Patrice Baumel

GPM 100: Happy 100th Release GetPhysical! Review

Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | Music, Single Review | No Comments

It seems like yesterday when GetPhysical first broke onto the scene with MANDY’s Put Put in 2002. So I don’t know where that puts their world takeover with Body Language and Manderine Girl in 2005. That was release 27 and 29 respectively. Since then until now the GetPhysical clan have notched up 100 releases on their bed posts. To mark this century milestone they’ve brought in all their favourites to collaborate with each other on a nine track monster EP.

MANDY rekindle their partnership with Bookashade to come up with a Donut. No that’s not a derogatory term for the track it’s the title. They use some round beats and a bit of healthy wood percussion with whirling synths to create in moody bobbing monster. Its eerie and quirky but with a little funk to get down too. Its no Body Language, this is MANDY Vs Bookashade 2.0.

Two of my favourite producers the Italoboyz and Noze get together on Double Trouble. I’ve loved the way the Italoboyz cleverly sampled old jazz and jive records whilst the quirkiness of Noze is hilarious in a good way, however when they go head to head on Double Trouble its just disturbing. There are jazz drum and sax skits left, right and centre which make for an extremely scatty track. Then add the freaky vocal samples from Noze make for a sample martini shaken to hell. That said I’m sure the silliness of this track will find its niche at some German after after after party.

On Funkshovel, Lopazz and Heidi hit back with some attitude laden grooves. A ghetto tech bassline oozes attitude as basic yet intricate tom toms fidget along with a sporadic vocal sample. Its simple and o so diiiiirty. In a similar vein, Dakar and Siopis’ Dubai has the filthiest saw tooth bassline ever, combined with its big splashing drum hits results in a down and dirty mechanical boogie.

The other efforts from the other collaborations are also worthy, Einzelkind and Meat creates the simple and driving Gin which hums away brilliantly. The Djuma Soundsystem and Raz Ohara take on a slow italo disco form with piercing vocals, twinkling notes and a galloping electro synth. DJ T and Thomas Schumacher produce an intricate bubbling track with round bass and scatty woodblocks. And finally Patric Baumel with Cathlin Devlin and Tiger Stripes with Audiofly both create dark driving numbers.

Tracklisting
A M.A.N.D.Y vs Booka Shade – Donut
B1 Italoboyz vs Nôze – Double Trouble
B2 Dakar vs Siopis – Dubai
C DJ T. vs Thomas Schumacher – May Contain Nuts
D1 LOPAZZ vs Heidi – Funkshovel
D2 Einzelkind vs Meat – Gin

Digital
Patrice Bäumel vs Caitlin Devlin – 7 days
Djuma Soundsystem vs Raz Ohara – Zillion Lights
Tiger Stripes vs Audiofly – Hundra

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Sonar Report: EarPIPE’s Review Part 1

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 | Event Reviews, Events | No Comments

It seems like only yesterday since EarPipe was scoffing its all meals in one croissant whilst basking in the Barcelona sunshine listening to an obscure foreign hip hop band after being massively on it for two days already. You’ve probably guessed that such a sequence of words can only mean we’re talking about the advanced music and multimedia arts festival Sonar and that this is the first part of EarPipe’s Sonar Report for 2008. We’ll be covering, well attempting to cover what we saw at the Sonar events and a bit of the other stuff that happened off Sonar too. All this is of course subject to memory!

So to kick off, proceedings began with EarPipe’s visit to Sonar by Day held in the CCCB MACBA complex. The same format from previous years was kept with the usual outdoor Sonar Village courtyard area, the marquee Sonar Dome, the two indoor arenas and our personal favourite the Red Bull Music Lounge, five great arenas where you can catch the obscure, the weird and the wonderful.

On the first day the Sonar Village were treated to DJ2D2’s Spanish trip hop stylings in between live performances. He keeps the crowd nicely ticking over as they sip mojitos in the sunshine. The main treat however was Little Dragon who have been slowly creeping to popularity on the alternative scene. Their recent single “Twice” has been getting plays from the likes of Giles Peterson and the like. Their sound is a combination of electronica jazz with hints of dub, hip hop and funk, think Bjork but with a bit more funk. The result is some beautiful songs over interesting beats and melodies. The laidback jazzy melodies were perfect in the Barcelona sun and definitely complimented the numerous rounds of mojitos.

Departing briefly from the laidbackness of outside, earPipe took a trip inside to check out the Red Bull Music Lounge. Of course the lounge must only be entered via the claustrophobic metal lifts to experience that “doors opening onto at basement rave in blade” feel. Doing just that the doors roll back and Patrice Baumel is breaking out the techno to a packed room dancing as if it were DC-10. I’ve always loved the atmosphere in the Red Bull Lounge. When the right DJ comes on you get a real house party vibe and Patrice was doing that to the fullest extent, playing electronic house to techno with intriguing melodies laced in.

A short trip downstairs sees earPipe stumble across Pan Sonic an experimental electronica/techno group. Their music was chin stroking and abstract of the highest order. Whilst I’m not usually one for this type of music, Pan Sonic were intriguing with their body reverberating sounds. It was literally a wall of noise, but a carefully calculated chaotic one. Understandably these guys are all about the sounds they can create using custom built synths and drum modules to tickle every end of the audio spectrum that computers just can’t reach. Their show consisted of the group on stage with their equipment and an oscillation visualisation to show you how gut wrenchingly raw their sound was. Interesting but definitely not for the faint hearted or more so those with loose bowels. This clip may go some way to explaining what I’m on about.

Thursday night left us with a few options. There were various parties going on all over the city. The choices were the GetPhysical pool party at Liquid outside of the city, the Club4 special at City Hall with Beyer, Carola and Matthew Dear or the This is Hardcore night at Razzmatazz with Holden and Felix da Mousemat. With too much choice came much deliberation, but not fancying the long trips or queues, the group plumped for the Soma party at La Terrazza. On the bill were the Soma family from Slam to Silicone Soul and Funk D’Void. La Terrazza is a beautiful open air club set in the hills near the Olympic village. On arrival Silicone Soul had just finished and Funk D’Void had taken to the reins with his new deep and melodic sound as heard on his recent Sci Fi Hi Fi. Funk D’Void laid down the spaced out house sounds which slowly built up to Slam’s set, who instantly tore down the new build with Radioslave’s Grindhouse Tool. Slam kept to a steady pace with the right sort of techno for the fairly glam crowd of La Terrazza, keeping everyone interested and moving. A great party to kick the weekend off.

Part 2 shall be along shortly.

Tags: , , , ,

Search

Links

Share!

Bookmark and Share