19th Sept '13: Diamond Version & Ninos Du Brasil @ Village Underground / 20th Sept '13: ELM Calls Berlin with Margaret Dygas + Sammy Dee @ Crucifix Lane

Mid week techno is a rare occurrence, but who could resist a live show from Diamond Version? We hauled our arses to Village Underground on a school night, knowing that the night finished at 2am and arriving early at 9:30pm hoping that the main act would be on in time to grab last tubes.

The venue was laid out slightly differently to usual, with the archway from the reception to the bar room blocked and the bar brought forward to make the bar area half its usual size. The event was a preview for Italian festival Club2Club sponsored by Alfa Romeo who (by way of a sign up process at a desk)  were offering the chance to win a set of headphones - what the hell that has to do with their brand I have no idea. Seems a very tenuous link in as much as the car is Italian and the festival is in Italy. Not sure how many techno lovers really equate to Alpha Romeo sales?! There were banners across the ceiling for the festival as well as constant promo images on the large stage screens. The line up for the festival in November includes Moderat, Fourtet, Fuckbuttons, Jon Hopkins and a lot more. Worth a look if you happen to be in Torino at the time.

In the main room a stage had been constructed, brought forward a lot to make the main space much smaller

than usual - this was not going to be a huge capacity audience it would seem. The stage had been set up with 2 huge screens and projectors but the warm up DJ was positioned down on floor level against the far side wall whic was a bit strange. He was playing a nice selection of electro. Towards 10pm the tunage got far more experimental and stark and edgy art-house horror filmy. We were stood right at the front for a rare change. I turned around to survey the sparse crowd and there was a higher percentage of big bushy beards than usual, and a generally older crowd than is out at the weekends.

At 10pm Ninos Du Brasil took to the stage. At first, a lone DJ played experimental tribal beats. He was soon joined by 3 live drummers sporting tinsel hats who accompanied the DJ then over powered him with drum rolls, shouting "hum ha hum ha" like an aggressive Noel Fielding sketch. It was Techno meets Mighty Boosh complete with jungle animal sounds. I felt like Balloo might come out wearing coconuts and a grass skirt doing big fish little fish cardboard box at any moment.

Ninos Du Brasil

The next track suddenly transported me to the middle of Mardi Gras. The energy of Ninos Du Brasil was awesome. I could feel the atmosphere of a street festival, imagine the colours, see the booty shaking. However, when I turned around, the audience is mostly still, nodding slightly. I was also not outwardly dancing, in fact very few people were moving at all. Inside I was doing the samba. We must all be dead inside not to have been going bananas. Or maybe we just very English and in Shoreditch on a Thursday. This track flowed into a more jazzy vibe combined with very minimal techno - like Lucy meets Buena Vista Social Club. I loved it, loved them. I 100% recommend you see them if you have the chance. Ninos Du Brasil are something a bit different and a lot of fun.

After this stream of energetic brilliance the set got on an oriental Zen tip with deep plodding bass drum and tinkering chimes. This track went on for a verrrrrry long time and didn't really go anywhere. It was quite meditative edging on dull. Thankfully after that brief reflective interlude the guys regained their upbeat & percussive feel and a few more people in the crowd were now warmed up and dancing. We had a group of girls in front of us dressed up for a Saturday night and dancing around a pile of coats and handbags - something I've not seen in a long time! Ninos ended their show with an unexpected grungy metal tip.

Alessio Natalizia

The DJ started up again for a short time with some Kompakt style house tracks whilst the stage hands cleared the Ninos kit and set up a bank of thigh high screens front of stage. I had no idea until afterwards that the DJ was in fact Alessio Natalizia|, half of Kompakt duo Walls who was (according to Resident Advisor) presenting a "a retrospective collection focused on the Italian electronic and new wave underground scene of the ’80s."

It became apparent from the stage set up that Diamond Version would not be performing with Japanese artist Atsuhiro Ito. He was not billed on the line up but DSL was really hoping he may make a guest appearance as this clip shows, their work together is pretty amazing.

Mute records Diamond Version is a collaboration between Byetone and Alva Noto. I saw Alva Noto deliver a live set at Berghain last year and still remember feeling like I was listening to musical fireworks. I was looking forward to this performance very much. The duo started with ear crunching white noise, massive pounding stomach churning bass and a strobe light facing directly at us. My senses were assaulted. My head hurt, my brain ached, and yet it was brilliant. The sound quality was great. I was being physically affected by the depth of the subs and yet could still talk to DSL without shouting even though my ears were tickling. It felt way too loud but clearly was not.

As my ears adjusted I looked up and enjoyed the visual stream of projections perfectly timed to the music, lighting the screens up in patches of colour like heat sensors.

My favourite track of the show showed racing cars on the visuals and was an onslaught of crisp clean engine revs. I my head I was making "neeeeoooowwwwws" like a 6 year old pretending to drive throughout. Call me a child but I like cars and I like techno - fuse the two together and I am likely to pretend I am car racing whilst I am listening.

The hour long performance was short but very sweet; blending distortion, beats and excellent video. I had a great time and just wish I had the balls to dance like a loom even when no one else will. There is nothing worse than a banging set and a dead crowd. Stupid thing is this that whilst they all stood about stroking their beards I expect they all felt exactly the same as me.

The following night we trotted off to Crucifix Lane for a night of Berlin influences with ELM. We arrived at 12:30am to a half full main room, which reached its maximum influx of people by 1:30am to see it maybe two thirds full. The tunes being played were mediocre uninspiring tech house. Nice enough but not grabbing anyone's attention, especially with the sound level pretty low. The main room was smaller than usual as the DJ set up had been brought forward and the ceiling draped at the front with a parachute which looked a bit naff if in my opinion but, made the small crowd feel more intimate. The volume of people chatting was annoyingly equal to the music and I felt really old. 95% of the crowd were in their early 20s.

We ended up sat down chatting on some stools. Joking we are old, I suddenly realise that when I was 20 and people in their 30s were out with us moaning how much better it was back in the day, I thought they should be at home and leave us young'uns to it. And now that is me - but I am sat down because actually,  we have been out a lot in life and we have seen and heard it all and need a certain level of quality and entertainment to get us dancing. We are not easily impressed these days. This party does have a nice vibe, good energy, a friendly crowd and my head and foot have been nodding along the whole time but its not ground breaking. It's fine. That is all.

We had come to see Sammy Dee and Margaret Dygas so I thought I'd best check the set times online. At this point I discover that Sammy Dee was on 2 til 4 then Margaret til close. However, the venue had been granted an extended license til 8am at the last minute so that would now change. I was quite mortified we would have to stay all night if we wanted to hear Dygas, although admittedly the tunes are building pace and were now a little  louder and contained more passion and character.

A quick 3am cigarette break in the packed fenced off corridor on the pavement outside was short lived for once. Due to local residents you have to be quiet so every 2mins a loud shhhhh spread down from the bouncers for us all to shut up. It was like being in a school assembly. Going back indoors we were greeted by full on feel good banging house tracks. No vocals being played but the general sound reminded me of old Cassius tracks.

Sammy Dee was on about 3am in the end I think. The house is deeper and more varied in his set. We get to hear Latin rhythms, tech house some tracks with a 90s soulful beat that reminded me of the Brand New Heavies. I had fun during this set and in a conscious effort to get ourselves moving, we went to the front to get involved. After half an hour of it I was getting a bit bored and a few clashy vocal mixes of chanting and shouting and pianos made the set a bit messy in places. There seems to be something wrong with one of the decks that a needle change didn't fix. We were losing the will to live by 5am and sat down. The night was just not good enough to dance to again. Tracks picked up with an acid house vibe but I was beginning to think Dygas just wan't going to be playing! Sammy Dee's set slowed in pace to get deeper and more fluid but the mixes and levels had not been fab - he kept bringing tracks in as if he didn't know the level was up and taking it out again quickly as it is out of time. I wonder if the monitor levels were right? All the DJs have had some issues and I have to assume that there is an issue with the sound set up.

By now the club is less than half full, peak time was 2 til 4. Why on earth would you play the headliner last Margaret Dygas - please dear God make this have been worth waiting for.
on an 8am finish? Finally there were signs of a DJ change at 6am as tiny lady takes to the decks much to everyone's happiness. Welcome

It was a shaky start. The high end was very prominent but the bass was really muffled and fuzzy. Something somewhere in a speaker had blown and that is just not fixable. Margaret's mixes are not flawless. They are just a smidge off time here and there and downright clunky on occasion - a fact only made more noticeable by the uneven sound levels. It took her half an hour to get into her stride and sort the levels out, then it was a good solid innings played to a room now only a third full at best. We danced about to some nice smooth, well paced techno that reminded me a bit of Hawtin's Ibiza Boiler Room Set. The set built well and a heaving dance floor would probably have been going nuts - but all that was left at 7am were space cadets and others too tired by now to give it some. Just as I am thinking this, another clunky mix hits my ears and the levels go all over the show again. It's a shame as the tune selection is fantastic but speakers are popping and I admit defeat, use the horribly lit and grim toilets and depart.

That's the second time I've been to Crucifix Lane (the first was was Speedy J earlier his year) and both times the sound has been awful. Personally I'll need some convincing to bother going there again. Many of my mates love the place and I have not a clue why. It's a black painted brick arch like every other arch venue available in the city, with nasty loos and a crap sound system. The only stand out point is the lighting rig in the center of the ceiling, but when that is covered up by a parachute then it's really not anything special at all.

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.