Bloooody long one aka HELLO STRANGERZ!

Invisible Motorbike

GODDAM it has been an AGE since I updated this fucker… jeez… ok let’s go chronologically…

Right then, June saw quite a few trips around; I was in Leeds for the RBMA info session which featured Joe Bataan and James Pants, both having some pretty interesting things to say. The gig that followed was a scream – Joe backed by a full band, with Mr Pants on cowbell. No shit.

Joe Bataan and James Pants

The week after I was back in London for a couple of special gigs – first up was Four Tet and Steve Reid playing live together at the South Bank centre, supported by Dorian Concept and none other than Moooooooooken who kindly stuck me and Tiago on the door (what a man, he put us both on the door PLUS THREE I mean seriously I have NEVER been +3 before, not even at my own parties) and so we invited some beautiful ladies and went on down, boy it was a great show. VERY chinstroky/wire-reading crowd – everybody was sat down on the floor cross legged! HIGHLY appreciative mob though – I was really enjoying Dorian Concept (this being the first time I’d seen him live) and was a little anxious that the crowd wasn’t feeling his twisted business, but at the end of his set he got some major applause.

Dorian Concept @ South Bank Centre

And then it was the Kieran and Steve show, again first time for me witnessing old Four Tet and boy what a great show it was. To be honest, Hebden’s electronics were completely upstaged by the drumming of this living legend. That being said though, the sound system at the SBC was pretty pants and the acoustics of the space not so great and that doesn’t really help electronics but you see some dude banging on a drum kit doesn’t matter what the acoustics are like, does it? Reid had himself a couple of natural advantages I guess. Hopefully I’ll get to witness the whole thing again in a better sounding environment. And maybe with less people sitting on the floor!

ANYWAY

After this mega show it was time to hotfoot it to shoreditch via chinatown (yum) to a carpark on hearne st where the BRAINFEEDER party was goin down. Oh yes, my dear old friend Flying Lotus was having a little party there with fuckin mad lineup – Dorian Concept once again, GLK, Joker, Kode 9 etc etc etc etc etc etc

Headz at the door @ Brainfeeder

Got there quite late and so missed samiyam which upset me a little cos I haven’t seen him before but Kode 9 was nearly over when I arrived. Got to meet up with Dorian Concept after years of emailing which was cool… Flylo came on and played a pretty good set, quite tough and ravey, he is definitely gettin into the UK sound a LOT… he played that mad DMT tune again, it’s just these beautiful big chords that sound like they were played on that crazy synth weapon out of the He-Man movie. Hmmm… should sample that.

Then Dorian jumped on and jammed with Flylo for a bit which was actually pretty exciting… they were clearly both playing/sequencing live and at first it was a bit wobbly but they found a groove soon enough and then it was pretty fun for a while… and they finished it before it got TOO noodly which was smarrrt.

Dorian played a KILLER solo set, DESTROYING the crowd and potentially upstaging FlyLo to be honest, and then it was time for Joker to take the carpark massive to a dark, ravey place, not as synthy or as purple as I was hoping for so we left…

Phew, this is a LONG recollection…

Well, after that weekend I stayed around in the south schlepping from here to there and THEN I went to goddam GLASTONBURY…

Yes, that there is Blur having it on the main stage… what a great show they put on!

Not really sure what to say about Glastonbury really. It blew my mind, I really like it, I will be going back. It definitely holds that alternate reality vibe that Burning Man has but in a different way, in a very English way. And you can buy stuff. NIIIICE food. But you also have to hike fucking miles with ALL your gear to get from car to campsite. And I can see how a really rainy one would be fucking oppressive. And Jeeeesus Christ I have never seen so many bulbs being nailed, non-stop. It is a fucking nangfest. So I fit right in obviously. 

Musically, well, fuck, who knows where to begin… good shit was Nick Cave, Blur, Spinal Tap, the whole of Shangri-La and Trash City, Easy Star All-Stars doing Sgt Peppers, Horace Andy, Little Boots DJing, Four Tet DJing (yes I saw him twice in a week!), fuck… so many good ones…

BUT

The standout for me was ANIMAL COLLECTIVE. Shit yeah it was. I have never seen them live before and they are fucking excellent. It was pretty much the best hour of music I’ve experienced all year. Serious. Their set was recorded and is downloadable – I am gonna make a separate post after this with the link. IT’S AMAAAAAAAZING.

So yes, Glastonbury chewed me up and spat me out oh yes it did… I took another 10 days off work and was originally going to hit spain for the nowhere festival but ended up staying at home – bought some monitor speakers, made some tunes, rode my bike and cooked nice food… it was a great time…

And now we’re here, a fucking wet cold Sunday in Manchester – it is slap bang in the middle of summer and it’s 14 degrees and we have the central heating on. This is why I am finally writing in the blog! Last Friday Theo Parrish came to town and I went along with a mate, oh boy what a fucking party that was – totally sold out, rammed, GREAT crowd – older, knowledgeable but plenty of pretty girls and party folk too, sense that it’s a lot of the old electric chair crew.

And Theo played all night and he was as dependable as ever and he played that LCD soundsystem remix and ohhhh he’s bloody good…

And now to the future… next Saturday is a great party – Hoya:Hoya VS Space Is The Place, with non other than DâM-FunK all the way from fuckin LA to come join us… me and Mooken and Ryan and Jonny and bloody DAMFUNK YEAH YEAH YEAHHHHHHH…. very excited about this, the Roadhouse is a special place for me, so it’s an honour to be playin there…

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is THAT… 

Maaad update

Tiago at the controls

Fark, has been quite a mad week, better bring you up to speed with last weekend!

YES! It was finally time for the mothership to land in Manchester and boy we did in fine style, with Tiago and Cinnaman both bringing AMAZING heat to help the launch of Space Is The Place MCR get off to a great trajectory.

It was great fun putting on a party after a full year of not doing so (last one was the Lovefingers Bodega last May…) – I almost got all teary when I was running round B+Q buying gaffa tape and cable ties… yes, good to be back.

A nice crew to work with here in Manchester as well – beginning with hiring lights from the drummer out of the Durutti Column which was a bit mad; I forget that I’m in a town with a rich musical heritage – there are so many musos here that it’s hard NOT to run into them! Dom the sound guy is, well, a sound guy and he has some wicked gear. Martyn Mooken who’s the SITP co-pilot here in MCR is the MOST fun to work with and has the best attitude. Our CAPCOM is the mighty Samrai who provided critical analysis and colour commentary throughout the night.

And everyone was so friendly, and so encouraging and enthusiastic! Like, a million times more than Sydney/Melbourne. I was blown away by the love shown by everyone to some weirdoes throwing a little party in a pub in Manchester, I figured that same musical heritage which produced rock star lighting hire people would also carry along a degree of jadedness that would be stifling and intimidating but NO! Lots of MCR love for SITP, so another (and another, and another) is for certain!

OUR MISSION CONTINUES…

So the party was great. It was really lovely to hang out with my RBMA alumni, and great to hear what they’re up to. Cinnaman is doing really well for himself, he’s like the Dutch Benji B or some shit…

Of course, there was no rest for us after a great party, as 4 hours later we were caning it down the M6 to get Cinnaman to Rinse FM for an appearance on Alex Nut’s show. It was a fuckin hectic drive, punctuated with an epic blowout in the fast lane (we thought it was a helicopter until we saw the smoke pissing off the back wheel) but we made it to the studio in time – boy it’s proper pirate styles, 2SER is bloody NASA HQ compared to the Rinse FM setup!

The show was great, and Alex and his MC were both gracious enough to give SITP some quality shout outs – the whole thing is podcasted so download it here and check out the sounds of the future - Cinnaman comes on about halfway through and plays mostly what he played at the party the night previous… PROPER next shit, put yourself 20 minutes beyond your rivals and school up on this bizzo…

The rest of London was a bit of a blur really, some nice times with Tiago + Cinnaman, also got to catch up with dear Ed and also lovely Emma who’s just arrived in Londres on an extended stay. I raced back to Manchester on Sunday evening and spent the rest of the week relaxing, recovering and trying to organise the pressing of an Edit 12″…

Cos yes, it’s time to announce RECORD NUMBER 3! I have managed to secure distribution for an Edit 12″, so hopefully it will go well and I can then start up a nice Edit label, a good little hobby to have I think… got some nice future releases lined up…

I did get to one INCREDIBLE gig during the week – Omar Souleyman supported by Group Doueh. The flyer describes the music best – ‘Ultra-vivid street-level folk-pop, over-driven psychedelic meditations, desert blues and Syrian party bangers’ – two incredible groups pushing some fucking super fresh shit… Souleyman got a good writeup in the Wire last month which ensured a great crowd at the gig, oh man, nice to get that 3rd eye cleaned in such a forceful, unusual, FRESH manner… I highly recommend, though I doubt they’ll be in Aus any time soon.

And now it’s the weekend again. Hopefully I’ll get some time in the studio after so many busy weekends, but DMX crew are on tonight and Benji B’s playin tomorrow night so I don’t know how successful I’ll be!

MIND BLOWN

 

Nuage Vert by HeHe

 

At the moment here in Manchester we’re in the middle of the Futuresonic festival, which is bloody marvellous. Loads of spaces across town have been given over to this ‘Urban Festival of Art, Music & Ideas’.

Last night I was at the Urbis for a big party, featuring Daedelus (fucking brilliant), Neil Landstrumm (really good but too banging for the time he was playing), Toddla T (not bad but not good either, and with a diabolical MC) and Hudson Mohawke (I fucking missed him cos they put him on well early but I got to have a nice chat with him).

There was something a little bit cool about partying in a museum, even if the vibe was somewhat lacking.

HOWEVER

The music is just one part of it. There’s also a bunch of talks, and plenty of art and stuff. It’s sort of like the This Is Not Art festival but without so much emphasis on Aussie/Youth/Emergent artists. Today I went to the CUBE Gallery to check out a bunch of the art, which was really great. They had a whole bunch of stuff all focused on the environment and whatnot, including some photos and videos of HeHe’s fantastic piece ‘Nuage Vert‘, where the artists used green lasers to light up the polluting smoke billowing out of an industrial chimney.

The most incredible work, however, was Akousmaflore by a duo from France called Scenocosme. OH BOY. Somehow these maniacs have managed to turn a plant into an electrical switch. They have a bunch of plants hanging from the ceiling. Touch one of the plants and some sound comes out of a speaker. As far as I am concerned, this is done by magic. It’s just mindbending. Check the video to see what I’m banging on about; don’t forget to close your mouth so all the drool doesn’t get over your keyboard.

Time to dash now though – more music tonight. This time it’s Floating Points, Alex Nut, Kode 9, Zomby, Move D, Actress, HATE and much much more… YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

W O W

Just had a fuckin brilliant weekend, got involved with a killer squat party in Hackney and then raced up to Manchester after 1 hour’s sleep in a carpark to play alongside the lovely Eclair FiFi at Technicolour…

More on that later though, this is just a quick moment to rave about the fact that when I was in Sounds Of The Universe on Friday I was lucky enough to spot a copy of the new Burial x Fourtet 12 that’s disappeared out of every shop before it’s even gone on sale.

Not only that, but I also got to play both sides out, and not only are they beautiful amazing pieces of music, but they also work really well. WOOOOHOOOOO….

Some people are suggesting that ‘Moth’ is Burial’s track and ‘Wolf Cub’ is Four Tet’s, though it sounds to me like there was a bit more collusion going on than that, and in a VERY good way. A wonderful 12 and fuck yeah I got a copy! BUT somebody already youtubed them so have a listen here before they disappear….

YooooHoooo

(sick party that I am playing at)

Hmm, been a little while since a post so time to offer some commentary but no pictures cos even though I got my camera back from the repairshop (YES!) I keep forgetting to take it out (NO!)…

So, no photos from a couple of killer gigs - Gaslamp Killer on Saturday night was great… I have a highly secret recording of his set at Space Is The Place last year and the set he pulled out on Saturday was comparable in energy but the man is clearly TOTALLY in love with Dubstep at the moment cos it was much more heavy on the 140 bpm business… all your favourites, mixed impeccably, new track every 16 bars, hit after hit after hit, just one massive hook mixed into the next one, non-stop, tore our heads off…

GLK @ Space Is The Place… photo by Lina

And last night got to check an early set from good old Flying Lotus. 3rd time I’ve seen him in little over a year, and third continent I checked him on as well (what a good polluter I am)… his set gets better every time – really sounded great, no distortion, plenty of new gear from him that sounds AMAZING, the mad DMT track is just gorgeous, you can hear the hyperspace elves in it… He likes the dubstep too as well…

SOOOO… some great news forthcoming – SPACE IS THE PLACE Manchester is nearly ready to launch, just waiting on some artwork and then we’ll get some proper announcing going on up here…

AND AND AND some more RECORDS! Just waiting on a few confirmations and then there’ll be news on that…

This coming week I’m VERY excited as:

1) This Thursday I am going to see ARPADYS live

2) ON Saturday I am DJing at a secret warehouse party in Hackney

3) ON Sunday I am DJing at Technicolour at Common, together with Eclair FiFi from LuckyMe

YES!!! I AM FUCKIN BACK!!! TIME TO UNLEASH SOME EVIL TUNEAGE ON THESE UNSUSPECTING ENGLISH!

OH yes

4) I bought a bike…

 here is my trusty steed. she/he needs a name.

AND

5) I am going to Budapest next week – hopefully some good obscure Hungarian records to be found wowzers (any recommendations besides Gábor Szabó?)

eeeeeeeee

Yes, it’s been a little while since an update, has been a busy little time… Mad roadtrip around England and Scotland over Easter weekend, fuckin clocked up the miles bigtime… since then been sort of relaxing but checked out two very different and totally brilliant shows – last night was Mark E at Cutloose – plenty of great 108-bpm loopy techy disco-ey club PUMPERS, quite a fresh sound, sort of bangalter/balearic/kompakt all smashing up to one another in a sexy way on loads of drugs.

Tonight was very different, went to check out Earth. Wowzers they are great live… these guys were post-rock before rock got post-ed and 20 years down the line (with a reasonably different lineup) they are playing LOOONG, SLLLLOOOOWWW, HEAVVVVY rock music. It’s REAALLLLLY SLLLOOOOWWWWWW and at that slow speed, everything becomes amplified – each lick and beat is separated, frozen in time, demanding total attention on account of being so isolated… and of course, mistakes become amplified (not that there are any; these guys are TIGHT AS FUCK)…

Earth blew my mind – I was taken away to mystical places, rode on some bizarre trains of thought, the lack of lyrics serving only to enhance the journey experience by removing any sense of narrative to get in the way of this most epic shoegaze…

Yep, I liked. I even bought a poster.

GASLAMP KILLER next week! Can’t wait to finally check him in le flesh…

TOTAL LUST

It’s the Teenage Engineering OP-1. Currently the most erotic vaporware ever, it’s got every music nerd on the net the most moist… those looks! That DISPLAY! The teeny size!

Never mind the fact that it doesn’t really sound spectacular, nor does it actually exist, and that it comes from a company that’ll happily charge you €650 for a fucking desk lamp. I want one. MEEEE PLEEEEASE!!!

In other news, there’s a chat window down the bottom right there, you can have a chat with me if I’m online. How exciting!

xx

Pedal Power

Well this weekend has been all about bikes, really. The I BIKE MCR festival opened on Friday night, and I had an interest in going in because my mate Scotty (who’s a Sydney dude, and we both know loads of the same people and went to a bunch of the same parties but never actually met each other till Burning Man last year) was up to visit for it because his girl is part of Magnificent Revolution who were providing the above-videoed bicycle-powered sound system for the big day in Platt Fields.

ANYWAY, long explanation over with, Friday night was the opening party at Islington Mill, a joint I’ve wanted to check out for ages. Fuckin wicked venue! Can’t believe it’s actually licensed! HILARIOUS… some great bands as well, my favourite being the brilliantly named John Player Specials.

So the opening night was great value, and we didn’t have much sleep before heading to the fields on Saturday for the bike day in the park, with the sound system – two bikes providing enough volume to cause trouble, total cost of kit being about 800 quid, definitely worth looking at. It’s also worth checking out a dude called RinkyDink who has a mobile bike powered rig – great for protests etc, something like this would be brilliant at a channel party…

So, the next day was great as well, a full day-long bike festival in the park with the sound system and races and lots of bike nonsense, some GREAT bands and lots of photos taken. I didn’t hang around a massive amount as I had to drop some film off to get processed (the Holga is still my #1 love) but caught up with the rest of the mob in the evening for burgers and schemes to spend the rest of the night getting amongst it in Mancunia.

So first stop was somebody’s flat where I had a proper go on Spotify for the first time – not bad at all, was not too difficult to find stuff it didn’t have but was impressed with the amount of Wackies stuff they had. After a bit of impromptu Spotify-DJing we headed out to ANOTHER mill party (mills are the new warehouses) at the Hope Mill where we managed to arrive just as the last band was finishing. A great space though, and some nice chats with the ppl running it might just mean that I may be doing a party there at some point. I really hope this happens! Also got to witness some proper rough Ancoats business as there were a bunch of cops manhandling some bloodied dude out of a house as we rocked up to the mill… glad to see things aren’t totally gentrified round there yet!

After that we headed to the Roadhouse for the latest installment of Hoya:Hoya, an all local affair and I finally got to witness Kelvin Brown DJing after hearing Lorna and Mark rave about him for so long. Full marks to him for dropping Pepe Bradock’s ‘Deep Burnt’ as I entered the club, even more marks for finishing up with ‘Wind It Up’, a devastating Mark P track featuring Om’mas from Sa-Ra on vox… is being launched on Hyperdub one day, but I gots me an exclusive 12 in the post allegedly.

The rest of the night got hazy and wonky, as new friends (and newer ones) all bumped into one another at the party, and many wonderful conversations were had, before dragging the Londoners back to mine to crash out, ahead of a beautiful sunny Sunday arvo spent at Bramall Hall…

And so another lovely northern weekend wound to a close… didn’t get as much music written as I’d hoped but certainly made some very good contacts and more importantly some lovely new friends.

Love Has Come Around

Sometimes, life is shithouse.

And then other times, you get sent a weekend from heaven.

It starts with great sushi and continues with Watchmen (which is actually a really good adaptation of the comic. OK, they changed the ending and left a lot out but it still much more faithful than most).

Then you spend a day in town, falling back in love with the place you left, drinking cups of tea, finding the world’s best DVD library and the new Omar-S 12 on Sound Signature.

You get hungry, and repair to Rusholme for the best Palak Paneer you’ve had in years, happy that for once you can eat a meal and not think ‘if only I was back in Sydney this would taste better and cost less’.

After that, you return home to find your beloved new car (whose name is Young Pedro the Bad Dog) back from the garage with a fresh clutch and you celebrate by racing to your mate’s house, picking them up and driving straight back in to town to Mr Scruff’s night, Keep It Unreal.

Unbelievably, you don’t have to queue long to get your hands stamped even though you didn’t buy tickets beforehand, and repair to the weird underground-bar-that-used-to-be-a-toilet over the road where the Beatles blare out of the jukebox and you down Red Bulls to fight off the Paneer-induced drowsiness.

Revitalised, you head into the club, check your coats and make for the front left speaker, where a meaty Funktion One stack pumps old soul, funk, disco, dancehall, deep house, afrobeat and whatever else Scruffy has packed for the night DIRECTLY INTO YOUR BRAIN.

You dance, for an hour perhaps, and then go into the back room where Mr Scruff has set up a tea room selling tea and biscuits, with all proceeds going to charity.

The music sounds as though it’s pumped up a level, getting a bit more munty, and the Red Bull is wearing off, so you promise yourself another little dance before leaving. Back to the sweet spot again and OH MY FUCKIN GOD HAS HE JUST DROPPED DONALD BYRD, YES, FUCK ME HE HAS, THIS IS FUCKIN AMAZIN I HAVE NEVER HEARD THIS TUNE OUT BEFORE LET ALONE ON A FUCKIN FUNKTION ONE ON THE BEST WEEKEND I’VE HAD IN AGES

You go home, happy, amazed.

You sleep well.

You wake, and have strawberry pancakes for breakfast.

You spend most of Sunday prancing around in tights.

Warehouse Wrap-Up

Nice times last night at the Human Shield warehouse party! ‘Twas held in a warehouse on the North-West perimeter of the city, suitably grimey environs, in a space that is conventionally used as storage for a local independent off-licence (ie bottle shop for all you aussies). I arrived a little after midnight, and Convextion was already playing – much more on the electro tip than the deep tech I really love him for, but still plenty of lush chords and melodies.

BUT

Not very much volume, despite a fuckin hoooooge rig up the front. A quick conflab with young Mooken revealed that the noise complaints from the nearby block of flats had already been coming thick and fast pre-midnight and so the rig was turned down to home stereo levels. Oh dear. Nonetheless, there was a good sized crowd of heads – it was quite a sausage fest as predicted; I would expect that at least 70% of the audience owned 4 or more Drexciya records – and there was plenty of Manchester techno royalty in attendance, as well as plenty of scally drug dealers asking “do you need any E’s mate” and seemingly bedecked in authentic early 90s warehouse attire, kangol hats and all.

The warehouse was reasonably well decorated, some dope stencilling going on courtesy of a really nice bunch of ferals who I had some good chats with – they’re essentially the Manchester version of the Mekanarky mob and they assure me that there is a fairly decent free party scene up here which makes me happy.

Convextion finished up as the sound guy was doing his best to surreptitiously up the volume all the while, and DJ Stingray showed up with his balaclava and huge frame and insane record collection. Normally I don’t really care so much for yer slammin detroit electro – there are a few tracks I quite like here and there – but I don’t think I’d ever heard a full set in the club of this gear before, and Stingray delivered some proper juice. Plenty of Drexciyan classics (so I was told, repeatedly, by the many many screaming fanboys around me) and he never took that balaclava off all night.

BUT

The sound system never got loud enough. It was really frustrating for me, and for the faithful underwater devotees it was truly heartbreaking. You could feel the annoyance in the room, and as Stingray masterfully dropped classic after classic into the fray, only to have the track completely drowned out by the rapturous recognition of said tune by the crowd, one really yearned to jump behind the speakers and crank that fucker. I have never screamed ‘FUCKIN TURN IT UP MATE’ so many times in one night, nor heard it feverishly demanded with such frequency. I felt for one guy next to me who was determinedly enjoying himself but, on the verge of tears, lamenting that “I’ve waited fucking years to hear this shit played out and it just sounds like it does at home” and he was right. The fuck off huge subs barely tickled our chest cavities when enormous wobbly basslines kicked in, giving us just a tease of what devastation might be wreaked upon us if only the promoters had thrown caution to the wind (or planned their party a little better) and cranked the fuckin volume.

Nuff bitching though. Despite the rigorous adhesion to social order, the boys in blue made an appearance – only a few of them though, bringing great cheers from the crowd who all started taking pictures of them, chanting out ‘The strippers have arrived!’ and asking them if they knew anyone who had any pills. As soon as they came, they left (Greater Manchester Pigs > NSW Pigs), perhaps knowing that the frustrating volume levels were a punishment greater than anything they could mete out.

I left around three, pleased to have witnessed some quality 313 business, and very encouraged by the enthusiasm the Mancs dished out in spades – the rig might have been weak but it wasn’t stopping anyone from having a good night. Promising business from Human Shield – sort the goddam noise issue next time though, I BEG YOU..

Oh yes, new pics up on the Flickr as well… February business!