the daily newspaper for london from the red bull

DAILY N TE
THE DAILY NEWSPAPER FOR LONDON FROM THE RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY
AROUND
THE WORLD IN
16 PAGES
A Taste Of Sonar
in London Town /
Electronic Music in India/
Reggae in Japan /
John Niven in Purgatory
04.03.2010
18/24
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
MUSIQUE SANS FRONTIERS
TIME WAS THE HEGEMONY OF WESTERN
POP MUSIC MADE ALMOST ANYTHING
EMANATING FROM OUTSIDE THE UK OR
US A NO-GO ZONE. NOT ANY MORE. THE
BORDERS ARE DOWN AND CREATIVE
EXPLORATION NO LONGER ENDS AT THE
PASSPORT CONTROL BOOTHS OF THE
ESTABLISHED MAJOR POWERS. INSTEAD
IT’S ALL UP FOR GRABS, AS YOU’LL SEE
FROM TODAY’S FLIP THROUGH THE GLOBAL
JUKEBOX. IN TODAY’S NOTE YOU’LL FIND
CUTTING-EDGE ELECTRONICA FROM
BARCELONA’S ANNUAL SÓNAR
FESTIVAL – WHICH THIS WEEKEND MAKES
AN ACADEMY-INSPIRED VISIT TO LONDON –
ALONGSIDE STORIES ON INDIA’S
BURGEONING STATUS AS A TRULY ECLECTIC
MUSICAL POWERHOUSE AND A LOOK
“IN THE MIDST OF HAIRIER
TIMES
IN BRIXTON I WISHED FO
R
A SITUATION LIKE THIS! ”
ROOTS MANUVA ON THE
RED
BULL MUSIC ACADEMY
redbullmusicacademyradio.co
m/shows/17 30/
Roots Manuva Live at Spla sh
Festival 2009, Ger many
AT THE APPARENT INCONGRUITY OF JAPAN
AS A HOTBED OF REGGAE AUTHENTICITY.
EVERYWHERE ELSE, GLOBALISATION IS
A DIRTY WORD. NOT HERE.
RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY IS...
Since it began in Berlin in 1998, the Red Bull
Music Academy has fostered musicians’ creativity
by bringing them together with a diverse and
talented group of peers. Here, aspiring artists
from around the world learn from and collaborate
with the musical pioneers who minted the genres
they themselves are now pushing to new levels.
It’s about mutual inspiration, helping them to
connect the dots and make their own contribution
to music. This year’s host city is London.
The Academy has landed.
MIKE SLOTT (LUCKYME): “THE MUSIC
ACADEMY OPENED MY EARS!!”
DAILY NOTE ISSUE 18 / 24
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US OUT OF NEXT’S WEEK’S
PICKLE... HOPEFULLY.
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DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
/// FROM T HE AC A DE M Y///
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
///STA RT I NG NOT ES///
TELLING
PORKIES
ACTUALLY,
EXPERIMENTAL
DANCE MAVEN
MATTHEW HERBERT
IS DEADLY SERIOUS
/// DAY OF NO R EST ///
Passionately political audio provocateur and
Accidental Records kingpin Matthew Herbert
takes time out from recording his forthcoming
“food protest” album One Pig – comprised of
sounds sourced from, yes, the birth, life and
death of a pig – to play a rare DJ set for A Taste
of Sónar at London’s Roundhouse tonight.
A lot of your recent records and live
performances have been with your Big
Band. Can you tell us more about that?
The thing that I like about the Big Band is that
it’s a metaphor for how I think life should be:
everyone doing their own part and ultimately
pulling together in a common direction.
Is it a struggle to convey your musical ideas
to such a large group?
I’m handing control over of part of my musical
identity and what I’d like to say to other
people. I’ve come to like that – because in
life, well, I might be able to rustle up some
vegetables in a vegetable patch in the garden,
but I can’t grow cotton and make clothes, I
need someone to provide my clothes, then,
PARTICIPANT PASS NOTES
THIS SCANDO-ROMANIAN PUTS
BUCHAREST ON THE MAP THAT JACK
BUILT. HOUSE IS HIS AGENDA, DETROIT HIS
ADOPTED MUSICAL CITY. THE 24-YEAR-OLD
FOLLOWS IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THEO
PARRISH, ADDING SOME FEISTY DISCO
LOOPS AND RECENTLY GRABBED THE
ATTENTION OF LEFTFIELD HOUSE GRANDE
DAME DINKY WHO RELEASED HIS GEMS ON
HER HORIZONTAL IMPRINT.
VLAD CALA
RIGHT HERBERTS
Describe the type of music you make:
It’s like spacey-Chicago-Detroitish deep-techhouse. Usually there’s a raw and dirty feeling
to it. I was never keen on that clean, polished
mixing type of sound. It does have a lot of
deepness and techno soul vibes, though, and
I vary it as much possible and try to not use
the same formula all the time.
Matthew and Matthew
are shocked to find
out they bought that
shirt – twice
“IN ELECTRONIC
MUSIC WE’VE
BECOME
LIKE MINI
DICTATORS”
THE ILLEST VILLAIN
I don’t know, someone to lay tarmac, someone
to make a car for me to drive in. We all need
everybody else. In electronic music, or at least
the modern studio environment, it’s so insular.
I like the diminished vanity of working with
seasoned professionals.
ON HIP HOP ENIGMA DOOM’S LONDON VISIT
How do you feel about the current state
of electronic music?
In electronic music we’ve become like
mini-dictators, where what the individual
says goes, and where the individual can
control everything: the recording, the
performance, the release, absolutely
everything. There’s not much risk to it.
I guess that’s also what makes electronic
music amazing, on the one hand, but it
also can make it insular and indulgent…
it’s very happy to be separate from the world,
it doesn’t seem to go out and try to engage
head-on with some of the friction that’s
out there.
Daniel Dumile is one of hip
hop’s living legends. His
career began with KMD, a
’90s New York crew that fell
apart following the death of
Dumile’s brother DJ Subroc,
struck by a car in Long Island.
Four years of depression
followed, during which
Dumile testified to being
There are some strongly political ideas in
your music. Do you feel there’s a lack of
idealism and activism in contemporary
dance music?
We always seem to be encouraged, particularly
by this government, just to be lazy, just to
buy things, to interact with the world in a very
one-dimensional way. You either buy Coke
or you buy Pepsi, you drink coffee in Starbucks
or in Costa, you vote Tory or you vote Labour.
There seems to be little stirring of the
imagination, and music has an important
part to play in re-establishing the role of
imagination in that.
“damn near homeless,
walking the streets of
Manhattan, sleeping on
benches”. He returned in
1997 with a metal mask and
a new name: Metal Fingers –
MF for short – Doom. 2004’s
Madvillainy was a crazed
opus that ranged from the
grandiose to the painfully
personal, and remains one of
the greatest hip hop LPs ever.
Now signed to Lex, his 2009
album Born Like This –
released under the all-caps
DOOM – proves he’s still one
of the most inventive names
in the genre. Catch him
on the Sónar bill alongside
Matthew Herbert, Roska
and Lex Records DJs.
A Taste of Sónar, Friday, 7pm-3am,
The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm
Road, NW1 8EH
THE DEVIL’S PORTAL:
SITES FOR SORE EYES
Green Brain For explorers of the pretty
strange netherworld where krautrock,
psych and out there soundtracks meet,
Germany’s green-brain-krautrock.de
is the online store of choice. From that
rare Agitation Free, 2nd LP on Vertigo
swirl to a white vinyl copy of the
“absolutely bloody brilliant Vampyros
Lesbos Sexadelic Dance Party” green
brain will have it tucked away in a
swirling, temporal vortex connected
via mind-link to their stock room.
Where’s the weirdest place you’ve played?
I played in a Norwegian Troll museum that
resembles a mountain cave. The sound
effects and background music were still on
at 3am when I finished my gig. I almost got
lost in this maze of caves, it was really creepy.
Luckily, I found the exit.
Where does your music come from?
Curiosity and imagination.
GIFT OF SOUND AND VISION
Where is your music going?
I would like to see it in smoky basements
and big closed factories where people are
throwing parties.
THE ACADEMY CONTINUES ITS PERILOUS JOURNEY
INTO THE DARK HEART OF THE UK’S LIVING ROOMS
NEXT WEDNESDAY, THIS TIME BRINGING MIRRORBALLS
AND SKATES FOR A DISCO EXTRAVAGANZA
Do you have to do any other job to allow
you to make music?
I sometimes have to rig up PA systems. You
learn a lot of technical stuff and its good for
working out too.
PHOTO: JAMES LANGE/PYMCA
Which Londoner would you most like to
hang out with?
Not sure if Liam from The Prodigy is a
Londoner but would be great to hang out
with him one day.
What is your favourite word in the
language or dialect you grew up with?
Marfa. Which means ‘merchandise’, which
actually means wicked/cool.
Would you sell your soul for rock’n’roll?
Don’t think so. Not my style.
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
Tune in to Channel 4 next Wednesday
night for the second in the Red
Bull Music Academy’s series of
exclusive mini-documentaries,
a disco special presented
by Alex Zane. It’s beamed
straight into your living
room, so if you want
to dress up in hot pants
and stack heels,
it’s very much your call.
RED BULL MUSIC
ACADEMY:
DISCO TO DISCO
Channel 4, Wednesday,
March 10, midnight
LOST WEEKENDS
I
WHY STOP ON SATURDAY NIGHT? WE INVESTIGATE
SOME OF LONDON’S LEGENDARY SUNDAY SESSIONS.
GO OUT, HAVE A GOOD TIME, SAYS ROBIN TURNER
t’s funny to think that just 15 years ago, pubs
shut up shop on a Sunday afternoon, leaving the
Great British public with little to do but wrestle
with the remains of the roast and flake out in front of
the Eastenders omnibus. Unless, that was, you were
one of those dedicated hedonists who sought to
squeeze the last few blissful moments of insanity out
of the weekend.
Sunday clubbing used to be pretty much the last
taboo for anyone who worked for a living. Monday
morning’s super-charged hangover was like a badge
of honour in an office gearing up for the week ahead
– that or a huge flashing Belisha beacon atop your head
alerting HR to their urgent need to sit you down and
ask if you’d really thought about your priorities.
This weekend sees the Red Bull Music Academy
stage two weekending parties in association with
Secretsundaze and FACT Magazine – we thought we’d
take time out to doff our caps in the direction of the
clubs that just can’t get enough.
TRADE
Laurence Malice’s seminal gay club, the self-styled
“original all-night bender”, began in 1990 in the (sadly
now defunct) Turnmills. Uniquely at the time, it
opened its doors at 4am – when most clubbers were
staggering home – and the venue was a seething mass
of male bodies dancing to thumping house music. Like
the clubbing equivalent of the last few miles of the
marathon, Trade was strictly for the hardcore.
THE HEAVENLY SUNDAY SOCIAL
The basement of a pub next to Great Portland Street
Tube hardly sounds like the place to break a pair of
superstar DJs, but The Sunday Social did just that. The
Chemical (née Dust) Brothers road-tested their first
album here and headlined over many of their mentors
– Andrew Weatherall, Justin Robertson, Tricky and
David Holmes all willingly warmed up for them. All
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
good things come to an end though – 14 weeks in and
the plug was pulled when both organisers and DJs both
agreed that carrying on would probably kill them.
METALHEADZ
Before he was in Eastenders, Goldie used to be a hell of
a DJ, running a suitably demented club night at the Blue
Note in Hoxton Square. Metalheadz Sunday Sessions
saw Goldie, along with Kemistry And Storm and pretty
much anyone worth their salt in the world of
drum’n’bass spend a hectic Sunday wreaking audio
warfare on east London. Fifteen years on, some regulars
still complain that their ears haven’t stopped ringing.
SUNDAY BEST
Rob Dab Bank’s Bestival empire may now encompass
two festivals and a label, but it grew from humble
beginnings on a Sunday afternoon in the chaotic
surrounds of the Tea Rooms des Artists in Clapham.
Each week the club followed Rob’s personal anything
goes music policy (now reflected in Bestival’s broad
sweep). Add some utterly bonkers visuals and a reliably
mellowed-out bunch of post big-night regulars, and it’s
easy to see why punters returned week after week.
HORSE MEAT DISCO
Mack daddy of the disco revival, Horse Meat has been
the discerning dancer’s perfect end of the week for some
time now. Existing on a diet of uplifting, string-laden
grooves from re-edited lost disco classics, Horse Meat
Disco has kept the flame burning in its Vauxhall home,
the Eagle, for half a decade. Guests like Prins Thomas,
Todd Terje, Derrick Carter and Daniel Wang all walked
away with an evangelical zeal after riding the Horse.
The Academy takes over two club nights on Sunday March 7:
Secretsundaze at Paramount, Level 32, Centre Point, 103 New
Oxford St, WC1, 2-11pm w/ Todd Terje, Sound Stream, Giles Smith
and James Priestly; FACT at the Lock Tavern, Chalk Farm Road,
NW1, 4-10.30pm w/Rustie, MJ Cole, Joy Orbison. Both free
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
BEATS FROM THE EAST
BOLLYWOOD MIGHT STILL DOMINATE, BUT GLOBALISATION HAS OPENED UP INDIA’S CULTURAL
BORDERS, AND THE RESULT IS A NEW GENERATION OF BEDROOM PRODUCERS CRAFTING THEIR OWN
LOCALISED SOUND. RAHUL VERMA TRACKS DOWN THE MUSICIANS BUBBLING UP FROM BELOW
B
eing a teenager in India in the ’70s
and ’80s was a strange experience.
Those who resisted the Bollywood
hegemony found solace in the default outsider
music of choice, heavy rock (Led Zeppelin,
Deep Purple, Iron Maiden). Until 1990,
though, the country had a closed economy,
meaning that 99 per cent of Western brands
weren’t available (no McDonalds, no Ford
etc). Which goes a long way to explain
middle-class India’s unquenchable thirst
for Western brands today.
Only the music of the world’s biggest
bands made its way to the handful of
independent record stores in the biggest
cities. The demand for anything else didn’t
even warrant the ‘goondas’ (gangsters)
switching their pirating factories from
Bollywood to, say Bowie or Funkadelic.
Now hundreds of millions more bellies
are full, the economy’s open and India is
living the free-market dream. The internet
has enabled today’s teenage rebels to access
Autechre, Tiesto or Jalebee Cartel, and
increased prosperity means more young
Indians are studying, traveling and working
abroad. The result is an explosion in the
numbers of bedroom producers, and online
communities like Submerge and independent
label/online radio station Audio Ashram is
providing virtual hang-outs for electronic
freaks to share their love of repetitive beats.
Now every week in the metropolitan
cities of New Delhi, Chennai, Bombay (yes
Bombazines call it Bombay, not ‘Mumbai’),
and especially Bangalore, you’ll find
electronic music nights of some description.
The force of rave remains strong in hippiefriendly Goa, the spiritual home of modern
dance in India, where Paul Van Dyke has been
touring for over a decade.
Clubbing, however, remains in its
embryonic stage. India is still a conservative
country, with a powerful religious right that
associates electronic music with sex, drugs
and the decadent West. In a recent
clampdown on Bombay ‘dance bars’, tawdry
venues where girls dance sexily for lecherous
businessmen, venues playing electronic music
also lost their licences, because authorities
were unable to distinguish between the two.
On top of that, independent music of any
description has to contend with Bollywood,
which devours global musical trends at a
staggering rate: disco (check Parvati Khan’s
Jimmy, Jimmy, Aaja, the source of MIA’s
Jimmy), salsa, Michael Jackson, soft rock,
trance, house, reggaeton and hip hop have all
been given the Bollywood treatment. Despite
this, the well-established college rock scene
is gradually absorbing electronica, which is
slowly seeping into the DNA of cooler kids.
India is not about to experience its very
TAKE IT TO THE STREETS
SHAA’IR & FUNC SHOP
THEIR BEATS AROUND THE
GLOBAL VILLAGE
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
own summer of love, but a paradigm shift
has begun, with more and more hearts, minds
and feet moving to pulsating rhythms. Just as
the world’s biggest democracy is making its
impact felt across commerce, economics and
sport, the same will happen in electronic
music. Here are some of the activists who
are fanning the fires of the slow-burning
rave revolution.
MUKUL
vocals for a spellbinding sound that draws on
electro, breaks, chill and trance. Their
reputation is growing internationally
and they’re versatile – December’s Jigsaw
is cheeky progressive house (supported by
Tiesto among others) while the same month’s
Dub Suit features deep ragga house)
Importantly, Jalebee Cartel’s online
presence, all-round profile (they have a
Beatport player with 20 tracks) and brandbuilding game are slick (they’ve got adidas
Originals sponsorship). India has a problem
breaking electronic music to the masses in
a friendly format – but Jalebee may well be
the ones to do it.
www.jalebee.in/
Mukul Deora has been railing against
the tyranny of Bollywood for over 15 years
through DJ sets, arranging abstract sound
installations and a stint on radio “playing
Aphex Twin to ten stoned fuckers on a
Saturday night”.
Mukul teamed up with producer Howie B
MIDIVAL PUNDITZ
(Björk, Tricky) for his debut LP, 2006’s Stray
Guarav Raina and Tapan Raj blazed a trail as
– a widescreen, noir-ish night-drive through
the first internationally renowned Indian
Bombay’s darkest corners, with a whispered
electronica act through their self-titled 2002
singing technique, learned from Indian
debut. The Delhi duo meld Indian classical
classical music.
and devotional music to electronica, and their
Mukul is providing a platform for the
music has a sunset, Café Del Mar feel you can
growing number of teenage and early twenty“shaanti om” to. Their 2009 album Hello
something producers via his
Hello features traces of rock, Hindi
label Dudup (the sound of a
classical Indian music and
“INDIA IS NOT pop,
heartbeat). His second, largely
electronica and was released on US
ABOUT TO
self-produced album, 2009’s
indie Six Degrees. The PunditZ
EXPERIENCE reputation is growing: they played
What Heart combined punk
attitude with Dylanesque
at Glastonbury in 2007, and have
ITS OWN
musings over nervy minimal
since worked with Sting, Anoushka
SUMMER OF
techno and throbbing electro.
Shankar and Norah Jones. In 2008,
LOVE, BUT
He’s also performed at the Tate
the duo and long-time collaborator
A PARADIGM Karshe Kalle conceived and
Modern and exhibited work of
SHIFT HAS
sculpture at the Serpentine
performed a soundtrack to Bruce
DEFINITELY
Gallery.
Lee’s Enter The Dragon to an
www.mukulonline.com/
audience of over 10,000 in
BEGUN’
Brooklyn. www.punditz.com
NASHA
Nasha (translation: under the influence) is
India’s most famous DJ. I saw him reduce a
sober, shy dancefloor (in Baroada, Gujarat, a
dry state) to a sweaty mass, through a vivid
set of house, breaks and trance laced with
bhangra and Hindi pop. In recent years
Nasha’s spent time in New York meditating
to the bass vibrations of the respected Sub
Swara and Dub War collectives.
Now a fully-fledged dubstep warrior,
Nasha’s remix (as BREED) of Jalebee Cartel’s
Mirrors, a teasing banger with a helicopter
style bassline, made the Beatport’s dubstep
top ten in February – the first Indian track to
scale the heady heights of such a respected
barometer. www.djnasha.com
JALEBEE CARTEL
Quartet Jalebee Cartel takes its name from
the bright orange Indian sweet (deep fried
sugar, amazing when served piping hot with
ice cream). The Delhi boy band use laptop,
decks, synths, drums, percussion, bass and
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
SHAA’IR & FUNC
Shaa’ir & Func is electro-pop duo Monica
Sharma Dogra and Randolph Savio Rosario
Correia. The latter is one of India’s leading
rock guitarists, and part of premier rock band
Pentagram, with a stoner image that wouldn’t
look out of place with Bill & Ted. For Shaa’ir
& Func, he’s smartened up, donning excellent
natty suits and funky eyewear to scrub up
nicely alongside his girlfriend Monica.
Shaa’ir & Func’s music mixes lilting
reggae, prog rock and electronica, while
Monica’s cute voice masks topics including
choice, freedom, and fighting the system.
Of all the acts here, Shaa’ir & Func’s
sound and image is most geared towards the
global village. They’ll be back in London next
month as part of the Southbank Centre’s
Alchemy festival. www.myspace.com/
shaairandfunc
For further info visit www.submerge.co.in, www.
audioashram.com, and www.dudup.in
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
ELECTROSPLASH
W
e kept pestering the organisers
of Sónar. We would send them
faxes with monsters drawn on
saying, ‘We want to come and play!’
Eventually they said OK.”
As a rule, it’s not always that easy to get
a gig at the world’s leading electronic music
festival, but back in the late 1990s, when
Sónar was easing into its stride, the girls of
fast-rising art-pop ensemble Chicks On Speed
would not take no for an answer. The
following year, 2000, at the very height of
their hype, Chicks On Speed were given
a main-stage headline slot at the festival’s
largest venue, the former Olympic
gymnasium built for Barcelona’s 1992 games.
Their set was a spectacular shambles, but
it just about kept the crowd of thousands
entertained. “It was too big, we were
freaking,” remembers Alex Murray-Leslie,
one of the Chicks. “It was really scary.”
For all sorts of reasons – seeing a young
Miss Kittin perform in a nurse’s uniform for
the first time in the International Deejay
Gigolos tent, witnessing Jeff Mills destroy a
sports hall at 3am, this strange clear liquid
proffered by a hip Danish scientist down by
the beach – your correspondent had his
mind well and truly blown at that edition of
Sónar, or to give the event its full title, the
International Festival of Advanced Music and
Multimedia Art. Aside from the fact that there
was nothing like this in the UK, bar a few pofaced computer-music seminars, the festival
seemed liberal and well-organised and
DOG ON WHEELS
It’s either Sónar artwork, or Belle and
Sebastian have got very lost indeed
tolerant. A cutting-edge event essentially
dedicated to raving held in a cosmopolitan
city. Which part of that is not fun?
Your first time in Barcelona is always a
revelation, but add to the mix of tapas and
sunshine a three-day event covering every
aspect of electronic music and club culture,
and the Catalan capital starts to resemble
a kind of shimmering techno Eden. After
everything Barcelona has done for you over
that long mid-June weekend, it would be
rude not to return for Sónar year after year,
which is precisely what tens of thousands of
revellers do.
This weekend, though, starting tonight,
you don’t have quite as far to travel. Sónar has
come to London to host a couple of nights at
the Roundhouse in Camden. Partnered by the
Academy, A Taste of Sónar offers a flavour of
the kind of acts performing at this year’s
festival, the 17th edition. This evening there’s
an exceedingly rare live set from swordwielding, masked rapper DOOM, his first on
British soil, and DJ sets from sample fiend
Matthew Herbert and MIA’s funky pal Roska,
while the Academy showcases the raw talent
of Space Dimension Controller, Juan Son and
Lunice. For Georgia Taglietti, the head of
international media at Advanced Music, the
organisation behind Sónar, the festival’s
hook-up with the Academy has been a
blessing; think of the Academy crew as A&R
for Sónar. “They have more time to see new
talent all over the world, so when they
recommend artists, we know they’ll deliver
and will be the next stars,” says Taglietti.
“It’s a natural partnership. We share the
same philosophy.”
Saturday’s show provides a link to the
earliest incarnation of Sónar. Between Four
Tet and Hudson Mohawke, there’s a live set
by evergreen Frenchman Laurent Garnier,
who, alongside Sven Väth, headlined the first
edition of the festival in 1994. Back then, a
little fewer than 7,000 people attended Sónar
over three days. Today, 75,000 come from
all over the world to catch new acts, meet
old friends, dance the night away, explore
installations and the latest developments in
technology and new media, and sit in on
panel discussions. While many look upon
the festival as a disco-based jolly, it’s worth
remembering that Sónar has always
“ WE GREW
UP REALLY
FAST. BUT
THE ARTISTS
ALSO GREW UP
REALLY FAST” GEORGIA TAGLIETTI
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
presented the very best from the spectrum
of electronic arts. This forward-looking remit
has enabled the event to stay on top of things.
“The good thing for us is that electronica
culture was developing at the same time as
the festival,” says Taglietti, who joined the
team in 1995. “I mean ‘electronic’ is not only
about music, and that’s why everything
connected with the internet has merged with
Sónar in a very natural way, because
everything that was computer-created,
whether it was image or sound, was already
the main content of the festival at the time.
We’re not cutting-edge, we just mirror the
reality – and the reality happens to be
cutting-edge.”
Sónar’s growth chimed with the explosion
of interest in electronic music and rave
culture. In the mid-’90s, acts like Aphex Twin
and Daft Punk became household names and
clubbing became a natural pastime for a new
generation. “Daft Punk’s first concert was one
of the biggest popular concerts at Sónar in the
old venue,” says Taglietti. “And we grew up
really fast. But I think the artists also grew
up really fast in terms of fame and celebrity.”
Growing up is certainly what these artists
have done: Aphex Twin is pushing 40, and
Richie Hawtin is wheeling out his ’90s rave
alias Plastikman for a peak-time knees-up at
this year’s party. Electronica may always be
a youthful genre by virtue of technology, but
some of its big-hitters are getting long in the
tooth. Purists frowned when Sónar recently
began playing the heritage card, booking the
likes of Madness, Beastie Boys and Chic, but,
Taglietti reasons, the festival has been around
long enough for it to dig a little deeper into
the roots of electronic music. Hence the
extraordinary Grace Jones concert last year,
or a moment in 2002 that saw this writer
enjoy a blitz on the dodgems with DJ Tiga
while ’80s titans the Pet Shop Boys played
Loves Come Quickly from a nearby stage –
a touching electroclash moment.
At least the old guard know how to
perform, though. Taglietti points out that one
of the downsides of investigating new artists
online is that, while their presentation may be
as flashy and seductive as their next-level
tunes, quite often these acts cannot cut it live.
For Taglietti, making the virtual a reality is
one of Sónar’s strengths.
“There’s so much on the internet within
our electronic world that it’s good to see them
live in their flesh and body, and see how they
play, how they perform, how they can be like
robots or like flesh and blood. I really like the
fact that at the end of the day you see that
these performances for real. And most of the
artists that you see on the internet, acts like
Joy Orbison and Flying Lotus, it’s good to see
them in the real world, to see them altogether
in one place.”
PHOTOS: BBC PHOTO LIBRARY
AS BARCELONA BRINGS SOME CATALAN HEAT TO WINTRY LONDON,
PIERS MARTIN TAKES THE PULSE AND SAYS SÓNAR, SO GOOD
These days, anyone who’s anyone in
electronic music will have performed
there. “I think it’s the top electronic music
festival in the world. If you’re invited to
play Sónar it’s a major honour. If you
compare it to festivals all over the world,
it’s beyond words, it’s another level,” says
Murray-Leslie. This year, Chicks On Speed
will be performing at Sónar Kids, an event
for youngsters held the week before Sónar
that takes place in the courtyard of the
CCCB (Centre de Cultura Contemporània
de Barcelona), where the main daytime
activities happen. “We’re going to dress the
kids in paper dresses and we’ve made these
cigar-box synthesisers that have like an
808 inside,” she says.
Murray-Leslie has lived in Barcelona
for five years. Like many, she came for
the festival and couldn’t tear herself away.
“After coming to Sónar for many years,
we started to produce albums here with
Cristian Vogel [another ex-pat] and other
people, and that led to meeting my
boyfriend, and then to me moving here.
Everything is definitely connected
to Sónar.”
The lure of Barcelona has certainly
played a part in the festival’s enduring
success. Sónar wouldn’t have quite the
same appeal if it were held in Manchester
or Munich, for example. “Well, there’s no
camping here,” says Taglietti, “and it helps
that you’re staying in a city that’s nice to
live in and always has good weather, great
clubbing culture and experiences, and a
beach. You have the perception that you’re
in the city but also in a kind of resort.”
In the last decade, scores of events
have taken place in Barcelona over the
Sónar weekend that have nothing to do
with the festival. Labels, magazines and
websites throw parties in clubs such as
Moog, Nitsa and Razzmatazz to attract
sunburned revellers who can’t face the bus
journey to Sónar’s night-time mega-raves.
Kompakt’s Sunday beach party is the stuff
of legend – if you can find it.
SOCKET TO ’EM
This year’s Sónar festival
had a special ‘serial
killer’ theme
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
LAND OF THE RINSIN SOUND
JAPAN’S REGGAE AND DANCEHALL INDUSTRY IS ONE OF THE MOST
DEDICATED AND LUCRATIVE IN THE WORLD.
SARAH BENTLEY INVESTIGATES PHOTO: DEBBIE BRAGG
B
TELL HER... SATAN!
GHOST RIDER
When something goes clip-clop in the night
“The thing about Sónar is there are so
many additional parties and events,” says
the British noise producer Russell Haswell,
a festival veteran who’s performed at Sónar
a number of times over the years. “It literally
takes over the city in a way, it’s really epic.
Sometimes these little parties can look quite
seductive, which I’m sure the Sónar
organisers are not happy about.”
He’s right. “We have an ambivalent
feeling about [the off-Sónar activities],” says
Taglietti, “because on one hand, it is
happening because of us, but on the other
we don’t want to have nothing to do with it.
People should mix the experience.”
With no mobile phones and only a
rudimentary version of the internet available,
life for the laptop-toting computer-music
artist in 1994 lacked the fluency we take for
granted today.
Seventeen years ago, the festival’s
founders, Enric Palau, Ricard Robles, Sergio
Caballero, were very much part of that world,
and wanted to produce a unique event in
Barcelona that would reflect this flourishing
electronic scene.
“Playing the first time was great,” says
Haswell of his Sónar debut in the mid-1990s.
“I don’t think I’d been to the city before, so for
me it was like, ‘Oh wow, we’re in Barcelona!’
I remember it being really hectic. It was an
endurance thing: there are so many things
on you want to see. I built up friendships with
the Sónar crew and each year various artists
were returning, and you were returning, and
it was like going on holiday every year.”
“I REMEMBER
DJING WITH
PAN SONIC AND
THE CEILING
STARTED TO
FALL DOWN” RUSSELL HASWELL
Ask Haswell for his most memorable
moments from Sónar and he reels off a list,
top of which is witnessing a fire juggler
being brutally hosed down with a fire
extinguisher while twirling his flaming
sticks as Kraftwerk played in the same venue
in 1998. Jeff Mills’ annual Saturday night
residency is always a must-see, he says.
“And I remember when Aux 88 played in
’98 and they had these green-wigged dancing
girls throwing 12-inches and CDs into the
crowd. And DJing with Ilpo from Pan Sonic
in 2000 and the ceiling started to fall down.”
And for Taglietti? Has to be when the
wonderful Finnish jazzman Jimi Tenor
opened one year by coming on stage riding
a white horse, dressed in blue as a prince.
And also when she translated a Björk press
conference for two hours. “I was amazed
at what she said and how she puts in words
what she does with music. I’ve learned
that it is very hard to work with big artists
and they live in a kind of different world.
I’ve seen how lots of big creative minds
handle themselves and their music, it’s
been amazing.”
So what would you she say is the
philosophy of Sónar?
“For me, first of all, it’s to look ahead in
any kind of electronic creation. Every time
we close the line-up, like we just did for 2010,
I already feel we should think about 2011.
Electronica is creating an amazing amount
of new stuff in every possible way. We have
to be its mirror.”
redbullmusicacademyradio.com/shows/917
Theo Parrish, Sonar Sessions 2008 - RBMA
Showcase Part 1
redbullmusicacademyradio.com/shows/1648
Mulatu Astatke - Sonar Sessions, 2009
redbullmusicacademyradio.com/shows/1649
Mike Slott - Sonar Sessions 2009
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
PHOTO: PETER J WALSH/PYMCA
Orbital cast a hex on
Sonar By Night, 2009
rothers Sami T and Master Simon
bark their instructions – “Wave yuh
rag, wave yuh raaag!” – and 40,000
arms shoot into the air, vigorously twirling
their hand towels in time to the pumping beat
of Elephant Man’s Higher Level. The crowd is
breathtaking sight – a frenzied mass of
yellow, black and green, batty riders,
coloured cane-rowed hair and marijuana leaf
medallions all going bananas in the blazing
mid-afternoon sun. Wilder than the spectacle,
though, is the location. Because this is not
Jamaica – or even America – but Yokohama
City, Japan.
Held annually since 1995, the Yokohama
Reggae Sai – or, as it is known outside of
Japan, the Mighty Crown Anniversary show
– is the largest reggae-dancehall concert in
the world. The group onstage, Mighty Crown,
began as a soundsystem but have grown into
Japan’s most successful reggae outfit, and a
lifestyle brand that includes event promotion,
a record label, a magazine, two clothing lines
and a whole roster of acts. The Sai ably
demonstrates the popularity of homegrown
Japanese talent, the line-up featuring 15 local
acts alongside just three Jamaican stars. “In
Japan local acts are as big as Jamaican ones
– bigger in some cases,” says Sami T.
Judged by any yardstick, the Japanese
reggae and dancehall industry is in rude
health. There are over 300 active
soundsystems, eight specialist reggae/
dancehall stores, three popular reggae
magazines (Strive, Riddim and Rove), and
over 50 acts with major label deals, 30 of
them comprised of Japanese personnel (by
way of comparison, the number of reggae and
dancehall acts signed to major labels in the
UK and US typically peaks at about six – Sean
Paul, Shaggy, Beenie Man and a few novelties
such as Matisyahu and Collie Buddz to bolster
the numbers).
Japanese youth are avid downloaders, but
sales are healthy. Pop-reggae stars Minmi and
Sho-Nan-No-Kaze shift an average of 250,000
units per release. Singer Pushim, deejay Ryo
The Skywalker and dancehall boy band
Fireball regularly sell between 100-150,000 –
about the same as the most popular Jamaican
acts, like Paul, Elephant Man, Mr Vegas and
TOK. The club scene is explosive, with parties
every night of the week. Many Japanese do it
‘yard style’ and flit between three sessions in
one night. “Tokyo, Yokohama coming like
Kingston,” says Jamaican star Mr Vegas.
“You can party from 10pm to 6, 7 in
the morning every day. Nowhere else in
the world ‘cept Kingston like that, not even
New York or London.”
Impressive on paper – but is it all any
good? Well, yes. Fireball are a rousing boy
band of the calibre of TOK. Ryo The
Skywalker lifts his legs and gruffly deejays
with all the energy and vibes of any of his
Jamaican contemporaries. And singer XXX
croons over one-drop beats with such
emotion he has you reaching to flash your
lighter – even if you don’t speak Japanese and
EVERYBODY SAI YEAH
Mighty Crown’s Sami T fires up the
Yokohama City dancehall
can’t understand a word he’s saying.
Rewind to the ’80s and you’d find a very
different situation. Although concerts by
Sugar Minott, Bob Andy and Bob Marley’s
1979 Babylon By Bus tour sold out, the local
scene had little in the way of credibility.
A handful of soundsystems – Banana Sound,
Killa Sound – and artists – Rankin Taxi, Papa
U-Gee, Kurtis Fly, Junjo Kudo – studied
cassette tapes of dances imported from
Jamaica and used them as inspiration for
their own small parties. “Those days 50
people was a big crowd,” says Rankin Taxi,
now 57. “No one was interested in Japanese
reggae. It was seen as a joke.”
So what brought Japanese reggae and
dancehall out of backstreet clubs and into the
mainstream? In part, it’s thanks to the
internet, which has made it easier for fans to
access niche or international musical genres.
In part, though, you can tie the scene’s
growth to two historic events. In 1999, The
Mighty Crown became the first soundsystem
from outside Jamaican and UK strongholds
to win the World Cup Clash, reggae’s
equivalent of the Olympics. Then in 2002,
Junko ‘Bashment’ Kudo, an ex-hairdresser
from Tokyo, became the first foreign dancer to
win the official Dancehall Queen contest
in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Such acceptance by the Jamaican
grassroots flung open the door for hundreds
of wannabe selectors, singers and dancers
with a love of all things yard. Fans are willing
to spend thousands of dollars flying from
Japan to Jamaica to perfect their patois,
selecting and dutty wining (it’s not
uncommon to find Japanese who speak fluent
patois but can’t understand English). And
Japanese revellers are now such regular
fixtures at Kingston street dances that a night
“IN JAPAN,
LOCAL ACTS
ARE AS BIG
AS JAMAICAN
ONES. EVEN
BIGGER IN
SOME CASES”
SAMI T
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
isn’t complete unless a Japanese diva has
bounced up and down on the crotch of a
delighted Jamaican man while a selector
excitedly screams, “Watch di Japaneeeeese!”
Elephant Man agrees. “Back in the day seeing
the Japanese man dem in the dance was kind
of funny. Now they know the runnings, no one
tek dem fi fool. They part of we in a way no
other nationality is.”
Back at the Yokohama Reggae Sai, and
Junko ‘Bashment’ Kudo has taken to the stage.
There is little that jars with the social fibre of
traditional Japanese society like a lady
standing on her ‘head top’, legs akimbo,
jiggling her red sequin-encased rump in time
to a thumping dancehall beat, but 40,000
people blow their air horns regardless.
Backstage, face still glistening with sweat,
Kudo explains why she fell in love with
a culture so far removed from her own.
“I watch VHS of Kingston street dance,”
she says. “Very shocking. Di women look
so strong, nuh like Japanese gyals.” She
pauses to swig on (what else?) a Red Stripe.
“Japanese people too stiff, they think
it shameful to skin out, to dance sexy.
Jamaican people free. If me help Japanese
people relax and have good time like
Jamaicans, me very happy.”
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
FOG ON THE LINE
05/ NEW CROSS AND DEPTFORD
Misty In Roots take a
stand for Rock Against
Racism, The Albany
STUBBORNLY REFUSING GENTRIFICATION, NEW CROSS AND DEPTFORD ARE AN ENCLAVE OUTSIDE
THE CITY, SPAWNING GROUND FOR ART INSURRECTIONISTS, REGGAE SOUNDSYSTEMS AND BOOGIEROCKERS. TIM BURROWS HUNTS FOR SIGNS OF LIFE IN LONDON’S FORGOTTEN SOUTH-EAST
New Cross Road – a house famous for all the
wrong reasons. In the early hours of 19
January, 1981, it was hosting a birthday
celebration when a blaze broke out, claiming
13 lives. This was an area of high racial
tension - the National Front had marched
in their thousands down this street, and in
1977 venues including the Albany and the
Moonshot Club in Fordham Park had been
attacked. Despite inquests, there’s never been
a satisfactory explanation for how the fire
started, and the establishment’s perceived
indifference fuelled a lingering resentment.
There was no message of condolence to the
bereaved from either Mrs Thatcher’s
government or the Royal family.
The silence acted as a catalyst for reggae
artists. Johnny Osbourne’s 13 Dead (Nothing
Said) took the slogan from the streets to the
dancehall. Linton Kwesi Johnson’s New Crass
Massahkah was like an alternative
newsflash. On March 2, less than two months
after the blaze, 20,000 people marched from
Fordham Park and through New Cross for
Black People’s Day of Action, said to be the
UK’s biggest black demonstration to date.
New Cross Road is part of the A2, a dusty,
toxic tributary carrying white vans, scrapfilled trucks and car after
car in and out of London.
“One of the main features
of the area is this kind
of transience,” says Ian
Transpontine, who
maintains the
authoritative blog
Transpontine, an
underground history of
south-east London. “New
Cross Road is basically the old Watling
Street, the main route between Dover and
London since Roman times. Anyone who’s
come up from the continent by road has
passed through New Cross at some point.
And then there’s Deptford, with the docks,
sailors going off to colonise various places,
people coming back from the colonies and
landing there. It’s this conversion point, this
crossing of routes in and out of London.”
Goldsmiths College’s student community
add to the air of transience. Musical
luminaries include The Velvet Underground’s
John Cale, who studied music there in the
early ’60s before escaping to New York to
work with composer La Monte Young. Cale
performed his difficult piece, X for Henry
Flynt, at an end-of-year show and was voted
‘Most Hateful Student’ by staff. Dadaist
lounge act Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band formed
at the college and, after being expelled from
numerous art schools, Malcom McLaren
attended Goldsmiths, designing clothes by
day and reading Guy Debord by night,
learning the Situationist ideas he would later
apply to the Sex Pistols. Blur also formed
when Graham Coxon met Alex James at the
college, and they would later use fellow
alumnus and Young British Artist Damien
Hirst to create the video to their not-sofondly-recalled Country House video.
Recently, Goldsmiths graduates Joe
Daniel and Joe Margetts founded Angular
UNFIT FOR PURPOSE
Crossfields estate moved the families
out and artists and students in
MARCH FOR JUSTICE
An arrest at the Black People’s
Day Of Action, 1981, held
to protest the New Cross Fire
SCHOOL OF ART ROCKS
Goldsmiths College, alma
mater to John Cale,
Malcolm McLaren and Blur
“THIS HEAT
PLAYED AT
SPEEDWELL
WHILE OTHERS
PERFORMED
OCCULT ACTS”
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
PHOTOS: REX/BOB HUMM/DEPTFORDDOSSIER.COM
N
ew Cross and Deptford. Two places
that segue into one another so you
can’t see the join. Negotiating
traffic islands and dodging cries of
‘Whatyoulookinat!’ from bored kids – him
with a can of Stella in back pocket, her
carrying the Pringles. First impressions
might lead to the conclusion that this area
of whitewash-windowed shops will forever
be awaiting another chance, a cultural
wasteland devoid of significance. But as
so often, it only takes a gap in the London
matrix to summon up the next soundtrack.
During the ’70s and ’80s, the whole area
was squatsville. When the entire Crossfield
Estate was deemed unfit for families,
Lewisham Council invited students and
artists to move in. Dire Straits formed and
played their first gig while living there in
1977 – last year, absurdly, Mark Knopfler
unveiled a flat outside his old flat. And, while
some might argue the council would have
been providing a greater service to society by
keeping the families there instead of playing
their part in the Sultans Of Swing, it shows
that musicians given the space and time to
rehearse are more likely to succeed.
Another local band, Squeeze, featuring
Jools Holland – now living in
“the Hampstead of the south”,
Blackheath – played early gigs
at the Oxford Arms,
a Victorian pub that once
had a theatre next door. The
theatre has vanished, but
the pub, renamed The Bird’s
Nest, remains, jutting out
on the bend of Deptford
Church Street.
But it wasn’t just future Radio 2 playlist
fixtures that came up here. Skittering all-girl
post-punk group the Raincoats played in the
Albany, located off Deptford High Street.
Deptford boy Mark Perry started original
punk zine Sniffin’ Glue in 1976 after quitting
his job as a local bank clerk, and later set up
Deptford Fun City, with Miles Copeland,
which put out early records by Squeeze
and his own Alternative TV.
While more often associated with
Camberwell, Charles Hayward of sonic
visionaries This Heat squatted in Depford’s
Speedwell House estate during the late ’70s.
Local musos spout vague memories of a This
Heat gig in the Speedwell courtyard while
others performed occult acts for an openminded audience.
Around that time, sumptuous Brit reggae
label Lovers Rock made its home in the
basement of Dennis Harris’ record shop, Eve
Records at 13 Upper Brockley Street, just off
Lewisham Way. The shop was blessed by
reggae innovator Dennis Bovell, who assisted
as sound engineer and later produced Linton
Kwesi Johnson, The Slits and Bananarama.
Another British reggae legend, formidable
sound system operator Jah Shaka used to live
at 21 Alpha Road, in a quiet terrace
overlooking the railway lines.
Following the winding Alpha Road
downhill, you come across the black front
door and sagging grey net curtains of 439
HOUSE OF HORRORS
London circuit venue-turnedtribute band hell
Records in 2003, and their label follows New
Cross’ prankster tradition, in a way. The
name came not from the severe, angular
shapes of the indie kid hairstyle of choice,
but from a glossary on the Ordnance Survey
website. Whole genres were invented for
amusement’s sake – the ‘New Cross Scene’
and ‘New Rave’ were both jokes invented to
see how far they could go (to the front page
of NME, as it turned out).
Daniel and Margetts put on early shows
by bands like Art Brut and the Long Blondes
in the Paradise Bar, itself formerly the Royal
Albert, a favourite haunt for Kate Bush and
Squeeze. Angular launched its New Cross
compilation there in 2004.
Joke or not, the New Cross scene was an
inspiration for others. “Angular Records was
an influence,” says Tom Oldham of tastemaking label and blog No Pain in Pop. “The
first gig that I saw when I moved to New
Cross was an Angular night, with Art Brut,
Bloc Party and the Swear at the Paradise.”
Today, though, Paradise is lost. The place
has gone back to its original title, Royal
Albert, and does not feature live music.
Now based in Dalston, Angular can be
credited with putting good money towards
some of the the pop undergrounds best
music, in the shape of These New Puritans
and Wet Dog. But they have taken something
of the New Cross spirit with them. “It was
a great place to start a band or put on a
night,” says Daniel. “It is not particularly
trendy, although some people think it is. It is
nothing like Shoreditch. You don’t have to be
cool to get a gig or anything like that.”
You definitely don’t have to be cool at
the Venue. A former cinema and Irish
ballroom on the corner of Clifton Rise and
New Cross Road, during the early ’90s it
was part of the circuit of touring alternative
bands, hosting Sonic Youth, Hole, Mudhoney,
Pulp and Blur. Now it’s the preserve of tribute
acts – ‘Robbing Williams’ and ‘The Rollin’
Stoned’ – and weekend rebels from Kentish
suburbs flood the place, responding to the
poster promising ‘MEMBERS, LADIES +
STUDENTS/NURSES FREE B4 12AM’.
“I lived two doors down a few years ago,”
says Daniel. “On weekend nights, you’d look
out and see people screaming and scrapping
in the streets. Sick everywhere, loads of
police.” Daniel put a couple of Angular gigs
on in the basement, but decided against a
permanent residence after he was pinned
against the wall by the over-attentive
security, who searched the mouths of
clientele on the way in. “It’s a shame they
don’t put better gigs on, as it’s great inside,”
he says. “The room we had was like a
Moroccan opium den – low ceilings, arches,
candles. Upstairs there is an Elizabethanthemed room which is like an Adam And The
Ants video, an Irish pub-themed floor.
Another is themed around Kubrick futurism.”
The Venue’s decline can partly be blamed
on the closure of the East London Line, now
being reopened and extended to Dalston in
advance of the Olympics. People hold hopes
that gig-goers might return. Ian Transpontine
remembers the days when 30,000 people
flooded Fordham Park during the early ’90s.
“It was a very similar vibe to some of the free
festivals outside London, like the huge
Castlemorton raves. It wasn’t put on by the
council, but they let it happen. It featured
reggae soundsystems, house and techno.
People like Orbital, Back to the Planet.”
As the ’90s progressed, the event came
under increased scrutiny, finally stopping in
‘96. These days not many linger in Fordham
Park – people are only passing through – but
pinned all over the park’s noticeboard are
council pleas to the public to use this green
facility. ‘Why not bring your community
together by organising an event in your local
park?’ they ask. Why not, indeed.
For more details, visit transpont.blogspot.com
REDBULLMUSICACADEMY.COM
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
DAILY NOTE 05.03.10
TODAY I WANT...
THE THINGS WE’RE AFTER MOST FOR FRIDAY MARCH 5
TODAY’S ESSENTIAL
NEW RELEASES FROM
THE SHOP FLOOR
Jeff Mills has dabbled in a range of
musical styles during an illustrious
career – from his soundtrack
interpretation of Fritz Lang’s
masterpiece Metropolis to his
collaboration with the Montpellier
Philharmonic Orchestra. But never
forget, he made his name with
driving, unapologetic techno.
This second release on the fledgling
Something in the Sky imprint, fits
somewhere between the two. The
A-side harks back to the Wizard,
while on the flip Sir Jeff’s love for
experimentation comes to the fore.
JOY ORBISON
THE SHREW WOULD
HAVE CUSHIONED THE
BLOW (AUS MUSIC)
What to say about Peter O’Grady?
ACADEMY ALUMNUS
RYAN GRIEVE AND
PRODUCTION PARTNER
LEO THOMSON ARE
MAKING BIG WAVES
AS CANYONS
EVERYWHERE EXCEPT
THEIR HOMELAND.
RA’S ANDREW DREVER
CALLS UP AUSTRALIA
TO FIND OUT MORE
It may seem strange to UK
audiences, but in Australia, dance
music fans still haven’t fully
embraced the now all-pervasive,
nu-disco scene. Oz has taken longer
than most to break the formulaic
shackles of electro-house. And
though increasing numbers of
Australian DJs now dabble in disco
influences, but only a small number
of local producers are reflecting it
with any impact.
Which is exactly why the
Sydney-based duo Canyons have
attracted more attention overseas
than in their own backyard. Just last
August, Leo Thomson, aka Leo
Holiday, and Ryan Grieve, aka Ryan
Sea-mist, travelled to the US for
seven DJ gigs, headlining a DFA
boat party, playing the Central Park
SummerStage and spinning at highprofile parties in LA, San Francisco
and Palm Springs, the latter a
“surreal” pool party out in the
California desert.
It wasn’t always this easy:
Grieve and Thomson hail from Perth,
the remote west of the continent,
TEVO HOWARD
CRYSTAL REPUBLIC
(HOUR HOUSE IS YOUR
RUSH)
Tevo Howard has a happy knack for
making house music that balances
the original sounds of Chicago with
a fresh and contemporary edge.
After the success of his debut for
this label, Move, he returns with
Crystal Republic, a six-track
exploration of warm, deep and
emotive Chi-town music. The title
track is wonderfully hypnotic,
dipped in melancholy and yet still
drenched in beautiful melodies.
Laboratory and The Glass Ceiling
are more energetic, the latter
utilising an uptempo jacking beat
but still possesses that combination
of depth and energy that’s ever
present on this EP.
BONOBO FEAT
ANDREYA TRIANA
EYESDOWN (NINJA
TUNE)
gloriously and perfectly titled Don’t
Fuck With My Shit starts with the
kind of percussion so indebted to
Harvey’s life in Hawaiian/LA
paradise that it all but dons a floral
shirt and offers you a cocktail. That’s
quickly overshadowed by something
more menacing, as dark, slow,
spacey synths come to the fore.
By the time the ethereal vocals and
horns appear, Harvey has lulled you
into a druggy stupor before
dragging you out with one final bass
drop sure to tear the roof off afterparties from London to Honolulu.
The superb Ninja Tune imprint
stumps up a solid remix package
of Bonobo’s Eyesdown, taken from
the British producer’s latest studio
album, due out at the end of the
month. The Floating Points remix
gently meanders and undulates
as only Floating Points can, while
Warrior One chips in with a
relentless, driving drum’n’bass
reworking. Pick of the bunch,
though, has to be the Appleblim
and Komonazmuk rework, which
chugs along very nicely with an
afterhours deep house groove.
SETH TROXLER
BOOGYBYTES MIX CD
(BPITCH CONTROL)
DIRTY JESUS
DON’T FUCK WITH MY
SHIT (BLACK COCK
REMIXES) (JUNO)
The RV Cock remix of Dirty Jesus’
CANYON DIG IT?
Holiday and Sea-mist
count domestic sales
and grew up on a steady diet of
metal, hip hop, soul, funk, folk, the
Beatles, classic rock, psychedelia
and soundtracks. While Grieve
muses that the club scene in Perth
wasn’t momentous, they both found
places to feed their curiosity about
the new sounds.
“When I was 14 or 15,” Grieve
recalls, “I’d go out with my cousin
who’d sneak me into the clubs
which played house, old-school and
classic jungle. This was a pretty
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amazing time, around ‘93/‘94, and
the vibe in the clubs was great. I’d
heard dance music before and liked
it, but never it in a club and over a
proper soundsystem. The sounds
were so refreshing and exciting.”
The duo met through mutual
friends and minted their Hole in the
Sky label in late 2007. In its early
days, the imprint was populated by a
series of their nom de plumes (Leo
Frostwave, Fred Cherry, The
Templates). “We didn’t have a
Boogybytes is like a real-life Troxler
set: you never quite know what’s
coming next, but you know its
bumpin’-ness will make you
smile. Transitioning from the deep
house of Craig Smith And The
Revenge to the dubby jazz-tinged,
muted soul vocals of Baeka’s Right
At It’, Troxler always keeps things
moving. He also pays homage to
the North American side of minimal
with an old Richie Hawtin remix
alongside some choice tracks from
Alexi Delano and Jabberjaw (yet
another pseudonym for labelmate
Matthew Dear). This Boogybyte
never loosens its grip.
distributor,” says Thomson, “so we
wanted to create the impression
that we had more going on than
we really did.”
For the foreseeable future,
though, Canyons own material will
largely see the light of day via
Modular. Canyons have been
embraced by the dance music
community, but Thomson and
Grieve aren’t keen on being
typecast. “I guess we’re perceived
as a dance act at the moment, but
now we’re writing an album, it’s
going to be a lot different.”
They are currently working
with vocalists and weighing up
collaborations. “There’s still going
to be that element of straight-up
dance tracks,” concedes Grieve,
“but also more songs and pop
influences. We’ve really been
trying to focus on writing actual
songs. Things that are kind of
mysterious, or not totally real, also
pop up.” Hopefully the mystery of
Australian success will be solved.
Until then, they’ll be content with
popularity everywhere else.
THE LAST WORD IN… CAREER ADVICE
DEAR JOHN
All views
expressed
are those
of the
author
WHEN JOHN NIVEN WAS A MAJOR-LABEL A&R IN THE MID-’90S, HE TRIED
TO BUY COLOMBIA - THE COUNTRY, NOT THE CLASSIC LABEL. NOW HE’S
THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF KILL YOUR FRIENDS AND THE AMATEURS.
WE’RE LUCKY TO HAVE HIM AS OUR AGONY UNCLE (WE THINK)
BREAKFAST IN AMERICA?
ILLUSTRATION: DAVID BAILEY / ITSMOUNTPLEASANT.COM
JEFF MILLS
SOMETHING IN THE SKY
02 (SOMETHING IN THE
SKY)
Known to the clubbing intelligentsia
as Joy Orbison, he busted out in
2009 with the ubiquitous Hyph
Mngo (which, in addition to being
one of the tracks of the year, can
also be pronounced 32 different
ways). Both tracks feature lush
soundscapes of skittering riddims
and atmospheric synths. The
chopped and looped vocal samples
are used as instrumentation, a
technique favoured by boundary
pushers like Burial and Four Tet.
I’ve been signed to a major label for the
past 12 months and have been working on
my masterpiece since then. I was recently
mortified to hear that my record company
are “remixing the record for the American
market”. What does this mean? Have you
heard of this before?
Chris, Kentish Town
Dear Chris, It’s a common enough complaint:
you’ve delivered a towering mountain of
indie dung featuring out-of-tune guitars,
kitsch synth sounds, drums so muffled that
they sound like they’ve been recorded inside
a cow’s anus, and vocals so twee they make
Belle And Sebastian sound like Metallica
saluting the genius of the Anti-Nowhere
League. Now, how are any decent labels
ever going to move that mother Stateside?
Simple: everything you ever touched will
be replayed, overdubbed, rewritten, remixed
and replaced until ‘the kids’ in middle America
(ie sub-mentals in ‘God Hates Fags’ t-shirts)
can get their heads around it. The only
evidence that you were ever involved with the
record will be your own rambling pub-based
lies. And people still have the temerity to say
record companies don’t work hard!
THOSE WERE THE DAYS
I’ve been reading Joe Boyd’s book White
Bicycles about the ’60s in London and it seems
like everyone was having a much better time
back then than we are now? Do you think it’s
possible that our parents knew how to party
better than we do?
Pee Wee, Kensington
Viv Nicholson. The vast majority of ordinary
blokes went out and worked hard down the
mines six days a week then drank a dozen
pints of ‘mild’ before staggering home to give
the wife a proper beating while listening to
Geoff Love’s Big War Movie Themes. Much as
I believe the working classes do now. (If you
substitute ‘dole office’ for ‘mines’, ‘Stella’ for
‘mild’, and the Kaiser Chiefs for Geoff Love.)
Also, they only had ‘cannabis resin’ in the
’60s. They didn’t have Ketamine, cocaine,
DMT, amyl or any of the other wonder drugs
introduced by the house music revolution
of the mid-’90s. So how could they have
a better time? Eh? Eh?
FEELING A BIT ‘FALLING DOWN’
Dear Pee Wee, You must remember that in
the ’60s not everyone was smoking ‘cannabis
resin’ with Nick Drake and enjoying Scotch
and Cokes down the Bag O’ Nails or the
Pantalooned Rapist with John Lennon and
The awful music of today fills me with terrible
anger. I feel the bile rising the minute I see
some sallow-faced, skinny-jeaned teenager
take to the stage for a bout of whining,
derivative, post-punk inflected bollocks –
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to the point where I feel like I need
restraining due to a fear I’ll do something
stupid. Am I just too old to rock’n’roll and
should I face up to it that I need to get a
new hobby?
C86 Fan, Bromley
Dear C86 Fan, It would be wise here to counsel
you to calm down. However I think you should
definitely do something stupid. Why not go
and hang out somewhere where landfill indie
bands are plentiful – backstage at any rock
festival, the stage door to T4, Miquita Oliver’s
flat – and physically attack one of them? I’m
not saying go crazy and murder someone of
course. Just really, really hurt them. For a
first offence of GBH (breaking someone’s legs,
fracturing a skull, etc) you’d probably get less
than a year. Just think – you’d be getting out
about the time they resumed recording their
woeful debut album. Then you could do it all
again. Just a thought...