decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

Alex Smoke [Live] & Matthias Tanzmann @ Lost Baggage – The Cross : 03.05.2008

Kazu Kimura @ Break Inn – Chinese Laundry : 09.05.2008

Matthias Tanzmann & Bjorn Wilke @ The Club Club – Chinese Laundry : 10.05.2008

Gaiser [Live] & Marc Houle [Live] @ M_nus 10th Birthday Tour : Lost Baggage – The Cross : 31.05.2008

I wish I could be in Berlin in June…

MINUS & COSMOPOP present

www.sundayadventureclub.de

Line up: Richie Hawtin, Josh Wink, Luciano, Matthew Dear’s Big Hands [Live], Karotte, Tobi Neumann, Zip, Magda, Marc Houle [Live], Paco Osuna, Troy Pierce, Matt John, Guido Schneider, Steve Bug, Heartthrob [Live], Konrad Black, Loco Dice & Marco Carola (back to back), Rebekah Aff, Cassy.

Date: Sunday June 15th, 2008

Location: Open air location near the Postbahnhof, Berlin
Large outside area with 1 stage, 2 inside floors in case of rain, the event will be indoors.

Opening hours: Outside stage 10am-10pm, inside stages 6pm until open end

Ticket prices: 15EUR pre-sale

This was a fun night out, nice vibe, great to be out with mates, but we missed ya Joanne, Chesham, Wowky, Dr.Tad… Excellent to catch up with some good old club friends, Hi Pete, Nick and Sandi! We had a great boogie, getting down to the sounds of Alex Smoke.

I usually don’t look forward to going to this venue, as when it’s packed it can be really uncomfortable. It wasn’t too bad on this outing, lots of people, but not packed. I’ve said it before, but it really is so much better without all the cigarette smoke now. The new recent renovations are great, it looks and feels like an uber Berlin club now, with all the white, leather padding, and coloured light ceiling tiles, very cool. Sound System is fantastic, mmm Klipsch speakers. DJ booth area is much better now that it’s not a little hole in the wall. I hear they have a rotary valve DJ mixer installed now as well, not being used this night though, keen to hear it. It was probably in use the following night there for Todd Terje.

Alex Smoke performing live with an Apple MacBook, Evolution MIDI controller and Ableton Live was excellent. The 3rd time I’ve seen him live. Sounding a lot more maximal than minimal this time I thought. He’s got some great new tougher tracks/sounds since I last heard him live in Berlin last July, less glitch, more tech, much more sustained dance floor pressure. It was nice to hear some of his early tracks (my faves) still being played in his live set too, Brian’s Lung, Chica Wappa, Don’t See The Point etc. I look forward to hearing him again on Saturday at Lost Baggage, along with Matthias Tanzmann.

I also enjoyed Dave Choe and Matt Aubusson’s sounds following on from Alex Smoke. I’ve missed hearing these guys out. I hardly knew anything they played, which is always a plus.

It seems the majority of the crowd didn’t get or lost interest in the darker, deeper, minimal, and more techno-ish sounds from Alex and the Glitch lads that followed. The room started and then kept emptying out from about 1/2 way through Alex’s set. I didn’t like much of the warm up sounds played before Alex, too happy/fluffy for me, nice to hear Joris Voorn’s track Blank, out though.

A fun night, thanks crew! Meow! 🙂

The line-up for the 2008 We Love Sounds winter event/festival has just been released. Not sure if this is the full line-up, or if there’s more to come. It’s already very impressive.

It’s on the 8th June, taking place across the Hordern Pavilion, Royal Hall Of Industries, Forum and Entertainment Quarter (Fox Studios).

I don’t think I’ll want to miss going to this. Here’s some of the internationals they have annouced, that I’m excited about…

Dubfire
Stephan Bodzin [live]
Marc Houle [Live]
Gaiser [Live]
David Squillace
Ellen Allien
Modeselektor [Live]

Keen to check out these as well…

Lindstrom [Live]
Mr Oizo
Utah Saints
Steve Lawler
Mix Master Mike (Beastie Boys DJ)

Full line-up and details: http://www.sounds.net.au

http://vfestival.com.au

V-Festival 08…

It seems odd calling all these events festivals when they are a short single day/night affair, with only a few areas/stages. Nothing like the multi-day festivals OS.

There’s lots of room to grow the V-Festival if Richard Branson is happy to keep throwing $ at it. I can’t see it ever getting bigger than The Big Day Out, probably a good thing.

There were not many acts playing that I was that interested in and desperate to see, but I went along anyway to check it out, my first V-Festival, always nice to hang with friends.

This is the first time I’ve been to a big music event in Centennial Park, yes… really. It’s a nice location, very green, lots of lush grass. There’s not much shade though with the area/space they used, I mention this because I’m not a fan of ‘fun in the sun’, that’s my idea of hell. Actually that’s one of the reasons I don’t go to many of these big event/festivals. Plus they usually don’t feature much if any of the type of sounds/music I’m into, yeah, I’m hard to please. I much prefer smaller/intimate gigs and side-shows these days anyway. You get a better performance.

We got to V-Festival late, around 5.30pm, not being that keen to see anyone who played earlier. Jesus & The Mary Chain were rocking out as we entered the venue, sounded good but I’m not a fan, and only really know that ‘Head On’ song/single. V-Festival is a very well organised event, no complaints about wait times or lines for entry, toilets, food and drink, it was all quick and easy. Very different situation from the year before I’m told. The crowd seemed chill and friendly, good range of ages, no fluro, certainly not a munt-fest, nice.

The stage setups were impressive, good light shows. There was a nice natural light show happening in the clouds, with a distant thunder storm all night too. Concert sound was big and clear, could have been louder though I felt. I didn’t need my ear-plugs, and had no ringing/deafness afterwards, so probably means the sound was ideal. Some of the sound engineering at times was far from attentive though, with channels coming up late, or not on at all, which lost small details during Air, and with both Air and Duran Duran the main vocals seemed to be lost in the mix. I don’t think they had a centre array of suspended speakers for the vocals, like I’ve seen at other concerts. For the first 1/4 of Duran Duran the guitar level was way too loud, pushing the bass and keyboards too far back in the mix, both being upfront is a key to Duran Duran’s early sound, I notice the Klaxons do the same with their sound, works well.

I was quite happy with our position in the crowd for Air and Duran Duran, being just left of centre, and about 10-15 people back from the front of the stage/barrier when closest. People around seemed friendly, fun, music focused and respectful, which was excellent, makes for a nice change.

Air : I only really know their music from movie soundtracks “The Virgin Suicides” and “Lost In Translation”, and their single ‘Sexy Boy’. They put on a good live show. Great musicians, tight drummer. Lots of tasty old-school synths and electric piano keyboards up on stage in use. They even had a roadie changing patch cables and knobs on an old analogue Korg or Moog mono synth between songs, a human patch changer if you will. Music was very lounge/chill, very French, with that retro-electro vibe. Nice sounds for a sun-set, thankfully a few drops of rain didn’t turn into a shower. They ended their set with a rocking intensity complete with strobe light mayhem, awesome. The kids love those vocoded vocals, or ‘Daft Punk’ robot vocals as they call them, never heard screams and cheers for just a vocal effect before. The kids didn’t seem to have the attention span for a whole set of those down-beat sounds, too much else to see as well. I noticed about 1/2 the crowd left after they played ‘Sexy Boy’, clever of them to have it 3/4 into the set. If you left early you missed the best part of their set, the last 3 tracks were excellent, lots of intensity.

Nick Rhodes : Duran Duran : Photo by Joanne Spiteri, more here.

Duran Duran : Not a group I was much of a fan of during the 80s, my best friend Paul Armour was though. I’ve developed more of an appreciation for them and their music over the years through Joanne, who was, and still is a MASSIVE fan. She paid $400 for a VIP (2nd row) ticket to see them the night before as well. Check out her photos here. She’s had a non stop grin on her face since, and is in her Duran Duran obsessed state currently, glued to YouTube watching everything and anything Duran Duran.

I thought Duran Duran played great at V-Festival. They put on a kick-arse live show, and still have lots of energy, impressive at their age and after all the years of 80s excess. They played lots of hits, and there was much crowd love and singing along. It’s great to see they still have that big concert venue/event attraction after all these years. It makes me angry to hear/read people say Duran Duran were hillarious, a parody of themselves, too old, they should give it up, trying to be something their not, blah, blah, blah. Where’s the respect? There are so many other reformed successful 80s groups, only able to play tiny pubs, RSL and casino cabaret shows these days, that’s when you’re a shadow of your former self. Unlike many of the ‘pretty boy’ bands that followed on from Duran Duran’s success, Duran Duran write all their own (damn catchy) songs, play their own instruments, and play them very well. Their own extended/night-versions of songs were a great concept too.

Simon Le Bon’s vocals are still spot on, he’s a great front man, puts on a good show, not bad for a guy around 50 years of age. He still gets the girls (well 30+ year old women) screaming. The new guitarist Dominic Brown is very good, and importantly knows when not to play, unlike original guitarist Andy Taylor (yes I know all their names) who rocked out with non stop, self-indulgent riffs through almost every song, killing them, last time I saw them about 4 years ago. I don’t think he was on the same page musically anymore, sad when an original member leaves a band though.

I was dissapointed not to hear ‘The Reflex’ and my faves ‘A View To A Kill’ and ‘Ordinary World’ probably the songs of theirs I like most. Joanne said they played them all the night before, during their 2 & 1/2 hour concert. I’m not enough of a fan to want to see them twice in a row. Their ‘White Lines’ cover sounded great, I’d forgotten all about that song, woo Grandmaster Flash! One of the new Timbaland/Timberlake co-productions ‘Nite-Runner’ sounded great, very infectious vocals, with a nice big phat 808 kick boom amongst the programmed R’N’B style. It’s scary to say but I don’t mind a few of the songs on their new ‘Red Carpet Massacre’ album. ‘The Chauffeur’ sounded great too, love how it starts off with Nicks strange, haunting synth sounds with just Simon’s vocal, and then the rest of the band joins in much later, taking it to a new level. New song ‘Tempted’ sounded very nu-rave with John Taylor doing his best to look comfortable playing a synth instead of pounding the 4 strings. Having a session backing singer (sexy black chic in black latex), and a saxophonist (awesome musician) doing the sax parts/solos really completed and complimented the sound, it was missing last time I saw them.

All in all a very impressive live show, not much has changed apart from their age. There was much love in the crowd. Duran Duran looked like they enjoyed every second of their performance, nice to see they still have that passion and energy for performing songs they must have played 1000s of times over. A little technical trouble at the start, but once past that it was rocking. Nice one! I’m not that much of a fan… honest.

The Presets : I don’t mind their singles ‘I Go Hard, I Go Home’ and ‘Are You The One?’ but not much of a fan of the rest of their music/albums. We popped over to see a bit of these guys after Duran Duran finished. Watching and eating some hot chips, corn on the cob, and drinking fresh lemonade, whilst hanging at the back. From where we were it didn’t look or sound like a very exciting live show, it might have been different up closer, maybe. Until the last couple of songs, it was all a bit err… boring really. The masses love that new ‘My People’ single, first I’ve actually heard it, it didn’t do much for me. I got to hear ‘I Go Hard, I Go Home’ which they played last, and it sounded great. Laurent Garnier actually played that when he was last in Sydney, a fun train-spotting fact for you there kids, thanks grand-pa, hehe.

I didn’t bother seeing Queens Of The Stone Age, or Smashing Pumpkins not being the type of music/sounds I’m into. Plus they were playing at the same time as Air and Duran Duran at a stage right over the other side of the area/space. I was comfortable where I was with friends. I can imagine there being a much rougher agro/drunk crowd over there anyway.

I was surprised there were not more people on the mass exodus at the end of the event. I later learnt that the stage’s endings were staggered 15 minutes apart, with the furthest stage from the entrance/exit (where we were) finishing last, that’s good organisation.

After a very long walk (with sore feet) to our friend’s car in Bondi Junction (thanks for the lift home Charles & Rowena) via tiger eating at Harry’s Cafe De Wheels our night was over, and over way before midnight, which is unusual.

It’s a great, well run event, if there’s a better line-up next year, I’d be happy to attend again. Depeche Mode and/or Tears For Fears please Rich!

After V-Festival this w/end, it’s looking like I may get a chance to rest my dancing feet in April, it’s been a really busy, fun bunch of months.

It gets busy again in May…

Alex Smoke [Live] & Matthias Tanzmann @ Lost Baggage – The Cross : 03.05.2008
Kazu Kimura @ The Club Club – Chinese Laundry : 09.05.2008
Gaiser [Live], Marc Houle [Live] @ M_nus 10th Birthday Tour : Lost Baggage – The Cross : 31.05.2008

I was disappointed to learn that Troy Pierce has put off his Australian visit for now. I hope that comes together later this year. He plays great sounds, would love to hear him again. One of the best DJs for interesting sounds we saw on our Europe travels last year.

I’m excited to hear that Phonique has been booked to play at Chinese Laundry in early July. He was great at Water-Gate in Berlin last year. However I fear on the same night, Lost Baggage now have Luca Bacchetti who has released some great sounds on the Wagon Repair label, a tough decision.

The ‘We Love Sounds 2008’ line-up is due out any day now. There’s been rumours of Stephan Bodzin, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Loco Dice, and Luciano… Any of those guys would be great, we’ll have to wait and see, I doubt we’ll get Rich or Ricky.

After hearing what Joris played the night before, and never really being a fan of some of the Bread & Butter sounds, I was nervous that this could be 6 hours on a boat with music I’m not into…

However… I had a lot of fun at this. The time went by really quickly, crusing the harbour on the MV Lady Rose from 6.45pm untill midnight. Lots of fun people around, and good to meet some of the new-school techno kids on ITM.

It was great to be able to party on Good Friday in Sydney for once. The local DJ’s playing back to back warming things up in the main room did a fantastic job, lots of great minimal/tech sounds.

I didn’t venture to the decks/rooms above, with the more disko, elektro, and house sounds. It seemed to be where a lot of of the usual Bread & Butter crowd were, friends reported it as being scary/messy up there, hehe.

It was mostly smooth sailing, with the odd moment of wobbling from side to side. At times we got blasted with really cold wind, across the boat, through the dance-floor, blowing my hair everywhere. I’m glad I took my jacket. I love that feeling of still being on the boat, hours after you’re back on land.

Joris Voorn played for 3 hours, from 9pm till the end of the cruise, and played much better at this, than at Lost Baggage the night before. He was still all over the place style/flow wise, but he played much better tracks. Once again he did the turn down the master volume thing before playing, which forced everyone up close to him and the speakers. He’s certainly moved on to a more deep-house sound overall, no more techno.

Some of the tracks Joris played, train-spotted by Wowky, Tad, myself and Marco Vision (Adam Jace) from ITM…

Rodamaal – Insomnia (Ame Remix)
Jay Shepheard – Pipes N Sneakers
Arto Mwambe – Ombala Mbembo
Aril Brikha – Berghain
Stereotyp – Keepin’ Me (Fauna Flash Remix)
Rejected – Let’s Go Juno
Josh Wink – Higher State Of Consciousness
Chymera – Umbrella (Beatless Mix)
Rejected – Cliche
Joris Voorn – The Deep (Jimpster Remix)
Patrick Chardonnay – Eve By Day
H.O.S.H – White Elephant
Afrilounge – Lux Dementia
SIS – Orgsa
Johnny D – Gualia
Jeroen Verheij – Chica-Go (Rejected Rotterdam Rework)
Prompt – Evolve
Johnny D – Walkman
Marshall Jefferson Vs Noosa Heads – Mushrooms (Justin Martin Remix)
Dennis Ferrer – Son of Raw (Loco Dice Remix)
Harold Heath – Mercury Blues
Akabu – Im Not Afraid of The Future (Jimpster Remix)
Bob Marley – 400 Years (Jimpster Remix)
Suedmilch – Hakuna (Kanio Bing Bong Mix)
Sweet Coffee – Keep On Running (Sterac Electronics Remix)
Robert Babicz – Dark Flower (Joris Voorn Magnolia Mix)
Federico Molinari – Takk Brett

Photos by spinal_faun from ITM

Thanks and bye bye Bread & Butter, all the best. Thanks for the lift home Wowky!

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.