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The "talk about your last night out" thread (pg. 29)
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| SYSTEM-J |
I'm going to bump this thread, because I've been out a few times since it last floated to the top, and at least two of them were fantastic nights.
Most recently, I saw Patrice Baumel at an Anjunadeep night in London at the weekend, and he played a remarkable amount of trance. He dropped Xpander, the James Holden remix of Fine Day, Ame's update mix of L'Esperanza and that Konstantin Sibold track Mutter, as well as numerous other arp-y driving tech(no) tracks over the course of three hours. I've heard quite a lot Baumel's sets and generally he stays more in the softer end of the Kompakt sound, but here he played in the peak slot and clearly brought out his more banging side. It was a really enjoyable night - I've heard a lot of bad opinions about the club XOYO, but it seems when you take the drunk 18-year old student crowd out of the equation it improves dramatically. Say what you like about Anjunadeep but the crowd were absolutely fantastic and the place stayed full right to the end. Theo Kottis managed to fulfill the quota of fluffy Anjuna-fare in the warm-up set as well.
The strange thing is, I heard the James Holden remix of Fine Day the last time I went out clubbing - coincidence, or has something prompted a comeback? On that occasion I was in Vienna for a weekend break with friends, and we managed to catch D-Nox (of "& Beckers" fame) in a tiny galley of a club. D-Nox was very solid and smooth (and dropped Holden right at the end), but the star of the show was the resident, a chap called Def Mike. He came on after a pair of jokers had played one of the wonkiest warm-up sets I've heard in some time. His first record was a minimalist sub-heavy Detroit track that immediately said "No more ing around". From there he built it up through crunchy rhythms into to a master-class in emotive melodic tech, full of those enormous bass chords that producers reach for nowadays to provide their chills. He was genuinely one of the most effortless DJs I've heard in some time.
The only downside was that there's no smoking ban in Austria, and being trapped in a box of tobacco fumes reminded me how glad I am that indoor smoking is banned in the UK. I remember people smoking in clubs in Berlin, but perhaps old industrial buildings don't fill up with smoke quite as quickly as custom-built clubs with low ceilings, because it never felt as oppressive. |
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| Woony |
Indoor smoking is actually banned here but nobody's enforcing it in night clubs. Personally i've never been a smoker but I don't mind. It also does a great job of masking the smell of hundreds of sweating people. Berghain on a sunday night without smoking would absolutely reek of sweat.
I think I might have wrote about seeing B12 a month ago somewhere before but I can't remember. Anyways, he (it's just Steve Rutter now) was a bit dissapointing. I think the new material is alright but it doesn't come close to the greatness of the old stuff. But he didn't even play that, a large part of the set were basic acid house grooves. It often felt like he had the intro to an acid track running for five minutes. It wasn't terrible or anything but not what I wanted to hear from a B12 set.
Hyped DJ of the moment, Nicolas Lutz, delivered though. Nice bouncy, slightly weird old tech house. I only wished he'd mixed it up a bit more but I only heard about two hours of his closing set. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| Smokeless clubs don't smell as bad as you might think. You might walk past the odd uber-sweaty bastard or get the smell of stale alcohol if something's been spilled, but that's about it. Dry ice has a very distinctive smell that I never used to notice when smoking was legal, but now is the smell I most associate with clubbing. |
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| planetaryplayer |
| the worst smell in clubbing at the moment is drug farts |
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| evo8 |
| quote: | Originally posted by planetaryplayer
the worst smell in clubbing at the moment is drug farts |
yip, worst thing about the smoking ban!! |
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| Sand Leaper |
Well, I finally went proper clubbing in Oslo, seeing as I got the chance to see Carl Craig twice in one day. I'm not a fan of his recent material, and last time I saw him it was a big disappointment, but it was hard to turn down him AND Jesper Dahlbäck for free about ten minutes from work. The first set was a daytime session at this place behind the opera house, where some brave souls have set up a bunch of speakers, a café and a kitchen inside some empty shipping containers:
The weather sucked, and I spent a bit too much time messing around with a girl instead of dancing, but it was a lot of fun all the same. Carl seemed to be in a very good mood, even resorting to some Kenny Dixon Jr.-type of mic interaction, which was quite unexpected considering that he was far away from home. The sets focused heavily on more percussive drum tracks on the latino/Compost-ish jazz tip that he was involved in around Y2K, and the crowd ate it up. By the time he threw in I Can't Kick This Feeling When It Hits and Never Grow Old, even an absolute deluge of rain couldn't chase most of the crowd away. Good times. I saw Kompressorkanonen from Discogs lurking around in the background, too.
After quickly dashing home to get out of my soaked gear, I went to Carl's evening gig at Jaeger, one of my favourite clubs in Oslo overall. It rarely books DJs that particularly pique my interest, but the venue is very warm and inviting, striking a very good balance between sweaty basement clubbing and laidback bar grooves. Must be all the wood paneling, and the fact that it doesn't book big shot DJs too often.
I came down to Jesper Dahlbäck in full Persuader mode, which was surprisingly danceable and pacey even when dealing in the trademark deep basslines and atmospherics that he is known for under that alias. It definitely set the crowd up nicely for Carl's peaktime affair. It started off rather well, carrying over a lot of the bouncy percussion from the previous set, but after about an hour, it settled into the peaktime straight kickdrum bonanza you'd expect around 2 am. At that point, things got too slow, plodding and safe for my tastes (hearing DJ Deeon - The 604 at around 128 bpm made me kinda sad). The filter/bass drop trick kept yielding smaller and smaller returns every time Carl tried it, and the crowd lost a lot of interest towards the end of the evening. I did not expect to hear Chicago - Street Player as the final track of the night though, which was a very pleasant surprise.
A fun weekend of music all in all, even if it frustrated me somewhat that it could have been even better with a DJ that wasn't quite so happy playing it safe. |
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| evo8 |
very quiet this thread - I went to an Ostgut Ton night last weekend, Answer Code Request, played some nice warm-up, nothing too heavy
Then Steffi came on, really looking forward to her set but wasn't great at all, started off with breakbeat which just left everyone waiting, played 1 really good tune and that was it
Luke Slater then closed it out, excellent, just a shame he wasn't on for longer as the time slots were shared - he restored my faith in techno anyway! |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I've been out loads recently, I just couldn't be bothered to write it all up when nobody else was posting. Otherwise this thread would become my clubbing diary.
Since the thread last got bumped I've seen Hernan Cattaneo, Kolsch, Michael Mayer and John Digweed. I can cast my mind back and write them up, if anyone gives a . |
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| craiggarner |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I've been out loads recently, I just couldn't be bothered to write it all up when nobody else was posting. Otherwise this thread would become my clubbing diary.
Since the thread last got bumped I've seen Hernan Cattaneo, Kolsch, Michael Mayer and John Digweed. I can cast my mind back and write them up, if anyone gives a . |
How did you find Hernan Cattaneo? tBH he's always played a little bland for my taste despite my enthusiasm for the modern progressive stuff. The Melbourne crowd assure me that's because he "requires patience" but I dunno... |
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| Paradox Lost |
| quote: | Originally posted by craiggarner
How did you find Hernan Cattaneo? tBH he's always played a little bland for my taste despite my enthusiasm for the modern progressive stuff. The Melbourne crowd assure me that's because he "requires patience" but I dunno... |
I wish I could go out and somehow catch Cattaneo on a 'disc 1' night- those slo-mo jams he's been putting up on the A side to his compilations for the past eight or so years have just been stellar. The uptempo stuff he bangs out to the floor and on his show is pretty bland for my taste, as well (been having the same stale experience with Nick Warren). |
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| Lews |
| Surprised you haven't already written about Diggers! |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by craiggarner
How did you find Hernan Cattaneo? tBH he's always played a little bland for my taste despite my enthusiasm for the modern progressive stuff. The Melbourne crowd assure me that's because he "requires patience" but I dunno... |
He absolutely tore the arse out of it for the first half. It was a Sudbeat showcase and Lonya and Khen had been playing very slow and ploddy "modern progressive", as you call it, for the first 3 hours - all very pleasant, but lacking in any horsepower. The night badly needed a kick up the arse, and Cattaneo came on and provided exactly that. I've no idea what he was playing - it sounded like dark, savage tribal progressive - but it lit a firework underneath the dancefloor alright. After probably 30-40 minutes of driving prog, he shifted into more techno stuff. I remember him dropping Chymera - Episode around the hour mark. Then in the second half he eased off and played more melodic, anthemic stuff - the Victor Ruiz mix of Monkey Safari - Dodge, Yotto - Cooper's Cup and Tone Depth - Memory Man all got a run out towards the end.
I honestly didn't know he was capable of such devastation, because all the livesets I've heard online have been quite smooth, mellow affairs. The mixing was simply sublime as well. Along with Michael Mayer, whose set I sort-of reviewed in the Michael Mayer thread recently, it was definitely the best set I've heard all year. Far better than the meandering pile of e Diggers served up. |
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