decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

I only got out to a single party/event in February, which was the fantastic live performance of Orbtial at The Forum, already covered on my blog here, so on to March…

March 2010…

Photo by Ashley Mar from this gallery on http://sydney.thiswayin.com.au

05.03.10 : Sven Väth, Dubfire @ Future Sideshow – Metro

Another year, another ‘Future Music Festival’ goes by that I don’t attend. I’m always put off by what I’ve heard about the (disrespectful) crowd of previous years, but mostly it’s because there hasn’t been enough on the line up to interest and entice me each year, and it’s such a commercial event now. I would have liked to have seen Richie Hawtin last year, had my hope on a FMF side-show, but it never happened.

So, I was happy when a FMF side-show for German techno legend Sven Väth at the Metro was announced, a chance to see him play again. And I thought I would give Iranian-American digital DJ/producer Dubfire a second chance to impress me… he didn’t.

I’ve seen ‘Papa Sven’ play a few times now over the last few years. Performing at his amazing ‘Cocoon Club’ and at his ‘Love Family Park (2007)’ event, both in Offenbach am Main (outside Frankfurt), had a lot of fun at those. The last time I saw him play was down in Melbourne in 2008, at QBH, with Gui Boratto [Live] and Steve Bug, a line-up too good to miss. I wrote about that night here.

So Papa Sven is known to party hard, and get up to all manner of crazy behaviour when he’s out DJing, giving larger than life performances, feeding off the energy and excitement of the crowd, it’s entertaining to watch. Somehow he still manages to keep it together, tight mixes and keeping the music flowing. Plus he still keeps his business head together, touring the world DJing, running his clubs, restaurants, and Cocoon club nights around the planet, running his record label, booking agency and more, it’s pretty impressive, his empire. I have to wonder if the trash-bag image is sometimes an act?

So, on this particular night, I thought he gave quite a reserved performance. I can only guess, perhaps not enough excitement and energy coming from the dance-floor, or he was tired, jet-lagged or just pacing himself. The following day he was performing at Sydney’s Future Music Festival, then more performances all around the country in the days and weeks that followed. It wasn’t a bad performance at the Metro, just not as crazy and memorable as some of the previous times I’ve enjoyed seeing him DJ, so there was a lot less focus on the fun of watching him perform. I was watching and dancing on the elevated steps in the middle of the venue, kept away from the dance-floor.

Actually not much focus on the stage at all really, four bits of illuminated, vertical, lighting truss is not much of a visual feast. I miss the days when effort was put into parties with stage displays/props, projected visuals on screens, and impressive, well thought out intelligent lighting rigs. I felt like I could count the amount of lights on one hand at this night.

But it’s all about the music… I really enjoyed the tracks Sven mixed up for the first 45 minutes or more, memorable tech-house/techno music, with a nice phonky (I hate the description ‘funky’) feel to it. Some nice melodic and tribal flavours, some big moments. Add a little more house feel to the mix, and it’s the same type of sounds he ended the last 30 minutes of his set with. I knew a few tracks here and there, but mostly it was all fresh to me. I had a fun jump around, quite a few older people in the area I danced, shared some smiles, was nice.

However, the music mixed up for the majority of his set, the middle part, was pretty banging, noisy, brash, loud, hard, relentless, and a little dull. It was techno, but the new kind of techno sound that’s popular now (check out Beatport’s techno charts). I’m not really a fan of it, it’s the ‘heard it all before’ breaks/builds in every track, full of crazy noise/white noise that really bore me, and a lot of the tracks have that shuffled feel. He played a lot of that stuff for almost the entire duration of each record too, it got a bit much, so we sat out a lot of it. Speaking of records, he’s still all vinyl only, no CDs. I knew more of these tracks as I’ve seen them listed in his Beatport charts, and on recent live set track-listings.

I’m glad he dropped back down to more melodic stuff at the end of his set, I was rapidly losing interest, as was the crowd, packed at the start, but 3/4 gone by the end, I guess a lot needed their beauty sleep for the festival the next day, and to err… allow enough time to prepare their slip on canvas shoes, short shorts and over-size tank top outfit, eugh.

Tune spotting, here’s some of the tracks he played:

Ray Okpara (Feat. Nikki) – Brainows
Electric Rescue – Crazy Purple
Levon Vincent – Late Night Jam *
Audiojack – Kicks For Kicks *
Stephen Beaupre – Lotus Eaters *
Salvatore Freda – Tiramisu (DJ Madskillz Remix)
Die Vögel – Blaue Moschee
Dustin Zahn – Stranger (To Stability) (Len Faki Podium Mix)
Alan Fitzpatrick – Face Of Rejection
Steve Parker – Mexilhao
Pan-Pot – Confronted (Adam Beyer & Jesper Dahlback Remix)
Marc Marzenit – Not Assigned
Yousef – Come Home
Lucid Dream – Droeth (Dominik Eulberg Blue-Crystal Remix) *
Peter Horrevorts – Bloody Hands

* I like these tracks

Oh, almost forgot, Dubfire played at this party too, before Sven. I can sum up his set up with one word… boring! So dull, was the same track on loop for his whole set? No idea why he needs 2 x Apple MacBook laptops and those controllers for that performance. There is just no depth or memorable qualities to that type of minimal, the (younger) crowd seemed to love it though.

Luckily a good DJ friend of mine Andrew Wowk was DJing in the front room at the same time, tightly mixing up a set of dance enticing, interesting, memorable, tech-house, melodic techno and minimal music, nice one!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

06.03.10 : Jus-Ed @ Mad Racket – Marrickville Bowlo

Ended up going to this Mad Racket the following night, last minute decision, joining my mate Tad. New York’s Jus-Ed played deep, really… really… deep! Lots of deep-house, and old-school, simplistic (not minimal), prototype, stripped back, deep, techno. Some old house classics, a little disco, even a couple of 90’s commercial dance blasts from the past. He lost me at times though, it was a little erratic flow and mix wise. But, overall I enjoyed it, nice moody moments, lots of deepness, lots of quality music.

He got on the mic a few times, telling us about some of the tracks as they played which was cool, playing a lot of his own productions, should have bought his CD there.

And yes, as my mate Matt Costain pointed out, he looks a bit like Prop Joe from the Wire.

Not a very well attended Mad Racket. There was a lot on that w/end. Dance floor was quite empty a lot of the night, I think 95% of the party was outside smoking and chatting the whole night. The non-smoking thing has really messed with the Mad Racket vibe, although I like not breathing in smoke all night.

A couple of those 90’s commercial dance, blasts from the past he played…

Robin S – Show Me Love

Nightcrawlers – Push The feeling On

A bit of a story about that Nightcrawlers track. I’ve heard that track so many times. I used to hear DJ HMC play it a lot in Adelaide in my 1990’s clubbing days, but I never knew the artist or title. I love the way they have used a bit of the vocal sample as an almost percussive element.

I even heard DJ HMC play it again in Adelaide on Boxing Day at Xmas last year, at a party called Reunion at The Electric Light Hotel, that was a fun night, with Metro (Richmond Hotel – Adelaide) 1990’s crew M.C. Scott T, G.T. (Groove Terminator), and DJ HMC all playing together again, mixing up lots of classic house and techno music.

So, anyway, I didn’t get an ID on that night, or when Jus-Ed played it at Mad Racket, and put it to the back of my mind.

A few days later at work, I hear this catchy little saxophone riff coming from a work colleagues TV speakers, and quickly realise it’s the sax riff from that track, but used in some hip-hop/pop song.

Luckily the music was coming from the AirActive music application on FOXTEL (pay TV) which has text of the artist, title, record label etc. as the song plays. It was…

Pitbull – Hotel Room Service.

I look that up on http://www.discogs.com and luckily the entry has mention of the samples used in that track…

Contains a sample from “Push The Feeling On” written by Hugh Branklin, Ross Campbell, John Reid & Graham Wilson

I go to You Tube, search for “Push The feeling On” and there it is, the clip above.

I love the Internet, sites like Discogs and YouTube are awesome for finding details about and clips of old, classic, music tracks/songs.

I’ve had a lot of these type of things happen in my life with music, wanted IDs coming to me, usually when I put them to the back of my mind. I’m a bit obsessed with track IDs in case you didn’t already notice.

Having a song on my mind, turning on the radio and there it was playing used to happen a lot in my youth, so much so it stopped being something freaky. Radio, that’s something I’ve not listened to for a long time now.

January 2010… (Part.2)

14.01.10 : Severed Heads [Live], Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) @ Sydney Festival – Beck’s Festival Bar – Hyde Park Barracks

I find these Beck’s Festival Bar – Hyde Park Barracks events a bit… meh. I like going to them, always catch up with people I know, but the vibe always seems a bit off. People never seem to really let go, and have an all out fun time.

On this night, I enjoyed the 80’s music local DJ Mark Murphy played, warming things up. I hope our SMS track requests didn’t annoy him too much, great to hear The Models.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severed_Heads

Severed Heads are legends of Australian electronic music. Their live show on the night was not that exciting though. Tom Ellard and another guy ? (doing visuals?) performed on stage in darkness. So visual focus was on their projected old-school computer graphics, on a screen outside of the performance tent.

I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the music Severed Heads performed live, not sure if it was old stuff or new stuff. To be honest, I’m not much of a fan past the singles really. It sounded great though, staying true to their 80’s/90’s electronic dance sounds.

I enjoyed hearing ‘Dead Eyes Opened’ and ‘Greater Reward’ and a couple of other tracks I knew but can’t remember the titles now. I would have liked to have heard the original versions to the slightly reworked versions they played, but I can understand it’s more fun for the artists to play newer versions of old tracks. I was disappointed they didn’t play ‘Heart Of The Party’, probably my favourite Severed Heads track/song.

We didn’t stick around afterwards to hear what Stephen Mallinder from Cabaret Voltaire was going to play in his DJ set, so can’t comment on that sorry, I’m sure it would have been interesting. Most of the crowd seemed to leave after Severed Heads finished as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabaret_Voltaire_%28band%29

Wearing black was the right choice for this night amongst the older crowd.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

23.01.10 : Sebo K @ LadyLux – LadyLux

My partner Joanne celebrated her birthday with a big bunch of friends at our favourite Spanish restaurant earlier in the night. Somehow after all the food and cocktails we still made it out to LadyLux in Kings Cross, to see Berlin’s Sebo K.

We’ve been wanting to see Sebo K play for quite some time, fans of his productions for quite a few years, and we played his ResidentAdvisor podcast RA.055 all the time in 2007.

But, once he finally took over the decks, starting his set late, and got into the mix, we found his DJ set pretty disappointing. I guess we were expecting deeper, minimal, melodic sounds, but what we got was tough, driving, tech-house, with an almost progressive edge. Not much more than bass-lines and beats at times, not many memorable or melodic qualities. I didn’t know much of what he was playing. It’s a similar sound to what Nick Curly played when I saw him last year, who also disappointed me a bit, by playing not what I was expecting. It’s not wrong to expect DJs to play a similar sound to the music they produce is it?

Sebo K was tight in the mix, but we just were not taking much inspiration from the music he played. After an hour it was more of the same, we lost interest and headed home.

The local guys warming things up prior, were also playing a similar intensity (horrible music though), so perhaps he felt (or got told) he had to continue at that level. I have a lot of respect for DJs like Steve Bug who just start deep/slow and then build it from there, regardless of who/what was on before.

I like the new renovations at LadyLux, the venue looks great, the Funktion-1 system sounds excellent. I’ve never been a fan of the type of crowd that go to LadyLux though, I don’t think there are many passionate music people, most seem more interested in being seen there, than getting on the dance-floor and getting sweaty.

I’ve heard management have completely changed the style/sound of the club since, kicking out the more underground house promoters and DJs. Probably looking to recover all the renovation costs with a more commercial direction.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

26.01.10 : Ben Watt, Dixon @ We Love Agwa Yacht Club – MV Starship

Another boat cruise party on the MV Starship. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve been on now. We’ve only missed one, in December last year, being in Adelaide for Xmas.

So London’s Ben Watt and Berlin’s Dixon don’t really play the type of music I’m into, lots of house from one and disco/house from the other, but I still had a fun time at this.

Cruising around beautiful Sydney Harbour on the very modern MV Starship is a great way to spend an afternoon/evening, sitting back on the middle deck, enjoying the view, plus the fun of chatting and drinking with friends. The party/music is just a bonus really.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

30.01.10 : Robert Babicz [Live], Namito, Mic Newman @ Shrug – Civic Underground

A big smile happens every time I remember this night. I only decided to go at the last minute too, and I’m so glad I did. Germany’s Robert Babicz live set was excellent, lots of deep, dark, atmospheric, spatial minimal/techno beats and percussions, with lush melodic layers, and clever synthetic elements. He’s such a perfectionist with his music, covers a nice range of styles/sounds, very talented guy. I had a ball jumping around to almost all of his Ableton Live + Apple Macbook Pro laptop live set. It sounded awesome through the Civic Underground’s Klipsch sound system, such an awesome intensity in such a small room.

Later in his set he really ramped things up with some blistering Rob Acid style techno, full of nasty 303 acid patterns, and banging 909 beats, which was impressive sounding, but a bit much for me.

His track ‘Sin’ does it for me every time. I was impressed he played the Joris Voorn remix of his ‘Dark Flower’ track, such a wonderful remix, that will remain one of my fave tracks for a long time. He also played his new ‘Fever’ remix of ‘Dark Flower’ with it’s break beat and groovy bass guitar lines, check it out…

Namito from Berlin played prior, and mixed up the kind of energetic tech-house music that doesn’t really do much for me I’m sorry to say. I preferred the deeper sounds local lad Mic Newman played prior to him, he’s got a bunch of releases and remixes on a heap of well known international labels now, good stuff.

It was a fun night, great crowd, many thanks to the Shrug crew.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

That’s all for January. Coming next March, I’ve already covered February, with my single outing to Orbital scroll down to read.

Club nights/events with international techno, minimal, tech-house, deep-house, house DJ/live acts performing in Sydney…

I made it out to the red ones. Thoughts and comments to be posted soon.

APRIL 2010…
02.04.10 : Seth Troxler, Paul Woolford, Mark E @ AGWA Yacht Club – MV Starship
03.04.10 : Darren Emerson, Fergie @ The Club Club – Chinese Laundy (Garden Bar Afternoon)
04.04.10 : Oliver Huntemann, Oliver Koletzki @ The Likes O’Ye Afloatin’ – MV Bella Vista
04.04.10 : Phil Kieran [Live], Daniel Steinberg, P.Toile, Bjorn Wilke @ Likes Of You & Top Notch (After Party) – Home – Terrace
05.04.10 : 2 x Internationals @ Spice – Home Terrace
17.04.10 : Agoria @ Disconnected (Balance 016 CD Launch) @ Civic Underground ++
17.04.10 : Chymera [Live], Phil Kieran @ The Club Club – Chinese Laundry
17.04.10 : Maurice Fulton @ Picnic, Dan Cares! & Niche Productions Present… – Gilligan’s – The Oxford Hotel
18.04.10 : Derrick May (5 Hour Set) @ Picnic Presents… – 202 Broadway (4pm-12am)
23.04.10 : Spektre [Live] @ DownUnder – Ladylux ++
24.04.10 : Apparat [Live], Marc Marzenit [Live], Chymera [Live], Hernan Cattaneo @ Música Presents… – The Forum ++
24.04.10 : Redshape [Live] @ HaHa Industries… Under the Radar #08 “The Mask-Air-Raid” – Warehouse ++
25.04.10 : Burnski @ DownUnder – Civic Underground

++ Cancelled, due to the Iceland volcano ash cloud issues over U.K/Europe air space, cancelling flights. Agoria will now be playing Sydney in September 2010 (When I’m in Europe, bummer).

MAY 2010…
01.05.10 : Dave Clarke, Green Velvet, Joris Voorn, Steve Rachmad + More @ Creamfields Australia – Entertainment Quarter
01.05.10 : Justin Martin, Worthy @ Chinese Laundry
07.05.10 : Joris Voorn, Riva Starr @ Chinese Laundry
15.05.10 : Woolfy @ Adult Disco – Civic Underground
22.05.10 : Maetrik [Live], Clive Henry (Peace Division) @ Shrug – Civic Underground
23.05.10 : Alix Ouellet + More @ Bunker – Plantation
23.05.10 : Clive Henry (Peace Division) @ Spice – Home Terrace
28.05.10 : Oxia @ Nocturnal Presents… – Civic Underground
28.05.10 : Autechre [Live], Rob Hall @ Civil Society – The Forum

JUNE 2010…
05.06.10 : Harri @ Co-Op First Birthday – Warehouse
12.06.10 : Seth Troxler, Underworld [Live], Ellen Allien, Paul Ritch [Live], Tiga, M.A.N.D.Y [Live], Zombie Nation [Live], The Revenge + More @ We Love Sounds Winter Festival 2010 – Entertainment Quarter
12.06.10 : The Revenge, DJ Spun @ Picnic – Civic Underground
12.06.10 : Tom Trago @ Mad Racket “Royal Flying Dutchman” – Marrickville Bowlo
12.06.10 : Ellen Allien, M.A.N.D.Y, Paul Ritch + More @ We Love Sounds Festival After Party – Plantation
12.06.10 : Ron Carrol @ Pure Ivy – The Ivy
13.06.10 : Seth Troxler (4 hour set from 5am) @ Bunker – Plantation
19.06.10 : Goshva @ [The Box] – Plantation
20.06.10 : Goshva @ Spice – Home Terrace
26.06.10 : Robert Hood @ Disconnected Audio Presents… – Plantation
26.06.10 : Prince Language (DFA) @ Adult Disco – Civic Underground
27.06.10 : Goshva @ Bunker – Plantation

Great news, Surgeon is finally coming down to play in Australia in October, and will be playing Sydney for the first time, thanks to the Index/Void crew.

21 Oct 2010 – Brisbane @ White Rhino – Step In
22 Oct 2010 – Melbourne @ Likes Of You – Roxanne Parlour
23 Oct 2010 – Sydney @ Index Presents… – The Forum

The last time he played in Australia was in September 2000. We went down to Melbourne to see him play at the ‘Pure Flow 5’ party. James Ruskin also played at the same party, check out the flyer front | back.

My partner Joanne, is a massive fan of his techno music, and has seen him perform live every trip to Europe, quite a few times now. She even travelled to a Spaghetti Western town in the desert of Tabernas/Almeria in Spain to see him play at the Western Music Festival in 2003. She’s met and spoken with him and his lovely wife a number of times now too.

The last time we saw him play live was as part of British Murder Boys with Regis, at Fabric in London, July 2007, it was brutal, as was going to the airport straight after for our flight back to Sydney.

Between us we have vinyl and CDs of just about everything he’s released on labels like: Tresor, Downwards, Dynamic Tension, and CounterBalance, plus a heap of his remixes on various other labels.

We have many favourite Surgeon tracks and remixes: Magneze, Badger Bite, (Intro) Version II, La Real, Sleep Ultra Violet, The Advent – It One Jah (Surgeon Remix), to name a few.

I’m not as into these sounds these days, but for quite a few years there in the early 2000s I had a big passion for them, bedroom banging away with them.

Surgeon moved to digital DJing many years ago for his live performances, using Ableton Live on a laptop, with external controllers. He’s really perfected the technique, blending together a varierty of sounds, styles, and tempos, making for a fantastic listening and dance-floor experience.

His sets are no longer all storming techno, surgically layered, he’s quite eclectic musically now, covering all kinds of electronica, industrial, EBM, experimental, noise, dubstep, slowed drum’n’bass, wth beautiful melodies, with some layers of his signature Birmingham techno sound, and nods to past prototype techno and classic electronic music. Check his site, for some recent mixes.

I’m really looking forward to hearing him play. May get to see him in Europe in August too.

He has a Fabic mix CD due out in August.

http://www.fabriclondon.com/label/fabric/53

New interview in Sydney’s 3D Magazine…
http://streetpress.com.au/online_mags/3D/3D_1018/ (Page 25) *
* Ignore the live date on that article, it’s wrong.

More data:

http://www.dj-surgeon.com
http://twitter.com/Tony_Surgeon
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Surgeon

Photos by Matt Costain from his Flickr album.

I finally got to see Orbital play live, and they were awesome!

It’s been almost 20 years since I first became a fan of their music, introduced to their ‘Orbital – Orbital’ (Green Album) in 1991 via friend Mike Mesissner (Bliss guitarist). The sounds on that album really inspired my own electronic music making and first techno productions.

Their live performance was fantastic. Much fun jumping around to their sounds on the dance floor. Hearing ‘Chime (Live)’ and ‘Belfast’ brought back a flood of fond memories, big smiles. I used to hear these tracks at clubs and parties in Adelaide in the early-mid 1990s, ‘Belfast’ holds some special memories. I would have loved to have heard ‘Midnight’, one of my other faves.

I’m so glad they got back together and are still touring and performing live after all these years. Huge thanks to the Playground Weekender crew for bringing them down under, and to all involved in making their side-show at The Forum happen. It was a fun Tuesday night, great crowd, lots of fans, lots of appreciation for their music/live performance.

Awesome to see the Hartnoll brothers wearing their iconic dual light glasses, bopping away behind a huge mixing desk, controlling all the kit around them.

Visually it was a great show too, nice oldschool, trippy graphics on a wall RGB LED screen behind them, some intelligent lighting and smoke machine! I miss smoke machines, you don’t come across them out in clubs these days, why is that?

And most importantly, it sounded awesome, great sound system in The Forum.

Here’s what they played… Thanks to MrBadger on InTheMix for the exact track list.

Time Becomes
Out There Somewhere (Part 1)
The Moebius
Out There Somewhere (Part 2)
Lush 3/Eurotunnel
Impact
Remind
Satan
Belfast
Chime (Live)
Chime Crime
Know Where To Run
Halcyon
One Perfect Sunrise

The Box
Doctor ?

The only moment that I didn’t like was the Belinda Carlisle and Bon Jovi samples during Halcyon, obviously tongue in cheek, but I felt it spoilt the magic.

For the nerdy gear heads, here’s what Matt Costain and I spotted them using on stage…

? Mixing Desk
Apple – MacBook Pro (Laptop) with Ableton – Live (DAW Software)
Jazzmutant – Lemur (Control Surface)
Novation – 25SL Mk II (Controller / Keyboard)
Alesis – Andromeda A6 (Synth Keyboard) x2
Macbeth – M5N (Semi-Modular Synth)
Roland – Jupiter 6 (Synth Keyboard)
Roland – SH-2 (Synth Keyboard)
Moog – Voyager RME (Synth Rack)
Roland – TB-303 (Bassline)
Roland – TR-909 (Drum Machine)
Roland – TR-808 (Drum Machine)
Elektron – Machinedrum (Drum Machine)
Yamaha – A5000 (Sampler Rack)
Ridge Farm Industries – Boiler Solid State (Limiter / Compressor)
TC Electronic – FireworX (Multi-Effects Processor) x 2
Behringer – Composer Pro (Compressor)

More data:

http://www.loopz.co.uk
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Orbital

So, there’s another one to tick off my list of early pioneers and legends of electronic/dance music I’ve seen play live. Let’s have a quick think about who is on that list:

Kraftwerk [Live] *
Depeche Mode [Live] *
Nitzer Ebb [Live]
New Order [Live]
The Orb [Live]
Derrick May *
Juan Atkins
Kevin Saunderson *
Jeff Mills *
Kenny Larkin *
Underground Resistance [Live]
Daniel Bell
Robert Hood *
Richie Hawtin *
Francois K *
Carl Craig [Live]
Laurent Garnier *
Laurent Gariner [Live]
CJ Bolland
Sven Vath
Joey Beltram *
Danny Tenaglia
Sasha & Digweed
Autechre [Live] *

* = seen multiple times.

Yeah, very happy with that! I think I need to see some Chicago house legends though. Should have seen DJ Pierre when he was out here.

What’s all this comedy stuff, where’s the music?

Well, we’re off to Creamfields tomorrow at the Entertainment Quarter, to see techno DJ/producers: Joris Voorn, Steve Rachmad and Dave Clarke do their thing. There is a whole heap of trance, electro, hard-style, whatever (read crap) music on in other areas as well, but have no interest in any of it. Apart from Green Velvet [Live] who would be great to see again, but he’s on the same time as Dave Clarke.

http://www.creamfields.com.au
http://www.creamfields.com.au/sydney.html

Unfortunately the techno area ‘Planet Hardware’, is the couch/bus parking area alongside The Forum, which means it’s not undercover (hoping for no rain), and no doubt the sound is going to be limited volume/bass wise as has happened before with the same area being used. Why didn’t they just use The Forum? Not enough ticket sales to cover costs I’m guessing. Originally this techno area was advertised as being in the Royal Hall Of Industries, but I think they quickly realised that the 200 odd people (those there for the techno) in that massive venue would look rather empty.

Not much hype for this event, for the techno, suspect numbers are down on expectations for this event anyway, there are just too many of these ‘festival’ events, seems to be one every month.

I’m looking forward to hearing what these techno guys will be playing, but suspect everything else about this event is going to be fail, Creamfails 2010 here we come.

Wow, I sound really jaded and negative. I’m just preparing myself for the inevitable disappointment. I don’t get excited before parties anymore, have been let down too many times. I’m keeping my expectations very low for this, maybe I’ll be surprised.

Be interesting to see what Dave Clarke has to say about it all afterwards. I’m half expecting a dummy spit from him over the lack of production. Keep an eye on this…

http://twitter.com/djdaveclarke

Speaking of Dave Clarke, Mark Murphy from Spank Records did a fantastic interview with him, asking some really interesting questions, which you can feel Dave really appreciated and opened up to, check it out…

http://blog.spankrecords.com.au/spank_records_blog/2010/04/dave-clarkgenius.html

It’s been six or more years since Dave Clarke played in Sydney. I’ve seen him every time he’s played here, way back to his first visit in 1997 (thanks for the correction Matt) I think it was. My taste in electronic music has certainly mellowed since then, be interesting to see how I cope with his onslaught of banging techno compression this time round, he never gave in to the minimal wave.

See you on the dance-floor, err concrete carpark.

Seth Troxler – Boogybytes Vol.05 Mix CD [BPitch Control]

01. Seth Troxler – Intro / Ryan Crosson – Amb 1
02. The Royal We – Party Guilt (Dinky Arp-A-Pella)
03. Luciano – Fran Left Home / Mike Shannon – Sweet A Pella
04. Craig Smith & The Revenge – The Soul Part II
05. Baeka – Right At It
06. Dinky (Feat. Update) – Westoid
07. N/A (Feat. Rosina) – Fables And Fairytales (Deniz Kurtel Remix)
08. Spektrum – Freakbox (Richie Hawtin Uncontrolled Edit)
09. Alexi Delano – Molar One
10. Jabberjaw – The Connie Shake
11. Heartthrob – Signs (Thrill Cosby AKA Seth Troxler Remix)
12. Birds And Souls – Birds And Souls
13. Roman Flügel – Stricher
14. Fever Ray – Seven (Seth Troxler Remix)
15. Kiki – Cinema Obscura *
16. Nicolas Jaar – Time for Us

I’ve been listening to this mix CD non stop since I got it. It’s awesome, hits all the right spots for me, a great flow of interesting, varied, melodic, memorable house/techno and minimal sounds, with an enjoyable darkness.

Check out this review of the CD with audio clips on ResidentAdvisor.

* One of my new fave tracks featured in this mix: Kiki – Cinema Obscura, is unreleased, but BPitch Control have made it available for free download, a 128K MP3 here. A really nice moody track with an off beat snare drum hit, creepy strings and memorable piano chords.

I’m looking forward to hearing Seth Troxler DJ here in Sydney, hoping he plays a nice variety of stuff, he’s known for his eclectic taste, bouncing from old-school house and techno to current minimal to disco to synthetic/pop weirdness.

He’s playing this coming Friday 2nd April (Good ‘Voodoo’ Friday) at the AGWA Yacht Club party. Cruising Sydney Harbour on the MV Starship from 2.30pm. Tickets and info here. The party also features international guests Paul Woolford in the main room with Seth, and Mark E on the roof top disco, presented by Co-Op.

For those not familiar with Seth Troxler. He’s a twenty something, Kalamazoo, Michigan / Detroit DJ and producer now living in Berlin. Is in the group Visionquest with Ryan Crosson and Lee Curtiss. His minimal, house/techno productions and remixes have been released on excellent labels such as: Crosstown Rebels, BPitch Control, Wagon Repair, Spectral Sound, Circus Company, Wolf+Lamb, Minus, and Items & Things to name a few.

I like his music it has darkness and deepness but with a unique phonk and wonk to it. His ‘Sexplosion’ release as Sex Trothler (sic) on Wagon Repair is one of my faves. Check out his music…

More data:

http://www.myspace.com/sethtroxler
http://www.bpitchcontrol.de/
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Seth%20Troxler

Here’s a crazy interview with him last week, from WMC 2010 (Winter Music Conference – Miami), he’s a bit of a character…

A proper Q&A with him from WMC 2010.

A preview of the new Deetron & Seth Troxler – Each Step EP he mentions…

http://www.wordandsound.de/article/64468