14th Sept '13: Machine feat. Ben Sims & Kirk Degiorgio with Special Guests RØDHÅD & ROD @ Corsica Studios

New girly dilema this week... What to wear when you have to go to a wedding in the afternoon and a techno night later on? I went to a wedding looking very trendy and a club looking pretty overdressed for me. I was in a dress anyhow. Turns out heels make it wedding wear and DM's make it clubbing attire. Crisis averted. During a hilarious"last  tube" ride across London to Corsica Studios, we encountered many a victim of too much booze - and the boyfriends having to carry them home. Entertainment for all the family. Better than watching Eastenders at least. Their nights were over and ours was just begun!

 We arrived about 1am I think and the place was pumping. We'd been listening to ROD a fair bit at home the previous 2 weeks and I was really looking forward to hearing him play. I'd also been told that RØDHÅD would be awesome and I've not seen Ben Sims play in ages so I was prepared for a most excellent evening. I was not disappointed. After the usual bar, coat check, natter we stepped into Room 2 and into the sounds of ROD.

Otherwise known as Benny Rodriguez, ROD is on the CLR label. He dances as he DJs his set this evening. He is fun to watch. Within minutes I was shoulders in, grin on: lost in happiness.

ROD

The genre crossed from bouncy to minimal but it all shared the same easy flow and feel. It's a big old umbrella the genre of techno. It doesn't marry up in my head how this set and an Adam Beyer set are both techno and yet so different. I guess that's why we need sub genre labels. DSL says its all "just techno" but to you, the person who is reading about it and was not there, it's not that easy. You want to know what style a set is and how it sounds. I get lost in all the sub genre names so forgive me but I may well just make up my own, in which case ROD is now "Bounce'n' Grin."

The usual Room 2 slamming, nose tickling bass accompanied Latin riffs and a banging dancefloor. The room

did empty a little and I realised that signalled the start of RØDHÅD in Room One. We were having too much fun with ROD so we stayed and thought we would pop into Room One in a bit. Hilda, Jammy and the rest of the techno possy were all in there awaiting the deliverance of a much anticipate set - but I had no clue who I was missing out on and was happy to live in the moment and get down to some ROD loving. In tandem with the shrinking audience, the energy waned slightly for all of five minutes so I decided to stick my head in room one and it sounded quite brilliant in there, but as RØDHÅD was on for 4hrs there was plenty of time! I did notice however that it was not quite 4am yet - 5mins to go - so those lush warm melodic beautiful layers and thudding passive bass can only have actually been resident and Machine co-founder Kirk DeGeorgio.

Corsica was a hotbed of trendy young things this evening. It's interesting, to me, to watch how a younger clubbing generation react to techno. Some clearly do not get it. Some love it. It will be interesting when things get to the point where new DJs come through who were not even born when techno emerged, and when our old faves retire. Will that be the point when the genre goes the way of Drum'n'Bass and gets more mainstream, morphs into something new and spawns 56 separate commercial sub genres that all share the one sound sample? Then a fair few of it's producers jump ship to the next up and coming underground genre (SO many ex D'n'B prodcers in technoland these days!).

Techno has so much variety and longevity I hope it develops and stays as interesting for the next 20 years as it did the first. There are changes of course - virtually no-one just DJs anymore. Everyone is a producer. Maybe more live sets will set the genre apart and keep it fresh. The scene needs new fans as well as music to keep the club scene going so its nice to see so many people out. In stark contrast to many of the bigger clubs and events on the calendar, Corsica always attracts a true fan based crowd.

Chris Liebing recently described ROD's style on his CLR Podcast as "soulful techno." Soul would in most musical cases indicate a James Brown type of vibe and a certain sound but I think he just means that ROD's sets have depth of emotion. When listening to a Liebing set for example, I just zone out into some techno soldier trance. Standing there on ROD's dance floor I was smiley, bouncy & floaty in places, I was carried through an emotional spectrum.

 
The journey of the set is somewhat awesome organised chaos. Travelling all over the show in sub genre and style, but it works. There is acid and machine gunning brilliance, hand claps etc, old school, latin vibes, minimal, a tinge of funk etc. We left the room at 2:45am for a stinky horrid fag break but I welcomed the cold of outside. What with my lovely dress and my dislike of handbags I was keeping my phone in my boot - every time I bent down to take it out or put it away I got dizzy I was so hot. I got bored watching people smoke (it's never just the one cigarette and there was good music inside so why hang about???). I decided to do a recce of Room 1.

Room 1 for RØDHÅD was packed and sounded bland as I walked in. SLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAMSLAM and nowt else so I went back to the garden and tried again in ten mins. With the stage used for dancing there was a deceptive amount of space available to dance in but to me, it sounded like so many sets I heard before. Paint by numbers Berghain dance floor Techno. Not that that is a bad thing but I was not here for that today. I didn't want the emotion drummed out of me, I wanted to FEEL, so I went back to ROD. I guess others felt the same at the time as Room 2 was rammed. I am admittedly judging RØDHÅD on short 5 min snippets so for a rounded view of the overall journey you'll need to read someone else's blog.

I went to the famously bass driven toilets and could hear RØDHÅD slamming it hard, but to me, it had no soul. Some nights I am in the mood to get nutted and stomp and soldier it up. Some nights I want some personality and pizzazz and fun. ROD is just where I was at. Sometimes hard is oppressive. March or else. Go hard or go home. In the loos everything shook with the duff duff duff and I heard a girl say... "That is my room every day. I love it." I could not do that every day. I prefer more bounce per ounce.

The last half hr of ROD's set Ben Sims joined him for some B2B. I remember hearing a track with either a

bassoon or clarinet riff. I've never heard that in techno before and it sounded great. Ben Sims was providing some tougher sounds now but the room kept an air of fun. Ben Sims kept raising the bar in terms of hardness with each track until we were all in a frenzy. As he played his last track we'd almost reached a level that was just too much ROD had to take it right back down to a dull roar in order to bring it in a bit and refunkify it all. And boy did he. He whipped us up and commandeered the final ten to fifteen mins and it was pure magic. I "Ashley Borged" about that dance floor. I (for want of a better phrase) lost my shit. Totally let go and fucking loved it. I am not one for applause and whooping (they are playing tunes, not delivering world peace after all) but I went mental at the end. I wanted to hug and kiss that man. Massive big love and respect. ROD you are awesomes. I may love you more than Hula Hoops. You are on a par with cats. And I love cats. A lot.

The final track ended and I needed a big fat break to recover and think on what just happened. Again I joined the smokers for some very unfresh air. Do we think if I complain enough they will eventually take a hint? I went to loo as they finished smoking and when I came back they sparked up again. Yuk. Stinks. So again I ventured alone into Room 1. RØDHÅD was still pounding 4/4 bass but was now more palatable and driving rather than oppressive. The dance floor was a little thinned out and everyone was shuffling happily apart from one guy on the stage with a fan full on voguing with boundless energy.

Ben Sims

I popped back in to see Ben Sims and ROD was on! I felt deprived I had missed 20mins! The B2B set had carried on past the end of his set and on into Ben Sims. The dance floor was writhing. Every build up brought people jumping in the air, both feet off the floor, and the energy was unparalleled on any dance floor I've seen in long time. It was a techno mosh pit. It was off the scale in there!!!

It was really interesting to see the contrast between ROD and Ben Sims. Ben was playing far tougher tracks then ROD would reply in contrast with something sassy and fun. Both DJs were in the booth grinning and dancing to each other's tunes and just having the best time together. The most exciting sounds were created when Ben Sims mixed into ROD's tracks. You felt tantalizingly close to something amazing but, once ROD's tune mixes out Sims track choices sounded dull in comparison. They worked really well back to back and it was really fabulous to see two very different styles merging and working together, and for each DJ to be reacting to each other and the crowd on the fly - rather than a pre-planned set. It's that kind of interaction that I find lacking a lot in many sets these days. To see some people behind the decks just oozing joy and enthusiasm and bouncing off the crowd was utterly the best night out I've had in ages.

Next blog will be in a week, reviews of Diamond Version and Margaret Dygas before we head off to celebrate my birthday at ADE. I cannot bloody wait.

Sat 3rd August: Colony @ Corsica Studios / Sunday 4th August: VOID @ Cafe 1001

I had a self imposed techno month off after Barcelona. Epic workload for a while meant no social life whatsoever for a while. I even missed DSL's birthday celebration trip to Machine at Corsica (brief review: Oscar Mulero - great tunes but overcrowded main room). Back in full swing for August...

First stop Colony Summer Rave at Corsica Studios. We arrived, queued, took my rucksack stuffed with everyone else's belongings to the cloakroom (one day I will not take a bag and then WHAT WILL THEY DOOOO!?!?!?) and stood about in the smoking area whilst I watched everyone else pumping their lungs full of crap. This was not a Colony of techno and only techno. In the promoters own words "we've assembled what, we reckon, is about the most balls-out destructive Colony line-up to date, spanning house, techno, electro, acid, 'ardcore, jungle, D&B and all kinds of mutant in-betweenness primed to set the dancefloor ablaze - or at least bits of it." This was an eclectic night of genres during which I had a fine old time in the main. For one, I remembered to charge my phone so had no need to scribble notes in the dark this time - a fact checked by CB on the door on my way in.

Finally we got into Room One to watch Kawn's live set. Who the fuck are Kawn? Mates of the promoters according to the line up. I went to look up Kawn and found the dictionary definition is the Turkish word for "an inn". However the urban dictionary says this:

(verb) To trick a retarded person into thinking he's not retarded. Possibly a relative of the much hated "pwned". http://www.urbandictionary.com

Kawn were using modular synths (and a load of other analogue kit we couldn't quite see from floor level) to deliver a set of very not off the shelf funky breaks, steady melodies, cheeky high hats, booty bass, tribal rhythms, acid touches and a bit of everything flung in. It worked well - sounded like a different genre every ten mins and yet the same signature all over it throughout. They best get themselves a Soundcloud account and a facebook page "tout de suite" as I am quite sure that I  - and indeed The World - would enjoy much more of this.

Radioactive Man

Obviously you expect DJ's at decent clubs to have some skills but when it comes to changing between sets, often the set is cut completely for a round of applause or the two sets are mixed one into the other but they don't mesh well - a stubborn DJ will sometimes have a planned set and especially the first track and damn it if they will change their minds to suit the current situation. However, not only did the next DJ mix seamlessly, he did it from a set of decks the other side of the room. Not a big deal really but noticed by all of us as most people don't bother. It's been a while since I last danced about at Haywire at The Fortress to electro veteran Radioactive Man. For those of you not in the know, Radioactive Man is Keith Tenniswood and he also makes up one half of Two Lone Swordsman with Andrew Weatherall. A slow paced start to the set had our mate IT getting impatient and wanting to go check out Room 2 but I told her to give it 20 mins and she was glad she stayed. A solid beginning ramped up and things got bassier, more urgent, the breaks got funkier with some menacing bass lines ripping up the dance floor. He's certainly not lost his touch in ten years. I used to go to Cambridge breaks night Boomslang on a regular basis a few years back and always loved the super tension freeing awesome joyful feel of breakbeat. Somehow Radioactive Man gave it a more mature grown up edge this evening. I had almost forgotten how much I love dancing to breaks. The beats fly off in different syncopated directions and my limbs wanna just follow suit. The sounds got gradually more frenetic as the set went on and techno  influences pulsed through it all in clean waves. Whereas Plump DJs are happy hands in air, this is more layered, more serious, intelligent, hints of dnb and techno with a snippet of Samba beats thrown in for a few bars too. Not that anyone was paying attention to the screen on the opposite wall but there were some nice graphics on show as well. 

At this point I should also point out that the general sound in Room 1 was much cleaner and crisper than it has been the past few times I've gone to Corsica. Whatever or whoever has sorted that system out a bit BRAVO! I am also loving that Corsica's smoke machines do not point down, just across the ceiling for atmosphere. Nothing invasive that blinds you for 2 mins and gets up your nose. The simple gobo lighting effect on the bar area wall also always draws my attention. Simple but effective.

No return to techno would be complete without TIR and he unexpectedly graced us with his presence at

Untold

2am after a last minute drive down from afar. It was almost time for Untold in Room 2 so we all went off to bars and toilets and smoking areas and had a chat and chilled for a mo. I was looking forward to Untold. We'd seen him in November according to IT but I had forgotten. He had however cropped up in conversation recently with my non-techno friend who had no idea about his techno career standing, but asked if I had ever heard of him as they are old mates. We entered Room 2 and were introduced to a soundscape of bass lines and distant police sirens, after which were immediately assaulted by the subs. My oesophagus was shaking so much in my throat I kept coughing. It was not comfortable. Untold basically took ten mins to scare the living shit out of my ears and I left the room.

I went to the loo to recover only to have my arse shaken to hell by the vibrating toilet seats above Room 2.
Everything in the loos shakes and vibrates from the bass downstairs. I returned to witness a techno DJ do a rewind. For real. That happened. He may be an ex DnB producer but there are limits. The set was not something I wanted to dance to but I was interested to stay and listen if it had been possible. Earplugs would not have worked. The man needed to turn shit down. The speakers could not cope with the levels and the results were a bit scratchy and not pleasant. But its just not cool to go tell a DJ that his sound levels are whack so, we exited to Room 1 where some other kinda abuse to my ears was also playing and so we hung out in the garden for a few mins until something more palatable to my fragile little mind came along. 

Anodyne

Anodyne's Live AV set came next. Another interesting name choice it means "inoffensive" but also is also a painkilling drug. Ha. Crazy, super fast fat bass & machine gunning mid range were complimented by cool hexagonal patterns, graphic equalisers and aerial shots on the screen mixing much slower than the music, which made your mind feel calm as your ears and feet were anything but. This set felt like DnB, Gabba and techno all rolled into one machine. A rare treat.

Perc

The DJ the boys had all come down to see was Perc who got straight in there with some banging wowowowowow sawtooth sound waves and started ripping the floor to pieces. A couple of Planetary Assault Systems tracks dropped in much to our delight. Every time I felt like Perc was slacking off ever so slightly I'd have just enough time to catch my breath and he'd pick it right back up again. A constant onslaught of techno with acid twangs and some beautiful flurry of pianos towards the end of the set. 

Perc was followed by Double O, a friend of ITs who has told me beforehand that he'd be delivering us some Detroit techno. JOY! ... We missed the first 20 mins because when a group of 6 people goes for a smoke, inevitably they chat and have another smoke and then one of them that looks like me will get bored of watching them all smoke and eventually coerce them back indoors to dance about. We returned to Room 1 to see Double O playing to a thinning crowd at about 5am. Great as there was more space for us to enjoy the sounds of wicked claps and synthy melodies. Some gems that can be found in my own collection were played and it's been a while since I heard them in a club. Papa New Guinea was just awesome, shortly followed by LFO's LFO. Then the set started getting old school, veered into hardcore and then residents CB and MB took over the last set for an all out hardcore session - at which point my fuel tank was empty and we headed home. 

A six hour sleep, a vat of coffee and some scrambled eggs on toast later we ventured to VOID at Cafe 1001. Took us bloody hours to get there due to Ride London taking over the roads and an Arsenal match causing jams on Holloway Rd, so we actually only just made it for the end of Simon Brandreth's stonking set before headliner Ashley Borg came on. I read a friends comment on FB today that he was out enjoying "Ashley Borg Techno, a genre all of it's own." True dat. Once again the floor was packed at 10pm on a Sunday night whilst sensible folks are off to bed. I question the vest but commend the set. Ashley always provides a heady educational mix of classics and totally new unknown tracks from up and coming producers. 

Ashley Borg aka The Mr Motivator of Techno

The Mr Motivator of Techno gave us all a damn good techno workout. A highly animated crowd were hyped up to the max not just by the sounds, but by the overall performance. Ashley was all big grins and air punches and the more he loved it the more we loved it. Lots of whooping, chanting, clapping etc. and an overall great atmosphere. This video shows Mr Borg getting his moves on:

I was feeling a little jaded and snuck off for ten mins to the front lounge at to eat home made cookies from the cafe and listen to the wonderful sounds of the usual resident DJ playing nice chilled house which was more where by brain was at. I am clearly out of practice! Best I fix that... 

The next Colony vs Scand (go and check out Simon Heartfield) is on 31st August with a cheaper combined ticket available to Plex on the 30th here. Determined to get to Plex this month as I missed the last 2 including a set from Rrose :( 

The next VOID is also that weekend. 

Other dates this month to look out for are:

Black Atlantic x Marcel Dettman / Lucy at Village Underground Sat 10th August

The Hydra: Blueprint Feat. Underground Resistance, Jeff Mills, Robert Hood & James Ruskin at Electric Brixton (I have a spare ticket to this so comment if you want it!).