quote:

Originally posted by Woony He played Berghain yesterday and it was so fucking lame. The same reverb-drenched bigroom kick and bassline for three hours with some vague, reverb drenched generic pads on top and occasionally some hihats and these reverb drenched and delayed to hell rides he loves so much. It wasn't even particularily danceable since it was just a vague, booming wall of sound with no standout elements or the usual rhythmic and melodic cues you have in dancefloor tracks.

shit, he was excellent when i saw him

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Went out for the first time in a long while saturday night for Mutek Montreal. The line up was pretty good this year, but I think we chose the right event. We opted for Nocturne 4, with Paul Trafford (local DJ set) opening up, Gunner Haslam Live, Patricia live, Svengalisghost live, and Anthony Naples headlining DJ set.

It was a last minute decision but for only $20 we were eager to check it out. The venue seemed interesting, The Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. Normally these events take place in one of the various concert halls, but a techno party inside a museum? If any promoter could pull it off, it'd be Mutek.

A few of us had gotten tickets online earlier in the day and a few of us needed to buy some at the door. As usual, pre-party lasted longer then it should have, having some cold beers on a muggy night at a friend's place down the street but we eventually made it in without much hassle.

I had never been to the Museum of Contemporary Art, I normally check out the Fine Arts museum so I didn't know what to expect. We walked in, and in Mutek fashion everything was extremely well organized. Tickets purchased in the gorgeous main atrium, we headed upstairs where we could already hear the rumbling techno. We follow a maze into a chill out room, dim red lighting with picnic tables all over, a projector displaying live footage of the main room stage on a large white wall with the music in sync, albeit just audible enough to understand whats going on. Very cool, as normally, pieces of artwork hang on these tall white walls in the square room.

We keep walking through the passage ways into the main room, its 11:30 and Patricia is on. The main hall is a HUGE square room with 25 foot ceilings with built in bass traps. There are bars on both sides and a MASSIVE sound system installed. About 2000 people are bouncing around to a sound I'd call warehouse techno. I didn't know who Patricia was, but we made our way to the front to see what was going on. Patricia, a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-raised techno savage was rocking back and forth frantically on a large table of analog gear.

Very groovy, druggy, thumping peak time techno. The sound was incredible... all along the front of the stage were the bass bins, with large speakers at each corner of the room, a huge visual screen displaying minimal polygonal shapes, lasers and LED lighting.. all standard for a Mutek production.

After smoking a joint, I was thoroughly enjoying Patricia's set having missed Gunner Haslam (who was great, according to Adam420) and Paul Trafford, who I've seen a bunch of times. The room was packed at midnight, and Patricia got a HUGE cheer when he dropped the tempo and pitch to a grudging halt ending his set.

Svengalisghost came on, his live gear all set up. I didn't know what to expect, I've heard his records on L.I.E.S., but was not aware of his live set at all. He started off very slow, dubby reverb-filled noises and sounds, and came on the microphone, chanting inaudible words through a heavily filtered / effects unit. This "intro" turned out to be his live set, I'd describe it as industrial music, not really techno but almost? Sonically, it sounded great.. but it clearly wasn't working for a crowd of 2000 people, after Patricia had just demolished the room with pummeling, grooving techno.

I was already very tired, working 10 hours on my feet and needed something to keep em moving.. the room slowly cleared, many people left, A LOT of people went out to the gorgeous terrasse, as we did to have a smoke and chill. Its a shame, because his set was very unique, and maybe it would have worked in a small venue. We hung out in the chill out room drinking beers, until Anthony Naples came on.

Svengalisghost still got a massive cheer from the crowd as Anthony's DJ gear was being installed on the stage. Because the crowd had dispersed, we got ourselves a prime spot in the exact middle of the large room, waiting to get kicked in the dick with bass. The room filled back up slowly, as Anthony began. His intro was very industrial, weird soundscapes, it was dragging a little too long as I heard deep bass kick drums, sounded like he was having problems mixing the track in. My friend had noticed he plugged in his USB stick into a CDJ, and shut one of the turntables off, definitely a technical problem.. desperate to save the set from failure, he quickly mixed in a HUGE techno beat. The room errupted into cheers, as he was pushing the massive sound system to its limits. It was TOO loud. We were in the middle of the room getting destroyed, and I felt like my ears would start bleeding if I stayed so we took a little break again, despite the quality techno selections.

After coming back from a smoke, we settled in on the side of the stage outside the aim of the large speaker stacks.. the sound was loud but much more bearable. Anthony got it together playing quality tune after quality tune, some great melodic chunes on top of chugging beats. Highlight of the night was finally hearing this gem:



Overall, amazing night out of music. What a great venue and production for a night of techno.

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Corjay - Spring Funk '14 [Downtempo Funk / Jazz / Disco / Deep House]

Saw Plaid at About Blank yesterday. It's hard to explain in words, but a summer night in the garden is basically the perfect setup for dreamy, emotional music. I'm not too deep into Plaid's recent discography but I think it sounded like a mix between their last two albums, very child-like, bright melodies with IDM-ish beats and some guitar riffs mixed in (they had an actual guitar in their setup). If you are fan of the mentioned recent albums you probably would have had a great time but except for a few tracks, it all sounded a bit too indie-tronica for me - I kept imagining James Blake or Jamie XX trying to emulate classic IDM acts.

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June 2018 mix

Ben Ufo b2b Call Super for five hours last sunday. They started out with some quite nice deep house. They played some UK garage later on, which I had hoped for, but it didn't really go off. In the middle hours they played way too much disco & funk for my taste though, including a track that was nothing but some black dude having a monologue for five minutes, which felt pretty forced and tryhard to me.

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June 2018 mix

quote:

Originally posted by Woony including a track that was nothing but some black dude having a monologue for five minutes, which felt pretty forced and tryhard to me.

I'm wondering if there's enough tracks with 'Black Dude Giving Monologue' that it should be its own genre by now.

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Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!

Played exclusively by white euro DJs in a nearly, completely white club, I'm sure.

A repost from the NY TA thread. I went to StageONE, which featured Sasha, Scuba, Joris Voorn, Guti, Agoria, Kate Simko and Brad Miller. Got there right as Kate Simko was ending.

I had a blast since this was my first big time out since ABGT100 (yeah, I like Anjuna [though more so the Deep aspect]. So sue me :P )

Was most impressed with Agoria, since he was the name on the roster I was least familiar with. He played funky and melodic tech house that was perfect for the early afternoon.

Guti kinda disappointed me a bit... last time I saw him he played deep house with lots of twinkling melodies, this time it was just your basic south american minimal techno (Luciano) - big basslines and lots of percussion, but no melodies.

Joris was probably the highlight of the show. Great, standout tracks including an ode to NYC in dropping "The Funk Phenomena". Only problem were the levels weren't tuned correctly so the highs were ear-piercing.

Scuba wasn't too bad, but by this time I didn't do much dancing... just recovered for Sasha. Seemed like the brand of dark techno you associate with him, but it was nice hearing him close with Sandy B's "Make The World Go Round", one of the songs that initially got me into house.

Sasha was a mixed bag... a bit slow and much too techy in the middle (plus he was playing fast, like around 130bpm), but started going once he dropped "Turn Down The Lights" by Alan Fitzpatrick. Wish he could have kept going (I was way too tired and hungry by that time to want to go to the afterparty... I'm 33 now and have been doing this since early college).

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9-9-99 Never Forget

Quarantine Music Festival 2020

All My Mixes!

quote:

Originally posted by monks2617 He and Liebing have the same sound and it's getting pretty old quickly...boring as hell.

I downloaded a 6 hour Speedy-J marathon and it was exactly as Woony described although I dont know all of the terminology. Somehow every track sort of ended up sounding the same even though the underlying music was fundamentally different. Was a fun set but I dont think I'd go back and listen to it on any regular basis.

Went down to London last week for a marathon 16 hour party with Michael Mayer, Extrawelt, Robag Wruhme, Alex Niggemann and Christian Loffler. While it was a good party on average, the programming of the line-up was badly misjudged and marred what could have been a much better night.

We got there just after 6pm just as Alex Niggemann was starting. The sun was still out and most people were still outside on the terrace. Until recently I didn't really know much about Niggemann but after listening to a couple of his podcasts in the build-up to this party I was keen to hear him. He was playing to a half-empty room when he came on but he didn't really make any attempt to reign in his set. The style he plays is basically rooted in German melodic techno but with a liberal helping of chunky bass chords in the bottom end. You could almost describe it as modern day prog in places. Towards the end he also got into some big room Detroit-ish fare. Although the place was still filling up throughout his set and most people were still sober he whipped up a great atmosphere, and the mixing and flow were very good throughout. At this point it looked all set for a classic night out. Then Robag Wruhme came on.

Now, it was still only 9.30pm at this point, but the sun had just set and the room had finally filled up and Niggeman had left the place in peak time mood. After dropping an Ennio Morricone excerpt as his opener, Wruhme proceeded to destroy all traces of energy in the crowd with three hours of dull-as-fuck minimal techno. Stood on a podium near the back of the room all I could see was an ocean of barely-moving heads, a tapestry of collective apathy.

Extrawelt eventually came on and played a 90 minute live set. This started out well, restoring the energy level to where it should have been three hours prior, but they began to lose the momentum halfway through and once again the room slipped into lethargy.

Finally at 2am Mayer came on and did the damage. I've heard a lot of Mayer sets and he generally tends to follow the same pattern while set-building: start off atmospheric and melodic, move into a harder section of techno and marching basslines before reprising the melodies and big vocals in the final third. This set followed that playbook pretty closely but no less effectively. The music was truly lush at times - my girlfriend dubbed it "ambitious trance". The mixing and flow was generally very good, aside from one notable transition where he pretty much let one track play out and then hit play on the next one.

I don't know if there were external factors affecting the line-up, but Niggeman should really have been shunted back in the line-up to play just before Mayer, with Wruhme on warm-up duties. Wruhme's minimal stuff would have worked far better when people were just arriving and sipping a drink than at the start of peak time, and Niggemann had no interest in playing a restrained warm-up set. There were also some other factors which held the night back - the soundsystem was pretty weak and quiet at the back of the room, but at the front it was ridiculously fucking hot. Even if you went outside to cool down for 15 minutes, within two minutes of getting back into the crowd you were literally dripping with sweat. It was absurd.

Altogether though, I'm glad Niggemann didn't hold back as he probably played the set of the day for me. Him and Mayer together would have comprised six hours of peak time dancefloor nirvana. It's just a shame there were 4.5 hours of boring shit sandwiched between them.

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Mixes:
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24
> Surface Tension [Progressive Trance]
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]

If you enjoy any of these sets and want to hear me live, I'll be playing a 2 hour progressive trance set at Basing House in Shoreditch, London on 11th October.
I'm also a resident at our bi-monthly party Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

Last edited by SYSTEM-J on Jul-14-2015 at 13:11

Saw Lee Burridge in philly this past weekend. He's the successor to Sven Vath IMO. Super-animated in the booth and really fun to watch and interact with. Can't help but love the guy.

He played lots of warm and partially melodic "All Day I Dream" type tech house. Everyone in the place was loving it, myself included. Was dead sober but high off the music for 3 hours.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Went down to London last week for a marathon 16 hour party with Michael Mayer, Extrawelt, Robag Wruhme, Alex Niggemann and Christian Loffler. While it was a good party on average, the programming of the line-up was badly misjudged and marred what could have been a much better night. We got there just after 6pm just as Alex Niggemann was starting. The sun was still out and most people were still outside on the terrace. Until recently I didn't really know much about Niggemann but after listening to a couple of his podcasts in the build-up to this party I was keen to hear him. He was playing to a half-empty room when he came on but he didn't really make any attempt to reign in his set. The style he plays is basically rooted in German melodic techno but with a liberal helping of chunky bass chords in the bottom end. You could almost describe it as modern day prog in places. Towards the end he also got into some big room Detroit-ish fare. Although the place was still filling up throughout his set and most people were still sober he whipped up a great atmosphere, and the mixing and flow were very good throughout. At this point it looked all set for a classic night out. Then Robag Wruhme came on. Now, it was still only 9.30pm at this point, but the sun had just set and the room had finally filled up and Niggeman had left the place in peak time mood. After dropping an Ennio Morricone excerpt as his opener, Wruhme proceeded to destroy all traces of energy in the crowd with three hours of dull-as-fuck minimal techno. Stood on a podium near the back of the room all I could see was an ocean of barely-moving heads, a tapestry of collective apathy. Extrawelt eventually came on and played a 90 minute live set. This started out well, restoring the energy level to where it should have been three hours prior, but they began to lose the momentum halfway through and once again the room slipped into lethargy. Finally at 2am Mayer came on and did the damage. I've heard a lot of Mayer sets and he generally tends to follow the same pattern while set-building: start off atmospheric and melodic, move into a harder section of techno and marching basslines before reprising the melodies and big vocals in the final third. This set followed that playbook pretty closely but no less effectively. The music was truly lush at times - my girlfriend dubbed it "ambitious trance". The mixing and flow was generally very good, aside from one notable transition where he pretty much let one track play out and then hit play on the next one. I don't know if there were external factors affecting the line-up, but Niggeman should really have been shunted back in the line-up to play just before Mayer, with Wruhme on warm-up duties. Wruhme's minimal stuff would have worked far better when people were just arriving and sipping a drink than at the start of peak time, and Niggemann had no interest in playing a restrained warm-up set. There were also some other factors which held the night back - the soundsystem was pretty weak and quiet at the back of the room, but at the front it was ridiculously fucking hot. Even if you went outside to cool down for 15 minutes, within two minutes of getting back into the crowd you were literally dripping with sweat. It was absurd. Altogether though, I'm glad Niggemann didn't hold back as he probably played the set of the day for me. Him and Mayer together would have comprised six hours of peak time dancefloor nirvana. It's just a shame there were 4.5 hours of boring shit sandwiched between them.

This seems 100% accurate with that sort of time slot arrangement. Shame to see this still goes on and part of the reason why often times I feel more optimistic about seeing DJ's do extended sets rather than have the flow ruined by incompetent promoters trying to fit as many names on the bill as possible.

I remember in Toronto about 10 years ago there was a big party with Christopher Lawrence, Markus Schulz, Second Sun and Johan Gielen playing the same room. The order was roughly:

Christopher Lawrence--> His trademark Hard Trance/Psy sound
Markus Schulz --> McProg mixed in with big room trance
Second Sun--> Laughable live PA
Johan Gielen--> All over the place which can't even be described

Being 19 at the time, it was a great lesson learned of just how effective time slots are to a party. I wish every club/promoting company had someone to properly research these things as it really isn't all that complicated.

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quote:

Originally posted by ChemEnhanced any party from 2003 and back I only remember bits and pieces...i've combined those memories into one awesome party