Archive for January, 2009
Orbital Return!!!!
Friday, January 30th, 2009 | Event Preview, News | No Comments
When I was a wee nipper one of the inspiring things about dance music was seeing Orbital headline the main stage at Glastonbury. It was electrifying to see their electronic sounds and bobbing torch spectacles whip up the thousands of people predominantly into their indie music. It was truly a magical moment. I talk as if I was there, but unfortunately I was only of the age which allowed me to go across the road. I witnessed the occasion by the magic of BBC television. It did however set two goals for me, go to Glastonbury (still unachieved) and see Orbital, preferably in one go. The dream vanished in 2004 when Orbital played their last gig never to return.
Something For The Weekend…. Go!Zilla|Mulletover|Fabric
Thursday, January 29th, 2009 | Event Preview, Music | No Comments
Surely it’s time to shake of the January blues? There is definitely a fair few options if you do.
Firstly, Cargo on Saturday plays host to Go!Zilla with Joey Negro’s legendary Sunburst Band. In support is Switzlerland’s Agnes doing a live performance and deck duties being done by Benji B and James Priestly of 1Xtra and Secretsundaze fame respectively. Expect fun, soulful house music.
Since Cargo closes so early you can extend the night and head over to Mulletover. The warehouse floor isn’t even cold from New Years Eve yet, but they’re straight back in there with their winter warmer. Anja Schneider the Berlinette of Mobilee fame and Nottingham legend with Matt “Leftroom” Tolfrey are brought in to blow away the January cob webs alongside Geddes. Over in the second room disco reviver Todd Terje heads things up with the Future Boogie folks. House, Tech-House, Techno and everything in between and if that doesn’t keep you entertained there is the cosmic rays of disco in room two. This has sold out, so get there early.
Finally, since we’re getting back into things proper… we might as well power through till the early hours. Fabric seems to think so. Original Detroit techno minimaliser Robert Hood is in town with Arne Weinberg and Convextion, not to mention the rock like Craig Richards. That still Room 2 goes all Français with Jennifer Cardini along with Ivan Smagghe and Tim Paris making their return.
What a Saturday of things to do! Get involved!
To warm you up a little, the kind folks at Fabric sent over a Tim Paris mix… 
)
Listen below or download from here.
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Tracklist:
Skinnerbox ‘Binaer-Sedenaer’
Jaxson ‘Miami Flys’
Chateau Flight ‘La Roquette’
Instant Boys ‘Nya Farger’
Koze ‘Abudinga’
Johnny White ‘Musique Noire’ (Jamie Jones edit)
Lexy ‘Get Down’
Marc Houle ‘Selection’
Remain ‘Dependance’
Seth Troxler – Aphrika EP
Monday, January 19th, 2009 | Single Review | No Comments
Seth Troxler’s Detroit upbringing has led to another experimental EP for Wolf and Lamb. Aphrika, the title track, is a simple but interesting track. A basic drum track of hollow tom toms and hi hats provide a subtle background for the spoken word monologue. As the monologue progresses prolonged synth lines slowly engulf the foreground in a warm blanket before taking hold to see the track out. Its subtle in its affect, but one you take notice of.
On the other side of this release is Seth Troxler’s remix of Nicholas Jaar’s The Student. It’s a contrasting mix of subdued and fierce percussion which slowly builds to a drop of trashy cymbal hits and splutters of electronic blips. The contrasting subdued percussion and guitar sample still runs throughout the track which creates this weird multidirectional pull. Its hard to make sense of which is ironically both detrimental and interesting at the same time.
Seth Troxler – Aphrika EP is out Feb ’09. Buy other Seth Troxler tracks from DJDownload.
Tracklist:
1. Seth Troxler – Aphrika
2. Nicholas Jaar – The Student (Seth Troxler Mix)
Telefon Tel Aviv – Immolate Yourself | Album Review
Sunday, January 18th, 2009 | Album Review | No Comments
Telefon Tel Aviv a US duo from Chicago, Illinois deliver their third album on the eclectic but very electronic BPitch Control. Coming off the back of supporting Matthew Dear on his US tour, their new album Immolate Yourself looks to redefine Electro/Synth Pop for 2009.
Immolate Yourself is an album of diverse and intelligent textured synth layers which soar and swerve through many emotional states. Opening track The Birds is a bright and breathy track where intertwining synths glide through epic skylines to create a beautiful and warm opener.
The diversity of Telefon Tel Aviv’s range is instantly proven with the following track Your Mouth showing the darker, melancholic side. They use sinister synths layered with melancholic strings through a long chord progression to create a slow and atmospheric movement reminiscent of the darker side of Depeche Mode.
BLOC Book The 13th-15th March It’s BLOC Weekend Baby!
Saturday, January 17th, 2009 | Event Preview, Events, News | No Comments
BLOC Weekend looks set to return after last year’s sell out success. Taking place on the 13th – 15th March weekend, this year sees the early spring weekend move location to the Butlins “mega-resort” in Minehead near Bristol. It boasts the largest water park in the South West with a water slide that can spit you out at up to 40mph. Definitely what you need after a night of jaw breaking techno and Aphex Twin’s microphone in a blender trick! But it’s not really about the luxury settings of the holiday resort its more what’s on. And judging by this year’s current line-up it could be held down the local sewage works without deterring anyone.
So who’s on the bill? › Continue reading
Riz MC – Radar Remixes | Single Review
Saturday, January 17th, 2009 | Single Review | No Comments
Last year Crosstown Rebels released an electronica cross pollination track with Riz MC called Radar. To start the New Year Crosstown have come back with the remixes. The first comes from Ashley Beedle of X-Press 2 Fame. His Ill Communication mix starts with the angry, thundering percussion taken from the original. But it rather quickly transforms into a mellow and luscious track as sweeping strings soar to neutralise thundering percussion. The vocals awkwardly sit somewhere in between the two. And when the track fully metamorphoses into its cloud nine form, the vocals seem like they’ve been shoe horned in like a fat Essex girl in tight hot pants. If anything this should be a dub mix. EDIT – according to the press release there is a dub mix for the digital release only. So hopefully that will do the track justice.
The other mix in this package comes as a little venture into the Dubstep world. Sukh Knight uses a synonymous mechanical dubstep beat accented by light reggae/dub notes. Knight then excellently works the vocals in by taking snippets of the chorus, adding a vocoder effect to bring it inline with the mechanical nature of the track. The result is a raw and well worked remix.
Riz MC – Radar Remixes is released on vinyl 26th Jan/digital 9th Feb. Buy other Riz MC tracks from DJDownload
Tracklist:
1. Radar (Ashley Beedle’s ILL communication mix)
2. Radar (Sukh Knight remix)
3. Radar (Ashley Beedle Dub) (DIGITAL ONLY)
David Keno – Discoteca EP | Single Review
Saturday, January 17th, 2009 | Single Review | No Comments
David Keno makes his debut on Kindisch with his Discoteca release, a funk fuelled three track house EP. Title track Discoteca splices disco bites over a grooving house rhythm. The slithers of disco bass and guitar twangs swell the track with funk as a fidgety vocal snippet reminds you of the name. It’s very straight forward with no breaks making it the perfect lever to change gear with.
Second track Karacho has a similar level of funk fuelled fun with its cheeky bassline riff. But its use of sporadic single notes of various horns as a focal point isn’t particularly original and ultimately quite tedious. On the other side Grutane is a darker creature. Its staccato hook and subtle string sighs come together well and delivers a good release for the breakdown. A solid effort.
Buy David Keno tracks from DJDownload
Tracklist:
1. Discoteca
2. Karacho
3. Grutane
John Tejada Podcast
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 | Event Preview, News | No Comments
You may remember we reviewed John Tejada’s Fabric 44 recently. We’ll if you’re still making your mind up about his CD we have a few ideas. Firstly you could listen to his recent FACT Magazine podcast here and secondly you could catch him live at Fabric this weekend.
ROOM ONE:
John Tejada, Konrad Black, Donnacha Costello (LIVE), Hector
ROOM TWO:
Terry Francis, Luke Slater, The Black Dog (LIVE),
ROOM THREE:
NODISKO 5th BIRTHDAY…
Zak Frost, Lazersonic, Guglielmo Mascio, Bjørn Torske
Then buy the CD from here.
That is all.
Does it matter That There Are Free Tickets to Give Away!!
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 | Event Preview, News | No Comments
Haven’t been to matter yet? Redit runch been holding you back?
Well now is a perfectly good time to as they’re giving away free tickets for this weekend!!! That’s right, free tickets to get in to matter for Friday or Saturday night. A no you won’t have to do anything that you might regret later in life to get them tickets.
So what’s on this weekend?
Friday plays host to Wonky Pop a fun and frivolous night where anything goes and Saturday sees Air take up their new residency with Krafty Kuts and Ali B. So its defo worth checking out the club since its free. It would be rude not to.
To get your tickets just follow the instructions at http://www.mixmag.net/content/get-unlimited-free-tickets-matter-weekend-mixmagnet
Shlomi Aber – Namego/Black EP | Single Review
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 | Music, Single Review | No Comments
There seems to be no stopping Shlomi Aber. Out of no where this little known Israeli producer has been making massive waves in the house/techno pool. After making a name for himself on Cocoon and Ovum, Aber has been pushing his own label for the past year with Namego/Black being the latest EP.
Namego is a fierce and energy filled techno number centring around punchy galloping beats and a shuffling bassline. There isn’t much width to this track, instead Shlomi tweaks and adjusts the existing elements to give the track body whilst using filters to create the breaks and drops. Its simple, effective techno. The production values are high but I do wonder if it sounds like the latest roll off from the big room techno conveyor belt that Dubfire et al all seem to be using.
On the flip we have Black, a tamer incarnation of Namego. Familiar beats are toned down whilst tribal elements are brought in to give the track some swing and groove. A whirring tribal chant sample cycles back and forth through the track to crystalise Shlomi’s aim of producing an African tribal-esque house come techno track. Nothing groundbreaking, but like so many of Shlomi Aber’s productions done to a very high standard.
Tracklist:
A. Namego
B. Black
Dyed Soundorom – Naked/Beautiful Eva EP | Single Review
Sunday, January 11th, 2009 | Music, Single Review | No Comments
The latest and only second release on Crosstown Rebel’s digital label comes from Parisians Dyed Soundorom. They’ve also roped in long time Detroit producer Aaron Carl for a vocal work out. A side Naked is a laidback deep house track where spaced out chord stabs are punctuated with the slightest of sonar blips. Aaron Carl lays down some breathy spoken word vocals in true US house style to produce a typical but effective deep house cut.
On the flip is Beautiful Eva, still keeping very much in the house vein, Dyed Soundorom turns to punchier percussion and quaint vocal samples as landmarks on a pretty flat house track. It has a great groove but lacks some spark to differentiate itself from the others.
Released 19th January exclusively on Beatport
Tracklist:
1. Naked
2. Beautiful Eva
John Tejada – Fabric 44 | Album Review
Sunday, January 11th, 2009 | Album Review, Music | 1 Comment
I always thought John Tejada was from Spain or somewhere quite Mediterranean but it turns out he’s from the west side, more specifically Los Angeles. Which kind of figures as his productions whilst sounding quite European always stood out from the rest. His sound is difficult to pin down. Whilst it would often be stripped back in a European way, at the same time it would be full sounding and raw.
Tejada’s Fabric 44 mix follows in the same mentality, pulsating in waves of stripped back dub goodness and raw twisted mechanical sounds. Tejada would often lead in with subdued dub influenced tracks such as Pigon’s Kamm, Equalised 001’s rattling percussion or ’08 favourite Wax1001 before allowing a swell of twisted electronic noises to take the forefront. Tracks such as Namlook’s Subharmonic Atoms and the brooding nature of Alex Cortez’s Phlogiston or Tejada and Maxwell’s very own Benus Boats is like a pressure release of pent-up techno anger. Once the electroncia wave is unleashed Tejada settles back down reducing the flow to simple loops, positioning himself to pounce again like a cat. It’s a concept that works well and Tejada’s execution is flawless. He even elegantly slots in Orbital classic Farenheit 303 in amongst Tejada’s pseudo acid house.
Although this is a well executed and thought out mix, I’m in two minds about my final opinion. On some listens I find the CD a little dull, whilst on other listens I find it exciting and fascinating. Its strange how this CD polarises my opinion. The only reason that I can think of is due to the twisted electronica elements. I guess sometimes they just rub me up the wrong way putting me off the mix whilst on other listens they don’t seem so brash fitting well into the mix. But if you’re all for twisted mechanical electronic sounds all the time I’m sure you’ll find this mix a pleasure to listen to all the time. So it’s a divided thumbs up from me.
Buy John Tejada Fabric 44 on CD
Tracklist (Click for MP3):
1. Dave Hughes – Let’s Do It
2. Pigon – Kamm
3. Namlook – Subharmonic Atoms
4. Donnacha Costello – Colorseries Olive B
5. WAX – WAX10001
6. Nekes – Cristal
7. Alex Cortez – Phlogiston EP
8. Palette All-Stars – Downtown Hotel
9. Palette All-Stars – After School Special
10. EQD – Equalized001
11. John Tejada & Justin Maxwell – Benus Boats
12. John Tejada & Arian Leviste – M Track 1
13. Orbital – Fahrenheit 303
14. John Tejada – Torque
15. M-Core – Be Gene
16. John Tejada & Arian Leviste – Forbidden Planet
17. Substance – Relish (Shed Remix)
18. Spooky – Candy
19. John Tejada – The Open
20. LJ Kruzer – Huba (Plaid’s 15 Years Lost Remix)
A Little Geddes Mix To Warm You Through
Thursday, January 8th, 2009 | Event Preview | No Comments
Shake off those cob webs, detox resolutions are there to be broken so you can compare stats with your friends. The less time spent on your detox the great the sign of bravado, coolness and… urm… feeble will power. I lasted until the Saturday when I was coaxed into a trip to The End to celebrate the New Year with a friend who was ill on the real New Year. How I crumbled or more so flopped over like a digestive biscuit dunked in tea.
Anyways, the reason I’m banging on about going out is because long time EarPipe favourite Geddes of Mulletover/Rekleiner/MurMur Records fame is making his debut at Fabric this Saturday (10th Jan). You might of thought he’s played there before, I did… turns out I was wrong. He’s on the bill with Jamie Jones and Craig Richards in Room 1 and the tech house purveyors Nathan Cole and Eddie Richards from Wiggle in Room 2. A humbly brilliant line-up if you ask me.
If you don’t feel in the mood then perhaps this little winter warmer mix from Geddes will persuade you. And if you don’t go or can’t make it, then think of this as an example of what you missed out on.
Enjoy )
Listen below or download from here.
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Tracklist (Click for MP3):
01. Joss Moog – ’Welcome To Ohio’ – Robsoul
02. Cavalier – ‘I Know’ – Drumpoet Community
03. Nima Gorji – ‘I Got Something’ – Love Letters From Oslo
04. Cherry ‘Alex’ – (Nick Curly Remix) – Four Twenty
05. Enzelkind – ‘El Pianucho’ – Love Letters From Oslo
06. Harry Choo Choo Romero – ‘Suck My Clock’ – Sondos
07. Seuil – ‘Double Room’ – Moon Harbor
08. Matt Masters – ‘Deep Or What’ (Milton Jackson Remix) – Pack Up And Dance
09. Boris Horel – ‘Is That A Yes’ (Bearweseal Dub) – Supernature
10. Markus Fix – ‘Be Boston’ – Cecille
11. Bearweseal – ‘4 Weeks In Poverty’ – 8bit
Lets Do The German TimeWarp Again
Thursday, January 8th, 2009 | Event Preview, News | No Comments
You may still be revelling in the aftermath of New Years Eve shenanigans but please do spare a thought for your party needs in April as tickets are now on sale for this year’s TimeWarp event in Mannheim Germany!!
If you haven’t already heard that the bird is the word, TimeWarp is a humongous indoor arena Techno event in Germany which has been running for the last nine years or so. EarPipe was lucky enough to check out TimeWarp last year and by golly the Germans don’t do things by half. Last year every conceivable techno DJ was on the bill, from Hawtin and Vath to Villalobos, Luciano, Cox and Liebling (there were so many names I obviously had to resort to surnames only). They even had enough room to give Laurent Garnier his own arena for nine hours. It’s a proper German style marathon event starting from the Saturday evening running right through till late afternoon on the Sunday. Last year Richie Hawtin began his 7 hour closing set at 7am!?!?!
The setting itself was some sort of market place/arena complex based in the sleepy industrial town of Mannheim just south of Frankfurt. Whilst it doesn’t sound very extravagant the production effort for the event is next to none. If you don’t believe me check out the photos from last year here.
Getting to TimeWarp is pretty straight forward too. Simply jump on an aeroplane and head to Frankfurt. You can get trains from the airport direct to Mannheim and it only takes about 30-40 minutes. So technically you can fly out on Saturday morning/afternoon, go straight to Mannheim for TimeWarp, then go straight back to the airport and fly home. It’s doable but exhausting like we found out last year. So this year EarPipe will probably make it into a nice weekend get away, flying to Frankfurt on the Friday checking out either the legendary Robert Johnson nightclub or Sven Vath’s futuristic Cocoon, then doing TimeWarp followed by flying back either Sunday or Monday. Does that sound deluxe or what?
UK folks can get their tickets from Ticketweb
But it might work out cheaper to get the international E-Ticket from here
http://www.time-warp.de/content/e2/index_eng.html
Apparently The End will end but might not end the way we thought it would end
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 | News | No Comments
It turns out the people that own the venue which the End is situated in have changed their mind on turning the venue into offices and luxury apartments due to the current economic climate. So they are instead looking to keep it as a night club! Unfortunately the folks that run The End as we know it have already made their plans and didn’t want to continue on. So The End will still end, but its likely to continue as a club, hopefully something decent. Mr C told the “always first to know” folks at 4Four.org after a rumour from data transmission emerged the End might continue. However Mr C was sceptical whether anything in a similar vein would take its place.
EarPipe Has an Even Hazier Look Back at the Music Through 2008
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 | Music, News | 1 Comment
I normally struggle to think what tunes have been and gone in the last month, so trying to remember what I was listening to back in January is a mountainous mission in itself, which is probably why I’m going to write this avoiding any specifics and will talk around the subject pretending I know what I’m talking about like any good politician would do. But from what I can recollect “minimal” became housier (or maybe I became housier?), Dubstep collided with Techno and Disco has undergone a massive revival
So lets start with the shift towards the housier sounds. We noticed a lot of DJs ditching the repetitive and bland “minimal” sounds that were starting to stagnate and instead nudging more towards the house end of the spectrum. This meant a bit more funk and soul embedded into tracks, more vocals and jazzier samples. It may sound like we’re harking back to the funky house days circa 2000-02, but this was slightly different, it was more an amalgamation of what came out of the “minimal-tech” sounds which dominated ’05-’07 with older house music sensibilities as seen from the Chicago deep house days. A perfect example of this is probably My My, their remix of Djuma Soundsytem’s Les Dijnns ’s typifies where the sound was during 2007 whilst their latest release Everybody’s Talkin’ is a glimpse into the house sound doing the rounds at the moment. The same goes for Josh Wink’s Stay Out All Night and Matthew Styles We Said Nothing, both distinctly Chi-town influenced numbers which bebop’s to a fun and funked up skipping rhythm. In a similar vein who could forget Johnny D who’s had a fantastic year. His track Orbitallife was causing raucous everywhere through the summer not to mention all his other releases.
But then it wasn’t all fun funked up house, this year saw a lot of dub style house and techno music with heavy basslines at a relaxed pace. Tracks like Trus’me’s W.A.R Dub particularly stood out as did a lot of the output from Gedde’s new label MurMur which had artists like Bearweasel pumping out deep and hypnotic house. One of the best tracks of the year for me was the highly elusive Wax1001. There was no artist or label, just this white label containing the rawest house track ever. A simple track with clunky beats, classic hi hat patterns and a dark raw bassline made Wax1001 show how less is definitely more.
Earpipe Looks Hazily Back at the Clubs, Festivals and Parties in 2008
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 | Events, News | 1 Comment
Well that’s another year over. Where did the time go? For us it was mostly spent in darkened rooms listening to repetitive electronic music in and around London with the occasional trip to another city or abroad. It probably explains why this look back on 2008 is a hazy one at best. I believe we left most of our brain cells splattered across Fabric’s dancefloor. But we’ve managed to piece together the fractured pieces of memory to come up with this half rate look back at 2008. Enjoy )
One of the main stories of 2008 has to be the shake up of London clubs. 2008 kicked off on a sombre note with the closure of The Cross/Key/Canvas complex in Kings Cross. Apparently Kings Cross needed some regeneration to make it look good for the incoming French on the EuroStar. As a double whammy Turnmills also decided to close their doors at the end of January, due to the lease holders deciding their central London location would make much more money as flats and offices rather than from weekends of debauchery. They’re right, but even though Turnmills had pretty much run its course pushing a dying Trance night and a load of “electro house” nights with asymmetrical haircuts it was still a shock losing two stalwarts of the scene.
Nick Curly – Critical Mass EP | Single Review
Friday, January 2nd, 2009 | Music, Single Review | No Comments
Episode 6 of the MurMur adventure. We’re a little late on this latest Nick Curly release which came out around the start of December. But we thought we should give it a mention for the New Year. Title track Critical Mass is a beautiful multi-faceted melodic number. Conservative beats provide the grounding for layer upon layer of hypnotic melodies which swirl and intertwine beautifully to create a muted crescendo.
Geddes remixes b-side Kalimba. He uses tumbling beats and basslines to edge closer to an understated three note riff breakdown. Blink and you’ll miss it. Classic deep hypnotic house with an infectious raw groove.
Tracklist:
1. Critical Mass
2. Kalimba (Geddes Mix)
3. Kalimba (Original Mix)
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