Listen to Louis The Childs’ Epic b2b2b2b2b2b Holy Ship Set
After that title I am sure you have questions. I have the answers. No I did not have a stroke while typing that out – that is accurate. Louis the Child teamed up with Big Gigantic, Slander, Ghastly, Jai Wolf, and Manila Killa on Holy Ship 8.0 for a set that is unlike anything you could ever expect.
Louis the Child broke into the collective attention of the dance music world the last two years with notable remixes such as Miike Snow’s “Genghis Khan”. Now they took to the club inside Holy Ship and with the help of several other friends have delivered one of the most memorable sets so far this year. Tracks range from the Spongebob theme song to The White Stripes to old school Skrillex. So buckle up for this hour and a half whirlwind.
If you’ve never been on a Holy Ship cruise, here’s the quick version: Cloud 9 Adventures and HARD team up every year to charter a cruise ship out of Port Canaveral, Florida, load it with a few thousand dance music fans, and sail out to the Bahamas for a multi-day floating festival, complete with private-island beach parties and surprise DJ arrivals along the way. It’s an environment where lineup pairings like this six-way back-to-back can happen almost by accident, because everybody’s already on the boat together with nothing but time and a DJ booth between them.
The set went down in the Manhattan Lounge and plays out almost like a relay: Louis the Child opens things up with smooth, atmospheric future bass before Jai Wolf and Manila Killa take over with a stretch of pop, future and trap. Big Gigantic then folds in some of their signature live-horn-meets-radio-pop energy before Slander and Ghastly close it out with heavier trap cuts and old-school Skrillex and Flosstradamus throwbacks. Somewhere in the middle of all that you’ll also catch nods to Gorillaz and Usher on top of the Spongebob and White Stripes moments already mentioned — which tells you everything about how unpredictable six DJs on one deck can get.
Six acts trading off on one boat, in one lounge, with zero setlist planning beyond “let’s have fun” — that’s the kind of chaos you only get at Holy Ship, and it’s exactly why this recording is worth the full listen instead of skimming for the drops.
