20-23 October will see the latest Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) take place. This four day event is one of the world’s top electronic music industry events and showcases some top electronic music labels and talent. ADE are expecting over 90,000 festival visitors and 2,200 conference exibitors.
Central topics in 2009 were the use of electronic music in games, movies and commercials, the endless opportunities with mobile phone applications and how to connect to your audience in an ever changing world. The program also included speakers such as Armin van Buuren, Carl Craig, Dave Clarke, François K, Jason Alexander, Jason Pook, Junkie XL , Mark Jones (Wall of Sound), Mike Banks , Peter Hook and Richie Hawtin.
This years guests will include Paul van Dyk for a Q&A in the mainroom. Dutch hardstyle act Showtek will reveal there live performing secrets in the Interface Magazine Room. And be prepared for the annual Demolition panel hosted by DJ Dave Clarke for honest and sincere feedback on your track by a panel of professionals, this in co-operation with Soundcloud.com.
There will also be a number of producers labs: a hands-on area containing a number of complete music production and live performance set-ups, each hosted by an industry expert. This tech geeks heaven is designed to give everyone the chance to get advice and inspiration for working with multiple modern music tools.
For more information: www.amsterdam-dance-event.nl
As our reign at Sankeys approaches one year, we have already achieved so many of the goals that we set ourselves at the start. Dave Clarke? Check. DJ Rush? Check. Chris Liebing, James Ruskin, The Advent, Robert Hood, Sims, Surgeon, Bone, Frank Lorber…
So far, we’ve hit our marks and danced the night away with aplomb each and every time.
September 10th, our penultimate gig at Sankeys before we enter into the next phase of our residency, sees us start to close off the season with an early indication of what might be to come. We hope that you feel as excited as we are at the possibilities. After all, without you guys there would be very little to celebrate.
COLOUR present:
Friday September 10th 2010 @ Sankeys, Manchester.
Sandwell District Live (Regis and Function)
Joey Beltram (20 years of Energy Flash)
Felix Krocher (Compressed)
Native Instruments announced Monday the release of their new Traktor Kontrol S4, an integrated hardware and software Digital DJ solution based around a custom version of their Traktor Pro Software. The package includes a dual turntable control surface along with a dedicated version of Traktor Pro called Traktor Pro S4.
This has been extremely anticipated since a cryptic Dubfire demonstration video last month that had the NI DJ forums going wild. The software will support mapping of other controllers through MIDI but connects directly to the S4 hardware via HID, allowing for higher resolution of the jog wheels and other control elements, other than a somewhat simplified Master Section and visual make-over, the software is essentially the Traktor Pro we have all come to know and love excepting the following updates:
8 Loop sections that can replace decks C and D for the playback of 8 loops and samples. Each loop has a filter, volume knob and will sync to the master clock so you don’t have to beat match you samples just punch them in on the fly.
Loop recording lets you to record loops of up to 32 bars on each loop deck the source for the loop recorder can be anything you like including the master out for live performance looping.
The S4 unit is designed to match the Traktor interface as much as possible with 4 full channels in the mixer and 2 decks that are switchable from A/C and B/D. To help those who need to take it on the road
Windows® XP (latest SP, 32 Bit), Vista®/Windows 7® (latest SP, 32/64 Bit), Pentium®/Athlon® XP @ 1.8 GHz OR Core™2/AMD X2, 2 GB RAM Mac OS X® 10.5 or higher, Intel® Core™Duo 1.66 GHz, 2 GB RAM USB 2.0 port, DVD drive, 6 GB free disk space for complete installation
Traktor Kontrol S4 will be priced at US$999 and €899 and NI will also release a matching flight case for the S4 that will be $189.
A nice smooth minimalistic and almost ambient at times mix from the new master of progressive techno. Phil Kierans great ambient minimal mix is well worth a listen.
Track Listing:
goldbrokat ( d.dozzy ambient) cio d’or prologue
isolate quantec styrax records
20.4 SCB SCB001a
unwritten secrets djorvin clain overflow records
untitled phil kieran white
vaag speedy j electric delux
magnetic lori prologue
empy circle Claudio PRC prologue
my invisible romance guy gerber supplement facts
solarain peter grummich strike 100
midnight charlie may emfire
We are very saddened to hear of the tragic loss of life over the weekend at the love parade, out hearts go out to the friends and families of those who lost their lives and all the others who were injured. How could this hell on earth have happened at what when I attended many years ago in Berlin could only be described as a techno fans idea of heaven?
Almost a million Love Parade attendees wound their way from the rail station in the summer heat and into a death trap. The industrial west German town of Duisburg has rarely seen such a grand spectacle or such a tragedy
Germany and the dance music world has been shocked by the events that ended in the deaths of 19 or more, and 340 injured. It was “the party from hell”, one local policeman said. Another attendee Kevin Krausgartner, a 21-year-old who was among those bottlenecked in the tunnel, described the scene to Welt “There were 25 people lying in a heap. I screamed – people could no longer get any air. I saw dead people, and one person was sitting there looking extremely pale. I wanted to give him some water, but the ambulance medic told me there was no point as he was already dead.”
Prosecutors have opened an investigation into the cause of the tragedy, but one thing is already clear for some unknown reason the normally calm festival at some point in the afternoon turned into a crazed and deadly stampede. The festival had received authorisation for 250,000 attendees b this number was vastly oversubscribed with approximately 1.4 million attending according to a Spiegel magazine report. When Berlin staged the Love Parade in the 1990s, the large crowds could spill over into the nearby Tiergarten park. But the Duisburg site is surrounded by high fencing keeping the dance fans trapped and squeezed in like sardines. “There have been serious management blunders,” said Dr Motte, the Berlin DJ and founder of the Love Parade.
The main problem appears to have been that the festival goers had to pass through a single long railway tunnel to enter the main festival compound. Hundreds of thousands ended up solidly packed into the virtually unventilated tunnel and many were stuck for several hours. Then at the tunnel entrance, some atendeeds tried to scramble up an escarpment. Some of whom tumbled backwards off ladders and into the crowd. This appears to have been on of the main triggers for a mass panic.
Many people were already fainting because of dehydration, and they too were lying on the ground as the crowd surged forwards and backwards. Doctors reported many punctured lungs and damaged livers and kidneys among the dead and injured.
In the aftermath Rainer Schaller on of the Loveparades’ organisers, announced that this would be the last Love Parade. The Love Parade, has been a highlight of the German dance calendar since 1989, and is the world’s largest techno party.
Big Edit: A further statement made by German techno legend Chris Leibing…
Chris Liebing on Love Parade 2010
5 days after the tragic events at the Love Parade in Duisburg / Germany, I would like to share my thoughts in a more detailed statement. First of all I want to again express my sincere compassion for all the relatives and friends of the victims, as well as for the injured and traumatized who will have hard times to recover from what they experienced. I am still shocked about what I have seen and heard so far.
The Love Parade has been developing throughout the 90s, parallel to what I would call the “Techno Movement”. More precisely speaking, the Love Parade has been an expression of this movement. It has been a movement beyond any profit or image seeking ideas, which developed completely self-sufficient out of the underground. It was all about celebrating, dancing and having fun together.
Over the years, the numbers of attendants have been rising, and so have the financial needs. The costs were rising (city cleaning, etc.) and so has the profit (for the community and the others involved), and suddenly there was a certain “image” attached, which brands could use to increase their value.
Looking back, it is actually a logical consequence and maybe also easy to recognize, that an event like this would eventually fall into the hands of people who see “celebrating, dancing and having fun together” not as the main reason to host a Love Parade. This would actually still be tolerable, as long as human life would not be endangered, but what happened here is beyond anything one would have ever imagined.
It is absolutely appalling and shocking that the responsible organizers of the Love Parade and the city council in Duisburg have misused the “Techno Movement” with those fatal results. In their striving for image and profit, they have disregarded all measures of control and security and put people who really just wanted to celebrate, dance and have fun together in a situation in which 21 innocent persons had to die and countless have been injured and traumatized.
I hope that it will be possible to entirely clear up what has happened and that the guilty persons will be held responsible and punished as soon as possible.
But even this will not lessen the caused pain.
The least we owe to those who have died and those who got injured, is that we make sure that something like this won´t happen again in the future. New laws and rules won´t really help. We have seen that we can´t even trust those who should make sure that those rules are getting observed.
To really change something, we have to start with ourselves. We as DJs, we have to be even more sure about the “Who” we are playing for and the “Where” we are playing at – only like this, the fans can get a better orientation of where it is worth going and where it is save to celebrate. Basically everybody can change a lot with his or her behaviour in this world. The more alert we go through life, the more conscious we can make choices between good and bad products, services, events or other things. Like this we minimize the scope of action for cold-blooded profiteers.
In memory of the victims of the Love Parade in Duisburg 2010,
Released first as the B side track on the Red 3 12″ via both Deconstruction and ReLoad records and later on Clarkes first album Archive One this track was an underground smash from day one, it’s simplicity, heavy pounding kickdrum, reversed and slowly building synth line and the dark vocals supplied courtesy of an extract from a 1500s text by Francois Rabelais made it an unusual track at the time, even now we can see many of the tracks aspects (Especially the vocal track) were ahead of its time and still influential today.
Though this track my not be the most instantly dancefloor friendly of those on the Archive One album there is something in this track that grows inside of you and never leaves, it is by turns minimal, dark, foreboding, pounding and in the final analysis has a strong emotionally effecting core. The lyrics are on the surface just a reading from an old text but they have been selected well and can be seen almost as a clarion call to all “warriors” to go forth and fight for the music and scene they love. Perhaps this is too heavy a reading but I always feel the weight of this on me when I listen to this track and my enjoyment is enhanced by it.
Francois Rabelais to the Soul of the Deceased Queen of Navarre
Abstracted soul, ravished with ecstasies,
Gone back, and now familiar in the skies,
Thy former host, thy body, leaving quite,
Which to obey thee always took delight,–
Obsequious, ready,–now from motion free,
Senseless, and as it were in apathy,
Wouldst thou not issue forth for a short space,
From that divine, eternal, heavenly place,
To see the third part, in this earthy cell,
Of the brave acts of good Pantagruel?
TECH:DRIVE @ IMW with Makaton, Voidloss, Casual Violence, Systemic, Siege
RITMIKA presents TECH:DRIVE
@ ISLINGTON METAL WORKS
7 Torrens Street / Angel / London / EC1V 1NQ
…£6 with flyer or before midnight – £8 otherwise
L I V E ::
MAKATON [Rodz-Konez]
VOIDLOSS [Singularity Recordings]
D J S ::
CASUAL VIOLENCE [Detatched]
SYSTEMIC [Duality]
SIEGE [Detatched]
Beyond cheap tricks and fancy concepts TECH:DRIVE is a straightforward platform for an unspoilt techno expression.
Keeping a distance from the trendy club culture where dancefloor has long lost it’s purpose TECH:DRIVE is powered by a simple intention of putting the music and the dance back on the forefront.
TECH:DRIVE aims to provide an environment where techno artists can directly connect to the audience while performing in an integral fashion free from the predefined expectations they are invariably facing in an average nightclub.
TECH:DRIVE testing grounds will be the legendary Islington Metal Works (otherwise known as Slimelight and Electrowerkz) which is an atmospheric warehouse space just behind the Angel tube station.
MAKATON
[Rodz-Konez / Token / RSB / House Of God]
Birmingham born Makaton has greatly contributed to the city’s reputation of the industrial techno stronghold. Starting with 1999 Makaton’s own label Rodz-Konez has been serving as the sole outlet for his one-of-the-kind sound apart from a couple of recent releases put out by Token and RSB. Although Makaton’s music can generally be described as dark and industrial there’s a lot of variety and progression to be heard throughout his releases as it’s all about pushing foward for the man. Having no interest in DJing Makaton is known for his expressive live sets with a heavy peak hour dancefloor appeal.
VOIDLOSS
[Singularity Recordings / DirtyBass Records / DirtyBass Grooves]
Voidloss is the name given to the main musical output of a multi-faceted artist with a long and diverse music history starting with industrial bands in the early nineties, through to becoming a key player within the infamous United Systems free party network in the UK’s rave/warehouse scene during, and eventually forming the commercially successful international hit label DirtyBass Records, as well as a studio providing mastering services, production and live PA tutoring.
Abandoning the easy commercial path and returning to the underground Voidloss is the deeper, darker side to the artist infusing cinematic musicality with an unbridled approach to the strangely compelling occult arena always looking to incorporate new sounds and genres into the creative process and focus it through the eyes of techno. The project has garnered acclaim with his own imprint Singularity Recordings as well as releases on Surface Recordings, Dynamic Reflection, Labyrinth, Subsist, Hard Signal and more.
Voidloss’ live PA combines an endless changing pallette of sounds, rhythmic structures and soundscapes into emotionally charged techno imagery providing something more than just a mix of beats. You can expect an explorative and ritualistic journey for the mind as well as the feet.
Manchester’s native Casual Violence is steadily gaining a reputation for his organically deep, hypnotic and emotionally dark techno based music. Never 100% aimed at the dancefloor but rather focused on subtle and gradual build-up of rhythmic energies, textures and atmospheres his productions and live sets require a degree of time and thought from the listener.
Using turntables for over 15 years Casual’s mixing is tight and solid and while track selection is generally more dancefloor-friendly than his live sets it still stays much on the deeper side of electronic music. He is currently holding DJ residencies at the UK’s much respected techno club Detatched as well as Hemlock Nights over in Amsterdam.
Production-wise Casual Violence is working on a new material for his own forthcoming vinyl imprint Self and is a regular on both UK’s digital Singularity Recordings and Dutch Aftertaste Recordings where his full debut EP “Why So Few” was well received. Other notable releases of late include the Blackhaus EP on Detatched and his recent remix of Inigo Kennedy’s “China Rising” on Rodz-Konez.
SYSTEMIC
[Duality / Labrynth / Jactation Records / Detatched]
Systemic’s first experiences of electronic music were provided by the legendary Orbit club in Morley where he would religiously spend every possible weekend absorbing the frequencies of the world’s finest techno and electro artists inspiring him to master the art of DJing. He soon started to receive his first bookings going on to win a DJ competition that secured sets at events around the country. Having already studied music from a young age Systemic proceeded with obtaining a degree in Music Technology & Audio Systems.
With both being regulars at the Eastern Bloc Records shop in Manchester Systemic’s music found its way to Martin Wareham resulting in a series of successful EPs on Jactation Records during 2006-2008. Gradually Systemic started to release on various other labels including the Portuguese imprint Labrynth run by Michaelangelo with his tracks being remixed by the likes of Phase, Paul Mac, Paul Damage and Sir Real. Finally 2009 marks the establishment of Duality – a platform for Systemic’s own output alongside talented and cutting edge artists from around the world.
SIEGE
[Detatched / Ante-Rasa / Limetree]
Since breaking into the UK rave scene in 2001 Calvin Whittaker aka Siege been playing all over the country and has established himself as a DJ with creative and ultra tight mixing style. Just like both of his mates Systemic and Cas Vio he is also a resident of the UK’s finest techno night Detatched.
Sieges has also been into production side of things for the last 5 years and has recently started to put out his own releases. Having a wide range of influences Siege favours an experimental approach to his productions often blending the elements of various styles and sub genres while retaining a firm dancefloor appeal. Siege also records and performs under the name Solitude Suite alongside Casual Violence.
Just thought Id post up this great video of old school electro master Anthony Rother, though Rother says he doesn’t like the term “techno” any more we feel that the Datapunk label boss still qualifys as both an innovator in electronic techno music and someone who will be a guiding light for many years to come. So here is a great 25 minute video of Rother doing his thing and doing it damn well, enjoy.
I’ve spent most of the the last week at the Glastonbury festival and have seen all sorts of wild and wonderful stuff, from the extremely mellow and melancholy Unthanks, to the amazing antics of the lords of lightning at the Arcadia stage. But as I could have predicted but was not 100% sure about the standout moment of the weekend for me was Orbitals triumphant return to their almost regular slot at the festival.
Orbital
Orbital have always been a great “Arena techno” act. But this time they outdid themselves. The set started out with some unchanged classics from the first two albums the production style could almost be said to have been slightly knowingly retro, but as I watched the set develop (and danced like a lunatic to the point were a girl on front of me asked if she could buy some of what I was on and looked confused when I offered her some organic wine from a plastic bottle) what I was noticing was the creeping in of some more modern and almost electro tinged edges to a few of the reworked tracks.
The new work Orbital displayed during the set (Don’t Stop Me & The Gun Is Good) were while not as atmospheric as some of their older work extremely good to dance to with good punch nice use of vocal samples and had definitely got that Orbital “epic” edge. I was trying to think of why Orbitals work still stands out after so long and I think it comes down to their ability to build a track from something atmospheric and almost verging on ambient into something powerful, easy to dance to and with a certain unmistakeable “Orbital Epicness”.
Of the whole set a lot of hype has surrounded the appearance of Matt Smith (the current Dr Who) on stage for their rendition of the Who theme which was the grand finale of the set. While having such a nice nerdtastic guest appearance is pretty cool, for me the stand out track of the evening was the current version of “Satan”. Just listen to the track and you will instantly recognise how ahead of their time orbital actually were, how progressive yet danceable, never getting caught up in having a sound linked to one particular style. The middle section of Satan almost sounds like a predecessor to a lot of the minimal techno we hear today but with that unmistakable Orbital stamp. All in all gig of the weekend for me and highly recommended if you can see them on tour, I even enjoyed the slightly odd use of a ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ by Belinda Carisle sample halfway through the set.
You can be sure of one thing. These boys still give great show.
