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.

Red bull Music Academy at South Bank Centre (Buy Tickets)

This weekend sees the start of the Red Bull Music Academy which is taking place over the coming weeks in London. The academy brings together prospective musical talent from across the world to work and share ideas with help from established and successful music industry types. In conjunction with the academy, Red Bull have a series of events lined up for the general public. This Friday sees Red Bull team up with Resident Advisor at the stunning Royal Festival Hall in the South Bank Centre for a head on collision of experimental electronica, Jazz and techno. There are two acts in particular that have us foaming at the mouth. We have a showcase from SHAPE, a collaboration between Detroit heavy weight Carl Craig, the classically trained pianist and Innerzone Orchestra member Francesco Tristano and minimal dub techno innovator Moritz Von Oswald of Basic Channel/Maurizio fame. The other act will be another massive collaboration between Innervision’s Henrik Schwarz and Nordic Jazz sensation Bugge Wesseltoft. Their recent showing at Giles Peterson’s Ronnie Scotts takeover was supposedly incredible, so it will be a privilege to see these too jamming out in the distinguished Royal Festival Hall. Don’t expect danceable 4/4 beats, this is going to be a proper sit down affair. There are still some tickets available at TICKETWEB.

Egyptian Lover at The Big Chill

Probably a little less serious for a Friday night will be a live show from 80s rap legend Egyptian Lover. His early rap records of ballsy 909 beats and distinctly electronic synths helped pave the way for the hip hop movement in the 80s. He’s even had a bit of a comeback after his Egypt track was sampled/covered by Jamie Jones on his recent track Galactic Space Bar. Fun beats and straight up classic 80s rap. What’s not to love?

Musiq Concrete 2D at The Lightbox (Buy Tickets)

Saturday brings us a selection of equally solid nights. Down south at Vauxhalls Lightbox, we see Musiq Concrete return for their second night with a well rounded lineup. The dazzling lights of the Light Box will play host to Get Physical’s Thomas Schumacher who’s techy sound will give London its very own slice of pseudo Berlin Watergate. Whilst Simon Baker and Alex Cellar will provide some worthy London based support. In room two Brighton’s Cagedbaby and acid house legend Justin Robertson will show us another side to electronic dance music. Also if you print out this flyer you get a free drink!

Phonica at T-Bar

T-Bar are now running a new freemium business model. No more are the fall back nights where if all things failed you could always end there for a relatively cheap one. They’ve gone and started asking for some money on the door now. However to back up the asking they’ve bumped up the quality. This Saturday the record selling folks from Phonica have brought over Sascha Dive. Him and Anthea are sure to lay down some deep groves into the early hours of the morning.

James Priestley at The Horatia

Disgusted at the fact that T-Bar want to charge? Well there are new free options out there. New venture The Horatia have some solid nights lined up over the coming weeks. This Saturday James Priestley of Secretsundaze fame will be digging out his disco records and showing the masses that he’s not just about playing deep house outdoors with ironically tashed friends.

Superfreq 8^th Birthday at Centre Point (Buy Tickets)

Finally if you didn’t have enough of the birthday celebrations last weekend, then there’s one more for you. Those sycophantic slags Adultnapper and Mr C celebrate 8 years with original London tech houser Dave Mothersole. They’ll be wiggling their way until sunrise 31 floors up at the glamorous Centre Point.

As always we’re on hand to help you through the plethora of London nights happening this weekend. For the first weekend of Feb we have a selection of birthday celebrations, toilet raves and basement debauchery.

Act Natural @ The Hub (Buy Tickets)

Initially it was just Anthea and Alex Cellar set to headline this Friday night get together, but with 54 losing its license, Product have handed over their headliners Kruse & Nürnberg to set up a now pretty sizeable night. Expect lashings of deep percussive house easing you out of Friday and right into Saturday morning.  All is not lost for Product though. They’ll be throwing a free party at the Castle pub round the corner. So if you’re in the area pop down and show some support!

Decked Out 10^th Anniversary @ Coronet Theatre

The first of the weekend birthdays comes from Decked Out a London based DJ/artist agency celebrating 10 years in the business. They’ve roped in all their DJs to lay on an extravagant celebration with the likes of Dave Clarke, Justin Robertson, Erol Alkan, Justice’s Xavier, Boys Noise, DJ Mehdi, The Glimmers, Aeroplane and Busy P. Plus all DJs are playing slightly alternative sets and donating their DJ fee to local charity Kids Company. Its gonna be noisy, sweaty but definitely bouncy fun. I hope you got your tickets sorted as this sold out weeks ago!

Coma @ Public Life – http://www.myspace.com/comatechno

On to Saturday and to take the edge of daytime shopping is Coma. They’ve got the tireless Glimpse doing an afternoon slot at everyone’s favourite public toilet turned club Public Life. Have some brunch, hit Spitalfields Market then get on it for the rest of the afternoon. Delightful.

Disco bloodbath @ TBC

Ah, the first Bloodbath for 2010. After a stellar year for the trio the Bloodbath boys look to continue in fine style for 2010. They’re up to their usual basement antics this weekend with Sweden’s Mark Seven. Expect the usual mix of HI NRG disco, classic house and cosmic rays.

Innervisions @ Fabric (Buy Tickets)

I know I mention them every week, but they thoroughly deserve it. Fabric have laid on yet another humongous night. This Saturday once again plays host to Innervisions. Ame, Henrik Schwarz, Marcus Worgull and Gerd Janson is all that needs to be said for Room 1. However that’s not all that’s on. Ivan Smagghe returns again to headline room 2 alongside Craig Richards, whilst Terry Francis and Chi-town legend DJ Heather keep things bumping upstairs in Room 3. Absolutely massive.

Prologue 9^th Birthday @ East Village – www.eastvillageclub.com

2^nd on the birthday weekender is Prologue. Its been nine years since their humble beginning at the now defunct Cross. But after a stint up the road at Egg, they now reside and celebrate their birthday at East Village. To commemorate the occasion they have brought back Paul Harris of Dirty Vegas fame who played at the Prologue first birthday. He’ll be supported by their long time residents Paul Louth and Nick Dare.

Wet Yourself 3^rd Birthday @ Fabric (Buy Tickets)

Finally, if you’re still out and about Sunday even then pop back to Fabric to help Wet Yourself celebrate their 3^rd birthday. For three years they have been keeping Sunday nights and Monday mornings interesting with their nights of techno fuelled fun. They celebrate three years with the return of Miss Kitten.

So that’s the weekend ahead. Get involved.

The track selection on Temporary Secretary definitely reflects a similar approach that features on The Grandfather Paradox. He’s used tracks which revolve around a house come 4/4 base yet they all have their own diversely individual sounds. Dixon craftily blends each track with such flow and smoothness that the whole mix simply glides.

There’s no rushing this CD with things starting in carefully measured amounts. Fever Ray’s If I Had A Heart sets a deep warm tone with its multi layers of vocals and melodies. From there he melds into the spooky whistles of Roland Bocquet’s Exotique before slowly layering in the vibrating motif from Ame’s Tube Beats. It creates a fine build of tension before brilliantly releasing into a medley of Jazzanova’s Let Me Show Ya and Daniel Paul’s Something About You. Quite a mouthful to describe and that was just for three of the four opening tracks.

Things continue to shuffle along at a steady pace with Dixon keeping your attention through his intricate mixes and fascinating sounds. You’ve got the twinkling chimes combined with the lovely soulful vocals on Ewan Pearson’s remix of Hazel. They go up against the higgledy percussion of Kalabrese’s remix of Inferno Jack, creating a hypnotic and airy atmosphere that wonderfully sets up the beautiful melancholic melodies of Peter Kruder’s Law of Return for maximum impact.

Dixon then rounds off the second half of the mix in more familiar house territory. The infectious vocal loop and acid style riff on Good Voodoo sparks some serious toe tapping action, whilst the epic synths on Henrik Schwarz’s remix of Equinox and the haunting strings from Ame’s Setsa provide some great “eyes closed, lost in the music” moments.

This review took a long time to write because I just didn’t know what to think about this mix. Normally you can figure out what you think after a couple of listens but with this I just wasn’t sure what I thought. In fact I was probably leaning towards not really liking it. It didn’t seem to go anywhere and it was very hard work to listen to. But after persevering with a fair few more listens you start to see the detail and intricacy in which this mix has been so skilfully crafted. You start to learn the way it moves and breathes from one track to the next and ultimately you fall in love with its hidden depths and dynamics. It doesn’t hit the same mark as The Grandfather Paradox, but it doesn’t fall too far short. If you buy this CD, give it the time it deserves and it will be a great listen that you can keep coming back to. Like that old overused analogy goes – “it’s like a fine wine that gets better with age”.

Buy Temporary Secretary from Amazon (CD | MP3), Play.com (CD | MP3) or HMV (CD)

Tracklist:
01. Icasol – Ongou
02. Fever Ray – If I Had a Heart
03. Roland Bocquet – Exotique / Âme – Tube Beat
04. Jazzanova – Let Me Show Ya (Henrik Schwarz Remix) / Daniel Paul – Something About You (Instrumental)
05. Precious System – The Voice From Planet Love / Ben Klock – In a While
06. Junior Boys – Hazel (Ewan Pearson’s House Mix)
07. Butane – Inferno Jack (Kalabrese Remix)
08. Peter Kruder – Law Of Return
09. Kiki – Good Voodoo (Visionquest Remix)
10. Code 718 – Equinox (Henrik Schwarz Mix)
11. The Machine – Fuse
12. Cortney Tidwell – Watusii (Daphni remix)
13. Ame – Setsa
14. Tokyo Black Star – Sepiaphone

Image by Paul at Vision7Media

All things exciting seem to point to Clapham Common on the bank holiday weekend. But in all honesty, it’s not really all that it’s cracked up to be. Here are some reasons why not to waste your time on the common and some canny alternatives.

Rubbish Soundsystems

Being stuck in the heart of Clapham means you’re in the middle of a massive residential area. Residential area equals people with dogs, children, twitching curtains and a massive thirst for pissing on any parade. Call me crazy but these people hate it when their windows are vibrating during afternoon tea. Unfortunately they also pay taxes and actually have a say in how the world is run. So despite the soundsystem probably having tens of thousands of watts bottled up at its disposal, you can probably expect that the local council has it capped to a dreary cesspit tap drip. So the only way you’re going to hear anything of worth is if you’ve camped out inside the bass bin like some free party crusty.

What you need is some grotty warehouse space where you can crank it up a few notches. It just so happens that Eastern Electrics will be holed up in some grotty warehouse space where they will be cranking it up. Eastern Electrics staple Mulletover will be hosting the main room and they’ve got the Mobilee mistress Anja Schneider to headline. A so so DJ headliner in my opinion (great producer not so great DJ). But don’t worry as Damien Lazarus, fresh from recording a new album, has got Anja’s back. Glimpse will also bolster the support with one of his fantastic live sets too.

But what is really hitting the mark is the Need2Soul second room. They have Patrice Scott fresh from riding in on the recent wave of Detroit techno. He’ll be serving up deep techno cuts alongside the purveyor of dark pummelling beats – Ben Klock. These two names alone should be enough to hit this party for the measly £8 that they’re asking for. Instead they decided to chuck in a Claude Von Stroke and a Trevor Jackson in a third and final Resident Advisor room.

Great deal…. Get those tickets from HERE….  whilst you can!

Short DJ sets

On paper it looks great having every conceivable big name DJ on the bill. But the problem with having them play in one afternoon of raving is that the laws of time only permit a DJs set to be shorter than the time it takes to piss out a tinnie of luke warm festival cider. With only a few hours for prime time DJ sets you’re likely to get a Sasha and Digweed set consisting of half a monster prog record played and tweaked between them. Richie Hawtin will be barely through a bass filter drop before his set ends; and Zabiela would have only had half a fumble of an EFX knob before being kicked off.

What you really need is one amazing terrace and five quality DJs for the day. Who else can do that but Secretsundaze. They return to THAT, the site of this year’s opening party. Hopefully any niggles from last time involving sound and turntables will be sorted. If they get blessed with sunshine then the THAT terrace should bring back some of those happy Space/DC-10 terrace memories of yesteryear. There to invigorate happy terrace times will be the man who is all things insect in house – Steve Bug, a firm favourite of the Secretsundaze bunch and now an annual occurrence. With record labels in every pocket, his extensive electronic tastes are sure to ignite Sunday. In support is Doc Scott, one of the old guards of dance and making a much fabled Secretsundaze return. Like riding a bike, once you know how to rock a crowd you never forget and Doc Scott has been doing so for over a decade and a half. Finally on a live tip is the Canadian born Guillaume and The Coutu Dumonts. They’ve released a string of fantastic tracks on uber-cool labels Oslo and Circus Company and they feature heavily in the Secretsundaze sound. Their brand of percussive house should smoothly go down with the SS crowd.

Don’t miss out. Earlybird tickets are still going at RA.

Tourist Clubbers

Photo by Nick Ensing

The weekend is sure to lay prone to thousands of clueless clubbers that have rolled in for the one weekend of their lives. They’ll be lapping up the big beats as they come flying out the speakers like bricks hitting them square between the eyes. They’ll be saving their biggest “whoops” for the one with the hair on the Loreal advert or the other one that had the hot aerobic fitties in his music video. I mean how can you enjoy and dance to the music when you can’t recall when it was released, what label it was on, what mixes it has featured on and who was the assistant engineer in the second breakdown.

What you need is a versatile crowd open to the unheard boundaries of music. Warm tend to get a good crowd in for their underground house shindigs and the Innervisions showcase at Corsica Studios should be a bit of a roadblock, especially when you’ve got Henrik Schwarz, Dixon and Marcus Worgull on the bill. A massive one for the heads!

Get your tickets from RA.

Despite everything I’ve just said, all these recommendations all take place on a Sunday. So if you are heading down to Clapham Common, I guess it would be rude not to check out a bit of Hawtin, Danny Howells and Sasha & Digweed. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!!

DISCLAIMER: I’ve never actually spent an August Bank Holiday weekend on Clapham Common. So everything i’ve said is completely unfounded and might well be complete bullshit.

When most people think of Easter they think the second coming of Christ, Easter eggs, fluffy bunnies and daffodils. For a select few it’s all about Easter weekend and how to run your mind into the ground for four days and nights. I’m in the latter camp.

This year the options seem to be bunched around key days. Thursday night has an all mighty clash. In one corner you’ve got your scenster nights. Secretsundaze do their annual thing at the coronet theatre which will see Ame, Dixon and Henrik Schwarz combine forces to create some ableton improve amalgamation live set where they be as one together. No its not some gay love in between the quartet, it’s actually their new project Critical Mass. The whole thing sounds pretty interesting, especially if its anything along the lines of their recent Granfather Paradox mix. After the live session, Dixon and Ame will be dropping a dj set or two along with the SS and Horse Meat Disco ressies.

However if Secretsundaze all sounds a bit too complex with the live sets and you just want to go and party your ass of to some party tunes, then maybe Disco Bloodbath is for you? They’re celebrating their 2nd birthday and to help them they’ve brought in their Scottish mentors Optimo who have been playing party tunes for countless years. Todd Terje will be headlining the main room for the Bloodbath along with the residents, whilst Optimo residents Twitch and Wilkes will be keeping a handle on things with Gucci Soundsystem.

If that all seems a bit to fashionista and you just want raw big room stuff, then you want to be heading towards Koko or matter. Old Coxy is doing a party at the former with Nic Fanciulli and Yousef, whilst Diggers is doing his Bedrock thang at the latter.

Something for everyone to kickstart the weekend. However Friday and Saturday look a bit thin on the ground for anything gripping. The best Friday can muster up is Brothers Vibe at East Village. Saturday fairs a little better with Reboot and Ketoloco at Lightbox in Vauxhall. Also Fabric is worth a punt with MANDY and Tobi Neumann. But other than that nothing that jumps out.

But its probably for the best as things get going early with the Bugged Out All Dayer at the Old Queens Head in Angel. I believe the party vibe is retro 80s! Once that’s warmed the old engine up, the place to head is Mulletover where they’ll be celebrating five whole years. At the Seager Storage Units as per usual, they’ll be seeing in their 5th Anniversary with those Romanian favourites a:rpia:r, reel to reel extraordinaire Greg Wilson, the strange but highly talented musicians Noze and disco/funk revivers Linkwood Family. DELUXE!

If things are still functioning you can round off the weekend with a trip to matter where old skool hip hop legends Jazzy Jeff and Grandmaster Flash will be cutting and juggling up prime hip hop before the days of diiirty britches and bling.

So go forth and celebrate the rebirth of Christ by hurling yourself head first into the gutter.

http://www.myspace.com/secretsundaze

http://www.myspace.com/discobloodbathdisco

http://www.mulletover.co.uk/

http://www.fabriclondon.com

http://www.matterlondon.com

]]> http://earpipe.com/2009/04/08/the-mother-of-all-weekends-is-upon-us/feed/ 0 http://earpipe.com/2009/04/07/dj-hell-the-angst-part-1-the-angst-part-2-single-review/ http://earpipe.com/2009/04/07/dj-hell-the-angst-part-1-the-angst-part-2-single-review/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:52:30 +0000 admin http://earpipe.com/?p=885

The first single from DJ Hell’s new album Teufelswerk is to be The Angst & The Angst Part 2 where DJ Hell binds guitar folk melodies with the electronic preciseness of the techno and synth pop genres. The entire track is a massive progression from the folk end of the spectrum to the electronic. It begins with a gently strummed guitar riff which casually unfolds to subtle electronic beats and undertones, which gives it a slight Radiohead feel. As the track progresses, soaring vocal harmonies begin to carry the track away from the guitars towards the electronic end of the spectrum. Come the half way point and The Angst has completely transformed into a pulsating techno track with flashes of white noise and distorted synths. It’s an interesting and quite epic journey but I do wonder whether the full on techno ending is really needed.

Henrik Schwarz on the other hand offers to make The Angst a bit more formal by providing his “Innervision”. From the very beginning Schwarz sets out to create a techno come house track, using the folk elements to add texture to the track. The vocal harmonies are brought in early on to help with the gradual build of the intro. As more and more elements slide into the mix the track finally bursts at the seams with a distorted wall of synths. Whilst it is a little too drawn out it is a good interpretation of the original. However with this being Henrik Schwarz I was expecting a little more from him to make it more epic.

Tracklist (Click for Mp3):
1. The Angst & The Angst Pt. 2 [Original]
2. The Angst [Henrik Schwarz remix]

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.

Amongst all of this was another return. Afrobeat house started reappearing in a heavier form predominately coming out of the Innervisions camp but also a whole host of producers. This house sound brought a lot of energy through African rhythms, chants and tribal beats. Henrik Schwarz’ I Exist Because of You was a prime example as was Dixon/Ame/Schwarz’s effort on D.P.O.M.B and to a lesser extent Laurent Garnier’s return to production on his Afrodiziac mix of Back to my Roots. Away from the Innervisions folk, Osborne’s Afrika had a not surprising African feel making it a firm favourite for many including EarPipe and was part of an incredible year for the Michigan born producer who’s self titled album received critical acclaim. The other big African influenced house but probably more so house influenced African music came from Afefe Iku and his track Mirror Dance. The heavy tribal beats and highly infectious glockenspiel hook were an instant success made apparent when every one would always poorly attempt to vocally imitate the glockenspiel hook.

Aside from genre nit picking, house and techno came out with some pretty good gems. SIS was a massive mover this year mainly with his track Nesrib but there was also Orgasa, Clarinete and that annoying but quite fun Trompeta. Truly a stellar year for the young producer. Another trend for 2008 was taking samples from old scratchy foreign records and working it into restrained house beats a la Italoboyz style. Stimming’s Una Pena and La Pena’s A1/Davino Canto were particular highlights of this trend and pushed massively by the Lucianos and Villalobos’ of the world. Radioslave also continued his world domination with a new direction through Eyes Wide Open not to mention his more ambient and down tempo project with Joel Martin as Quiet Village. But that’s not to say Radioslave’s dark technoness didn’t continue on. Dubfire’s remix of Grindhouse Tool was making a right mess on most techno dancefloors right through the summer. It was fun at first but it has become a bit dull.

Whilst many were disputing what house and techno had become there was an alchemy experiment happening behind the scenes where Dusteppers were blending Dubstep with Techno in an attempt to produce gold. Their attempts have been pretty successful Shackleton returned the favour by remixing Villalobos’ acclaimed Vasco EP, whilst Appleblim and Peverelist topped many charts with their track Circling as well as pushing their Skull Disco label to new nether regions in the Dubstep world. But it’s probably Appleblim’s RA podcast which helped to break down Dubstep/Techno/House barriers for many people.

But the most interesting development for EarPipe has to be the recent Disco revival. Its been bubbling away since the start of 2007 and properly came to attention when the James Murphy and Pat Mahoney FabricLive 36 release came out in October 07. From there Disco has gone from strength to strength in the capital. New night Disco Bloodbath and Horse Meat Disco have been busy throughout the year, whilst Fabric, Secretsundaze and Mulletover have all jumped on board with Disco backrooms. One of the biggest developments for the Disco revival was the release of Hercules and Love Affair’s self titled debut album. The album hit the charts and was widely respected by the critics putting this new Disco come House sound in the spotlight. Across the North Sea our Scandinavian friends Lindstrom and Prins Thomas continued pushing their cosmic disco sound on Smalltown Supersound and Metro Area’s Fabric 44 gave us a reminder of where disco came from.

So that’s what we at EarPipe can remember from the year in music. It has been fun, there has been some rubbish, but then there have been some delectable moments and no doubt this will continue into 2009.

If we’ve missed something out then do stick it in the comments!

You can catch our review of clubs, festivals and parties here.