If you didn’t know already, Madeon is currently halfway through his first ever European headline tour, and as you can see from the picture above he’s rocking a brand new live setup. What exactly is so special about the setup you ask? Nothing really. That’s the genius of it.

Whilst other artists are finding themselves embroiled in media controversy surrounding what it is they actually do on stage, Madeon has decided to tackle the problem head on.

Armed with three Ableton Launchpads to control a whole host of pre-programmed cues and triggers, he now has even more influence over how creative he wants to get with his sets. That’s not the clever part though. The real ingenuity is very simple, and it lies with the placement of his launchpads on stage.

Watch the video of his new track “Technicolor” below, and you’ll notice that his Launchpads have been positioned at an inverse angle to what you would normally expect to see in a traditional DJ booth. The pads can be clearly seen by the crowd from almost anywhere inside the venue, giving the perspective that you are watching him work from over his shoulder. Each change in sound now has a physical action associated with it, and as a result the whole performance is infinitely more personal. Maybe it’s the single beer that I had at lunch talking right now, but it’s these little ingenious changes which really make the extra difference for me during gigs. Judging by some of the crowd reactions from some of his recent dates, I’m not the only one.

Of course I still need to wait until Thursday to witness it first hand, but in the meantime I can’t help but feel bad for some of the more established “EDM” arists around at the moment. Hugo has come out of absolutely nowhere and he’s embarrassing the fuck out of them.