve updated the Robots’ melange of humanity and technology for a post-internet, post-PC Music generation. On glitchy tracks like “Dust,” they play with sound design to create a glitchy combination of techno and hyperpop that burrows into your head. They’ve also cultivated an intense online following through curated communities and sites like shell.tech, where passwords grant access to an archive full of tracks, mixes, and other goodies. They’re digital tricksters thriving in the places where online and real-life feel as one. But what happens when the URL meets IRL in their live performances? Only one way to find out.

III Points 2023. Friday, October 20, and Saturday, October 21, at Mana Wynwood, 318 NW 23rd St., Miami; iiipoints.com. Tickets cost $169 to $599 via iiipoints.frontgatetickets.com.