Robot Heart is the camp that turned the Burning Man sunrise into a global ritual. Founded in 2008 by a small crew of New York friends who built a bus, drove it to the deep playa, and pointed it east, it has grown into the most internationally recognized sound camp at Black Rock City — and the reason most people first hear the words 'Burning Man' and 'house music' in the same sentence.
The format is deceptively simple. The bus parks alone in the open desert, the lineup is rarely announced, and the music starts in the dark hours before dawn. Around five in the morning the crowd thickens; by sunrise the sound system is pointed straight into a horizon turning pink, and several thousand people are dancing in dust. The sets are long — often three to four hours — and the genre lives in the slow, melodic, emotional end of house and techno.
Lee Burridge effectively wrote the template for the Robot Heart sunrise; Bedouin, Dixon, Damian Lazarus, Acid Pauli, DJ Tennis, Bonobo, Nicola Cruz, Anyma and Solomun have all delivered defining moments on the bus. Recordings of those sets — many filmed in soft, washed-out morning light by camp resident videographer Robot Heart Media — make up the largest single collection in the Dust Vault and are the reason many users find the archive in the first place.
If you are new to Burning Man music, start here. Almost everything else on the playa is in conversation with what happens at Robot Heart between four and nine in the morning.
