We learned that the reasoning behind the shake-up is due to fabric’s mission on pushing cutting edge music to the clubbers of London. Our source said that when fabric first opened it played cutting edge music that wasn’t heard in the rest of the capital. The other big clubs were still hung up on trance whilst fabric gambled in the other direction. The gamble paid off and now fabric sits on top of the London scene. However fabric understand that they can not stay on top forever if they do not innovate. A lot of clubs now follow the fabric format whilst the now familiar secret warehouse party gives punters a variety of venue. So the only way fabric can differentiate itself is by pushing new sounds that no one else is pushing.

Our inside source has said that new genres Further Trance and Post Donk will be likely additions to the roster. Initially the genres will not be billed alongside the usual house and techno nights, but will instead have their own bi weekly nights similar to how nuskool breaks infiltrated Fridays in the early noughties. But once the sound is successful enough the different nights are sure to merge in time.

The changes seem to make sense. Fabric’s need to stay ahead of the game is vital to its success. Fabric have added new elements of Dubstep, Disco, Future Garage, etc. But these have also been championed by other nights and therefore the power of differentiation is lost. Whilst Berghain has created its own sound from the root level with Ostgut Ton and propelled itself to being the European clubbing Mecca. However with Further Trance and Post Donk literally no club in Europe is pushing this sound. With this opportunity fabric look to reclaim the title of clubbing Mecca.

On further thought it does make a lot of sense. House and Techno has been a long staple in London now. The latest sounds like Future Garage and the recent Disco revival are already being pushed by other nights. So the next logical place to go was obviously Further Trance. Some of the stalwarts of the scene such as Paul Van Dyk, Tiesto and Armin Van Burren have been experimenting with the Further sound and making much progress. Its highly likely that they could be the headliners of the new fabric nights.

While Post Donk pushes the original Donk sound making it more palatable for the often snobby South East. Donk producers soon realised that their sound was never going to travel much further than the end of Wigan Pier once the infamous Donkumentry was released. However combining Donk with the lighter and subtler styles of deep house and disco, the Donk producers of Wigan have touched on a tasty combination that will excite London palettes.

Here at EarPipe towers we welcome the new additions with sceptical but trustworthy open arms. Whilst we’re not sure the sounds will fit we trust fabric in their forward thinking for London clubbing.

Hola hombre! Long time no speak! It’s been a while since our last posting… But this one is going to put that right, just in time for the weekend. And quite a weekend it is to be reopening the blog post account. So lets get down to it…

Basically if your head has been in the ground for the last month or so, or you happen to be a Chilean miner, then you’d be hard pressed to have bypassed the monstrous weekend happening at fabric. The Chilean miners amongst you might have checked the calendar and realised its October. This obviously brings the fabric birthday instantly to mind – mainly due to the fantastic review that we wrote last year. Well for this year they’re following up the phenomenal party with what looks to be another phenomenal party. Part of the magic last year was the three Villalobos sets spread across the Saturday to Monday marathon. This year they’ve got RV back in again. You might ask, are you not fed up with the prospect of RV for another marathon session so soon after the On&On session the other month in August? The answer is no. Literally RV can do no wrong at the moment. I hate to gush, but the guy is just on fire. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Supporting through the weekend will be dOP, Floating Points, Move D, Trus’Me, Ryan Crosson – all people who have been brilliant this year. Plus established firm favourites like Ame, Lazarus, Dixon, Tobi Neumann and Lee Burridge along with the trusty residents Richards and Francis to make the whole weekend a mouth watering melon of a session. If last year was anything to go by you want to buy your tickets right now if you already haven’t… The top tip from earPIPE is go for a bit of a posho breakfast at Smiths or the Modern Pantry, all nearby, followed by some bloody marys down the road from fabric at the Fox & Anchor. Then arrive at fabric around 10am to spend the day in the dark cavernous rooms. If I were a Chilean miner just back on the surface, this is exactly how I would want to celebrate life. FACT.

Get your tickets at TICKETWEB or you can get some interesting ticket CD combos at the Fabric Website.

However if waking up to rave on Sunday just sounds a bit too civilised and you want to bash through from Saturday night, then you might be interested in the following two nights. It’s a toss up between A Night With or Shake It. The former has the always brilliant Ivan Smagghe for the whole eight hours. Smagghe plays a fair bit in London, but he rarely plays for eight hours. Personally I think this will be one of the standout A Night With nights. However… Shake It have brought in some Minus folks in the form of Magda and Marc Houle – two DJs that I do thoroughly enjoy hearing out. Its though. Maybe Smagster just sways it, either way they should be both entertaining. But please do get yourself down to fabric, after the tough year they’ve had, they’re bound to be blowing off some major steam. You’ve been warned!

A Night With… Ivan Smagghe (Tickets)

Shake It with Magda, Marc Houle and Layo & Bushwacka! (Tickets)

Things have been a bit quiet on the fabric front these last couple of months with the club and record label briefly going into administration. But funding was secured and everything is now right with the world again. So what better way to bounce back by dropping fabric 53 mixed by UK techno veteran Surgeon. I don’t use the term veteran lightly. Surgeon has been there from the beginnings of UK techno, bringing Birmingham out of the doldrums in the early 90s with the city’s first techno night as well as creating some of the most forward thinking music out there. His sound has always been left of centre, but always intense, with no thoughts about keeping a finger on the pulse. He simply does what he does regardless of the tide of popularism. So with such integrity how does his Fabric mix flow?

In a nutshell, his fabric mix is completely reflective of Surgeon’s character. It flows with a persistent intensity that runs through various dark and bassy shades, using regular changes in rhythm to generate interesting textures and contrast. Take for instance his use of dubstep like rhythms from Al Tourettes & Appleblim, Starkey, and Subeena. They deploy huge drops in the flow, yet they subtly feedback into the intensity when the rhythm switches again. It’s a tried and tested method, but Surgeon pulls it off with a brutal elegance.

However it’s not just his first rate execution of known DJ methods that make this mix, he also uses a real full bodied sound.  Tracks like the Ben Sims mix of Black Star Ritual or the alien like AM-4 B1 by Ancient Methods are choc full of focused white noise like a drill to the brain. Whilst on the other hand you’ve got the more traditional relentless techno from the likes of Robert Hood, Orphx and Mark Broom & James Ruskin which provide plenty of drive. The tracks are brash yet together they layer elegantly together to create that on the edge pressure.

From a geeky perspective, when you start to deconstruct this mix you see the level of detail that Surgeon goes to. Often one, two sometimes even three or four tracks bleed into one another, crossing their track marker boundaries like steely Mexicans. Yet the layering is so subtle that it’s easy to lose track of what’s going on. But that doesn’t discount from their importance as these minute border crossings add so much to this mix as basslines, beats and melodies intermingle to create unique sounds to this mix. It’s layering with a purpose rather than for the sake of it.

When you put it all together, the relentless intensity, the technically complex layers, the wall of sound you get a pretty unique mix that other DJs would struggle to achieve. This dark foray through bass and beats definitely leaves a mark, mainly because it’s so intense that you feel like you’ve been chewed up and spat out the other side like a piece of chewing gum in a gurned up mouth.

Buy Surgeon – Fabric 53 from Amazon (CD|MP3), Play.com (CD) or HMV (CD)

Tracklisting:
01. Location recording from Kuramae Subway Station, Tokyo, Japan
02. Scuba – Glance
03. Surgeon – Bad Hands (Drums Only)
04. Marco Bernardi – Giro (Exium Remix)
05. Instra:mental – Forbidden
06. Forward Strategy Group – Applied Generics A
07. Reeko – Agile Movement
08. Surgeon – Bad Hands Part 2 (Drums Only)
09. Robert Hood – Superman
10. Planetary Assault Systems – X Speaks To X (Al Tourettes & Appleblim Remix)
11. Ritzi Lee – Black Star Ritual (Ben Sims Remix)
12. T-Polar – Crab People
13. Ital Tek – Spectrum Falls
14. Surgeon – Klonk Part 1 (Drums Only)
15. Subeena – Picture
16. Fran Hartnett – It Was Written In Vapour
17. Mark Broom & James Ruskin – Hostage
18. Stephen Brown – Stress Free
19. Ancient Methods – AM04B1
20. Surgeon – Compliance Momentum
21. Greena – Tenzado
22. Starkey – Spacecraft
23. Starkey feat. Anneka – Stars (Slugabed Did A Remix)
24. Cari Lekebusch – Spindizzy (Luke Slater’s L.B. Dub Corp Remix)
25. Surgeon – The Crawling Frog Is Torn and Smiles
26. Orphx – Threshold (Substance Remix)
27. Gatekeeper – Blip
28. Mark Broom & James Ruskin – No Time Soon
29. Russ Gabriel – El Juan
30. DJ Overdose – What

You’d think having an extra day off would be a god send but in all honesty it’s a bit of a ball ache. This weekend, Landan Taan will swell to a beachball sized glut of party tourists keen to get their third dose of fun for the year (the other two times being Easter weekend and new years eve). You can expect the clubs, streets and parks to be packed with an assault of people forcibly trying to have fun this weekend. If you’re not too much of an idiot to spend £50+ on a bunch of half assed trance and yesteryear prog DJs playing to a crowd of baying halfwits non the wiser they’ve been fleeced, then I guess these could be a few so called suggestions for the weekend…

LED Festival – Victoria Park (Tickets)

The alternative to paying over the odds for standing in a Clapham park full of idiots is to pay nearly over the odds to stand in a park full of different idiots who weren’t quick enough to shell out for SW4 tickets before it sold out. If the festival hasn’t imploded through poor ticket sales and artist cancellations it might not be such a loss to attend with the main draw being Leftfield, who have dusted off the kit since the Guinness royalties have run dry. You’ll also be able to see Alison Goldfrapp tottering around on stage like Florence and The Machine’s grandma, and if you’re lucky Aphex Twin might play some nonsense. Unsurprisingly tickets are still going for this one.

Carl Craig at Fabric (Tickets)

In terms of evening line ups I guess you can’t really do any better than fabric. They’ve got their typical techno carry on consisting of one part Detroit (Carl Craig), two parts Berlin (Sebo K & Ben Klock) and a token UK techno head to make your balls go up inside yourself (Ben Sims). It’s a reasonable choice if you haven’t already spent half your waking weekend moments there this month.

Superfreq at Paramount (Tickets)

Across town at Centre Point, Mr C and friends are back at Paramount with their Superfreq brand. They’ve somehow commandeered another floor for their ingeniously named disco sister Superdiscofreq. DJ Three headlines the main room with the “not so evil in his old age” Eddie Richards, whilst DJ Garth and James Priestly will be playing up to the new spat of disco fashionistas. If past Superfreqs are a trend to go by, this one will be the best superfreq ever to date as boldly claimed by Mr C every month.

Dollop at The CAMP (Tickets)

If a night dancing with a bunch of geriatrics in a tower doesn’t sound that great, you can go to the other end of the spectrum and dance with some of the unwashed youth in a basement. Dollop are down from Nottingham for a London jolly at The CAMP. They’ve brought in the Parisian turned Dalstonian Ivan Smagghe to headline. Also on the bill is some bloke from Turbo (Thomas Von Party), that guy who plays at Bugged Out (Matt Walsh) and Nathan G Wilkins who for some reason reminds me of a presidential assassinator. Expect scruffy hair cuts, drain pipe jeans and a lot of garish noisy electronic sounds.

Carnival at Notting Hill

On to Sunday. For the day time you might as well be herded around the streets of Notting Hill whilst running the risk of being caught in the middle of some yoot gang warfare or getting poisoned by some chancer selling what was supposed to be curried goat out the back of his car. If you get there early enough and the police haven’t cordoned off the area you might be lucky to catch some chap (Norman Jay) play cheesey records off the top of a double decker bus. But hey its all free so you can’t complain about this shit.

Secretsundaze at Rich Mix (GList Requests – info@secretsundaze.net)

You might not have heard, because its secret, but Secretsundaze are at the Rich Mix loft. Daniel Bell heads up the main room with Tevo Howard, whilst Jacques Renault makes room 2 all disco glam. If you can get past the fashion police on the front door (in this case the face of authority is a guy with an achingly ironic styled tache) you might enjoy a nice dance inside. Just make sure your shorts are rolled up high enough on your deck shoes and denim shorts combo.

Eastern Electrics at Union Street Car Park (Tickets)

Evening wise Eastern Electrics is doing their predictable shindig at the once secret, but now standard affair Union Street Car Park. Their line up I must admit is pretty balanced. Fehlmann, Wruhme and Mayer fly in for Kompakt, whilst Von Stroke and Martin get fidgety in another arch, and to round things off Resident Advisor have got Joy Orbison, Scuba and Harri & Domenic, all of which they’ve brain washed you to think they’re good through their podcasts. The 10 early bird tickets and 5 saver tickets have sold out, so all you mugs left are gonna have to buy the standard price tickets at 20 quid a pop. Unfortunately your young person railcard doesn’t work on these tickets.

Lo*Kee at Cruffix Lane (Tickets)

Another special one for Sunday is Lo*Kee. For one night only they’ve scrapped their exclusively closed members list and open their doors to tom, dick and harry. This will give the riff raff a chance to really see what goes down at Lo*Kee – basically a bunch of “cool” kids that haven’t been to sleep for a few days rolling around to whatever DJs that haven’t been to sleep either. However on Sunday they’ve got a bunch of Cadenza folk over and they’re going to make a proper night of it, so I guess it’s not quite as Lo*Kee as the name suggests.

I could go on about the weekend… But you might as well read all about it at RA.. They’ll probably be a bit more cheery too with the extensive DJ biogs and promises of amazing parties. I’ll be at home having a good moan about SW4 thanks. Have a good weekend!

We’re hearing on the grapevine that Villalobos is down to do the 8am till 2pm slot at the Fabric On & On party this Saturday…

Better pack some sandwiches as its gonna be a long night and day.

The last bank holiday weekend for the year is just around the corner. Sad times for many as it marks the beginning of the descent into winter. This ensuing doom normally results in everyone going big for the weekend, and as a result, people tend to cool off the weekend before. But as any good football team will tell you its all about the pre-season friendly to get you match fit for the onslaught. I mean you don’t want to be flaking out on day two of the bank holiday because you didn’t practice a two day bender the weekend before. That would just be embarrassing. So here are a few pre bank hol weekend friendlies to get you ready for the long weekend.

Lobster at The Gramaphone (Tickets)

Our Lobster friends have laid down the second round at the all you can eat seafood buffet. This Friday they’re at The Gramaphone where Roof Light will be served up along side their residents Anton and George in a night of gorging and indulgence. Its like a premiership team in a friendly against a third division team, at only a fiver to get in it’s a palatable and easy way to start things off.

Fabric On & On (Tickets)

Saturday there’s only really one destination – fabric. This is the tough pre-season friendly with a 15 hour gauntlet being laid down by Villalobos – a man we have a little bit too much love for. Who knows when he’s going to play, but I’d imagine he’d probably play a couple of times over the night. To pad things out in between, Craig Richards, Dinky, Terry Francis and Slam will be sure to keep you locked in the dark doldrums. This is going to be a roadblock so get you tickets now!

Love Fever Studio Party (Tickets)

If you need something a bit less gluttonous, then the Love Fever Studio Party on Kingsland Road would probably be a good alternative. Wolf and Lamb co-honcho Gadi Mizrahi along with Jacques Renault will be making you strut well into the night with some disco stylish fun.

Half Baked (info)

Fabric, the pussyclarts, will be closing their doors at 2pm on Sunday. Pretty early doors if you ask me… However don’t fret, as the people at Half Baked understand. They’re kicking things off on Sunday afternoon straight after fabric are done, so drag yourself to the still to be confirmed east London location to continue the party as the beautiful and stylish people look at you in disgust! Jamie Jones and Disco Bloodbath’s Ben Pistor will be seeing you smash through the proverbial clubbing marathon wall.

Stretch the old legs out with these bad boys and you’ll be running rings around the amateurs come bank holiday weekend.

If you’re heading to fabric get your tickets here!

Sad news down at Radio 1 headquarters today. We’re hearing on the grapevine that she’s set to leave the radio station in September to follow a career in teaching. After 14 years of pushing the leftfield on Radio 1, she’s bowing out at the top of game, moving on to teach and mentor students at the University of Sheffield’s radio, TV and newspaper outlets. Lucky them! You couldn’t get a better mentor than that. She’ll also continue her curative work with Sonar festival which has seen her dubstep showcase grow in strength over the years.

The last show is on the 9th Sept 2am -4am.

My God this summer is absolutely flying through. We’re already half way through yet I can’t even remember the summer beginning. We’ve literally been bitch slapped with great weather, festivals in parks, outdoor parties and for those lucky enough, flights to exotic places. Still dizzy from being sucker punched, here’s the run down for this weekend…

Friday

Ekstravaganza at Corsica Studios (Buy Tickets)

The Scandinavian returns to our shores for the fifth instalment of his Ekstravaganza, swapping the saunas and nudity of Norway for the gritty surrounds of South London’s Elephant and Castle. This Friday looks to be the biggest of them yet. Obviously Prins Thomas will be dropping some of his Norwegian branded cosmic disco, but alongside him the lusciously deep Mole will be wowing crowds with his live skills. Whilst in room 2 the gritty Parisian Ivan Smagghe will be stunning folk with his electronic weapons alongside Sean Johnston of Hardway Brother’s fame.  If you get down there before 10pm in you can get in for a fiver and sample the delights of the pre party BBQ with the Discosessions. That’s a family evening out right there.

Warm at Plastic (info)

If being south of the river is against your religion then fret not Hackney Council have just let Plastic People open its doors  again. Hazzar I hear you say? Hazzar indeed. For opening night they’ve got their familiar friends Warm to resume their brilliant residency. And for the headliner, who better than Berlin’s Prosumer to… erm… “warm” the place up for them. Delightful news and great to see the place back.

Saturday

T-Bar Closing Party at Scrutton Street Warehouse (Buy Tickets)

The other month it seemed like London was wheezing under the pressure of a club closure epidemic. One of the victims was T-Bar, already a bit sickly when it moved venues, it never really got back to its glory days and in June it finally bit the dust. We hope that T-Bar has gone to that happy place in the sky where the licensing laws are free, there are no sound restrictions and the punters are reliable and never ending. But apart from the wonky K memories and the countless mid week sick days what have we got left? Can’t remember? Well this Saturday is T-Bar’s wake to celebrate the once London weekday linchpin. Boston duo Soul Clap along with two brilliant young talents Floating Points and Nicholas Jaar will drop the soundtrack to this one last hoorah at the Scrutton Street Warehouse as people reminisce about the funny things T-Bar used to do. Ahhhh remember that time when T Bar opened on Monday night and Michael Mayer played that gut wrenching bass…ahhh yeahh… Rest In Peace

Sunday

Kubicle Birthday Marathon (info)

Blatant church dodgers Kubicle celebrate five years of sunday sin this weekend. From their humble beginnings at Public Life in 2005 they return to the scene of the crime to begin their 21 hour clubbing marathon. From Sunday morning till Monday morning the Kubicle rabble will transcend three venues across London’s east end. They’ll hope from Public Life to the Brickhouse on Brick Lane for Sunday afternoon before rounding off the night at Metropolis in Hackney. Across the three venues will see all Kubicle’s favorite people make an appearance from Dan Ghenacia, Jamie Jones, DJ THREE, Craig Richards and Clive Henry to Antonio De Angelis, FB Julian, Lee Foss, Derren’s Disco and jozif. Its going to be huge. You might need to take Monday off work though.

There it is… GET INVOLVED

A few bits and bobs going on this weekend with the big elephant in the room being the Lovebox weekender. Now extended to three days featuring the likes of Roxy Music, Grace Jones, Hot Chip, Hercules and Love Affair to name a few stellar names. Saturday looks like a hot tip with Roxy Music headlining the bill along with Mark Ronson. The terribly named Relentless Energy Stage hosts a solid line up consisting of Bookashade, Jesse Rose, Henrik Schwarz and personal favourite Dixon whilst Grandmaster Flash rounds off the Rizla arena on a old skool hip hop tip. A few tickets are left at Ticketmaster here.

On the Sunday Grace Jones will impose her diva stylings on the crowd whilst Hot Chip will be doing their thing in a more nerdy way. From the dancey side of things, Kubicle will be warming up for their birthday marathon with all their favourite DJs from Craig Richards and Jamie Jones to Lee Foss, Clive Henry and Lee Curtiss. Horse Meat Disco and Disco Bloodbath will be taking over the seedy derelict hotel of the NYC Downlow fresh from its outing at Glasto for a colossus disco hoedown. It is quite the temporary structure with a taxi crashing through the roof, plus what happens inside is so camp that your retinas will never be the same again. I’m not sure how the king of middle class bling – Westwood will handle the campness when he plays on the Saturday. Also the big gay bear from Chicago Derrick Carter will be in the house, or more so the Rizla arena with Larry Heard and the Hot Chip DJs. Tickets for Sunday are also still available but going quick at Ticketmaster here.

You can also get the both days for a cool £80 here.

All this daytime festivallng also means there will be swarms of people lost for things to do in the evening. Luckily though there are also swarms of DJs playing at Lovebox also lost for things to do. So conveniently there’s a few after parties happening to mop up the stragglers. Saturday sees Magic & Medicine make use of Dixon and the Bocking Street warehouse for a little post Lovebox shindig. I say little but probably mean massive as the pimp Seth Troxler and The Revenge will be joining in. Tickets are available from Ticketweb here.

On the Sunday Kubicle will be on after party duties with their entire Lovebox line-up heading back to Metropolis in Hackney to play eclectic sets to an intimate crowd of 500 jobless souls. With Craig Richards, Jamie Jones and Clive Henry on the bill its even worth quitting your job to be there.

If you’re not in the Loveboxing mood then A Night With… Cassy might be for you. The Berlinette will be smashing the back doors out of The Basement in Hoxton to a small and dedicated crowd. The atmosphere will no doubt be reaching fever point for this quality DJ. Tickets still going at RA here.

Finally on the Sunday Bread and Butter will be doing a day party at Light Bar’s roof terrace. Yep, turns out they’ve got a roof terrace… Ryan Crosson of wolf+lamb/M_nus/Wagon Repair fame will be keeping the rain at bay with house and techno records. Tickets available at RA here.

Not a bad weekend all in all. Lap it up, we’re half way through the summer.