We here at XLR8R are excited to be partnering with Nuits Sonores, the annual music-and-arts festival held yearly in France’s second city, Lyon. And why shouldn’t we be excited? After all, the gathering has been one of Europe’s most interesting, thought-provoking and plain-old fun soirees for 13 years now. Nuits Sonores has a heavy focus on visual and digital culture; to that end, there are a variety of arts-oriented activities spread across its five days (and nights) and multiple, city-wide, venues. But as you would expect from a fest with a name that translates as night sounds, the self-described “cross-disciplinary panorama of creativity” has so many fab DJs and brilliant artist that the mind boggles: Âme, Ben Klock, Carl Craig, Goldie, Marcel Dettmann, Moodymann, John Talabot, Jon Hopkins, Laurent Garnier, Nils Frahm, Shackleton, the Orb, Voices From The Lake—that’s just a small sampling of the sonic pleasure that await. Luckily, we can look forward to an upcoming XLR8R / Nuits Sonorespodcast collaboration as we count down. This year’s installment runs from May 13 through 17— we recommend you pick up your ticket tout suite.