Originally we didn’t plan on going to this party, not being fans of the new trance-ish, progressive sound Aril Brikha has moved on to. Then last week Lost Baggage added Dutch techno/tech-house DJ/producer/performer Joris Voorn to the line-up, so we got tickets, which meant we’ll see Joris 2 days in a row, with going to the Bread & Butter boat cruise party with him the following night. We’re big fans of his productions, especially his Rejected stuff. I saw him do a live set at Awakenings in Amsterdam last year as well, for all of 10 minutes, I liked what I heard.
It was a nice surprise for Lost Baggage to also add Layo & Bushwacka to the line-up at the last minute too.
DJing at my friend Tad’s party at The Burdekin at midnight, Happy Birthday Tad! and knowing that Aril wasn’t on until 2am, and Joris on at 3.30am we didn’t get to The Cross until well after 1am.
Sydney techno DJ Claire Morgan was ripping it up in the bump lounge room when we arrived. She played a fantastic set of quality techno music, best set of the night by far. Top work! She’s a really nice person too.
Aril Brikha with his black Mac laptop and controller was up after Claire, doing a ‘live’ set. Right from the start, as expected, his music sounded very progressive and trance-ish, it’s very ‘fluffy’ music. I think this shocked a few of the old-school Detroit techno ‘Departure In Time’ (Aril Brikha album on Transmat from 2000) fans who came out of retirement for the night. He did play a couple of tracks, including the title, and my fave ‘Groove La’Chord’ from that album much later on. It sounded great, exactly like his releases.
I spent the next hour and a half moving back and forth between the bump lounge room with Aril, and the main room with Layo & Bushwacka. Mixing it up back to back, those guys played quite a lot darker and tougher than I was expecting, mixing up a range of minimal, techno, tech-house sounds. I knew quite a few things they played. There were moments that were great, but overall it sounded a bit disjointed, bent and messy, like much of the crowd were. I’m still trying to find my ear after having it chewn off by motor-mouths.
Joris Voorn was up next after Layo & Buchwacka who had been on for 3 hours. The first thing I noticed was how he turned the master volume down, a lot, which made the sound bleed from the bump lounge room very distracting from where I was standing. Not sure if he’s a unity gain perfectionist, is scared of excessive volume, or uses this as a trick to bring people closer to him and the speakers? Usually DJs never turn it down. With lower volume, and what he played, it made him sound very soft in comparision to the sounds on prior.
I was excited and ready for a fantastic set of quality techno/minimal sounds from Joris, having downloaded mp3s of recent DJ sets. But… we got a set of happy, house music, deep-house, diva vocals, progressive, and uplifting tech-house sounds, with the odd minimal track every 20 minutes or so. I didn’t know much of what he played, not being the type of sounds I’m into, all a bit too happy and light for me. It was mixed together perfectly, he was using all CDs I think, but the intensity and track flow was up and down like a yo-yo. I really don’t think he was reading the vibe of the crowd and dance-floor at all. His gestures to clap along and do the ‘hands in the air’ were mostly ignored. We were hoping he may move into more darker, techno type sounds later in his set, but with no change an hour and a half in, and it being now 5am, we left, over it. When you’re a fan of a DJ/producer’s sound and productions, you finally get to see them play, and then they play completely different music it’s always a shock/dissapointment.
After leaving we then had the pain of trying to find a taxi (Good Friday morning) for over an hour, gave up and caught public transport home. It didn’t turn out to be a memorable night.
The Cross is a great venue, and Lost Baggage seem to be doing good things, much thanks to them for putting on all these internationals. I’m really looking forward to the Alex Smoke party (have heard Matthias Tanzmann may be playing also), and then the m_nus 10th year party with Gaiser & Marc Houle both playing live, coming up in early and late May.