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Review: What's in The Box - Noah Pred, The Mole + more
Arrived at The Drake around 11:00pm or so to see the underground was pretty sparse but a few people milling about. Enjoyed Noahs set for the most part and was warming things up nicely and tossing in the odd hints of housier-sounds here and there. While never full-on thumping, it had enough energy to get me moving a bit on the dance floor. By 11:45 or so, the place was starting to fill up and the energy level in the set was increasing and had me dancing a fair bit by the end of it.
After that, Knowing Looks came on, had never heard of the guy before - but all I can say is BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING. His set had me regretting breaking my usual 'in bed by 11/12 on a work-knight' rule and quickly sent me to the benches to sit down for a bit. Slow boring base lines, reverbed out clangs echoing around ploddy head-nodding beats and generally uninspired IMO. It's the kind of stuff I'd thrown on as background noise at a dinner party for not-intrusive enough to over-ride conversation but still provide some background music. *yawn*, so I stepped outside for some fresh air for a few minutes. When people bitch about laptop sets being boring - I imagine this is the crap they are talking about. (I have no hate for laptops usually, few of my favorite acts are nerds behind laptops, but I digress)
Ventured back in just as The Mole was hitting the decks playing on vinyl. I've caught The Mole a few times, first time was 4 or 5 years ago at some Loft party in Montreal, and it's been neat to watch his sound grow and evolve. He's someone I usually don't hear that much about/of - but when I do I take notice because it's usually top-notch stuff. He kept the pace a bit slow at the start but still interesting and had me dancing again with a smile on my face, and he quickly sped things up a bit to bring out the party vibe.
He mixed between various styles of music from housier sounds, to techy/minimal to a few acid basslines and hints of disco loops here and there, but more often then not into the territory of "I don't really give a fuck what genre this is, its damn good music, putting smile on my face and making me dance up a storm".
I like how he doesn't play into the 'trends of the moment', does his own thing and does it very, very, very well. Great flow to his set, smooth mixing and all around aces in my book. First time I've thought to myself in a long time "I gotta go pee, but I dont want to" because I was enjoying the music so much. Totally made it worth staying out late on a work-night. Down with genres, up with good music! 
2:00am rolled round, the place was still pretty full and The Mole was still on the decks, but sadly the better sense of logic kicked in telling me "I have work in the morning and live on the other side of town" and had to venture out before getting a chance to catch Vincent Lemieux.
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