My Favorites My Home Page
 
Home Music Live Lifestyle My Planet
 
Change Background
You are here -> Live / Past Clubs Sunday, 11 May, 2008
PLANETNOTION TELEVISION!
INFO

You are browsing our club reviews, we tell you what was wicked so you can wish you were there and go next time.
WRITERS!
Do you know your Bloc Party from your Basement Jaxx? Can you fix up reviews quickly and under pressure for our website?
We need writers. Good ones. If you are one, drop us an email at getinvolved(at) musichqmedia (dot)com
RSS FEEDS
Subscribe Feeds
What is RSS?
Friends and Family featuring Guilty Simpson
Friends and Family featuring Guilty Simpson
20/02/2008
tags: | friends and family | guilty simpson | percee p | cargo | fat beats records

AREA51 Launch Night
AREA51 Launch Night
08/02/2008
There was a definite buzz surrounding Manchester club AREA51 as the crowd grew outside. But then, who wouldn’t be excited about an evening with club giants Kissdafunk? Especially at the launch-night of a brand spanking new club… The Manchester clubbing scene has always thrived; from the formidable emergence of The Warehouse Project (attracting the biggest DJ’s in the world) through to Sankeys; from dirty underground techno-dens to plush ‘super-clubs’; AREA51 fits snugly in-between – a venue people can visit every week to hear quality music – no mucking about! The venue was formally known as the Emporia and has since had a massive regeneration and re-fit… From a first glance they’ve done an amazing job, giving the whole club an underground warehouse feel with two excellent sized rooms; not too big and not too small. This allows both rooms to generate a quality atmosphere at peak times. The best thing about the club though, is the sound system. I could immediately feel the base reverberating through my chest as I queued outside, and couldn’t wait to experience the full impact. Frankly, AREA51 didn’t disappoint. The ground floor was rammed to capacity as soon as I entered, with resident Adam ‘Dangerous DJ’ Guy playing funked-up twisted-electro; whilst glamorous, fresh-faced punters, were drinking, dancing and getting down to the thumping beats within. The first floor, a fair-sized room with the DJ to the right, was the first you enter; the atmosphere and buzz hitting in an instant. The back area held a well stocked bar, including top-quality cocktails and very helpful barstaff. As the music thumped-up through the massive speakers overlooking the dance floor, this was a perfect spot to catch your breath and take-in the full impact of AREA51. The main room featured Rob Tissera playing sexy electro, house, and tech-tinged beats; the low ceilings creating a fantastic, intimate feel. On entering, the dancefloor was already rammed with punters ‘standing and pointing’ fingers in the air, creating the electric vibe we’ve come to know and love from Kissdafunk parties. When the Trophy Twins graced the decks they didn’t disappoint. Playing right across the board, the lads effortlessly mixed house and electro beats seamlessly into techno, with Dubfires ‘Roadkill’ and a heavy dose of twisted-house thrown in for good measure. Their enthusiasm was infectious; genuinely creating an atmosphere to which the crowd fervently responded. All in all AREA51 looks great and sounds great; you could still feel the vibrations a day later. Welcome to a new era of dance music in Manchester… Welcome to AREA51… With loads of event going on weekly at AREA51 club check out the website for details www.area51club.co.uk AREA51 2B, Whitworth Street, Manchester , M1 5WZ Words: Greg Felgate
tags: | area51 | more...
Trojan vs Rawfuion
Trojan vs Rawfuion
29/01/2008
Trojan vs Rawfusion Cargo, London 25 January 2008 If you haven't copped a sneak preview of Simbad's soon-to-be-released-in-the-UK-after-much-prevarication 'Supersonic Revelations' you have a treat of the highest order in store. It's an amazing journey to the outer limits of future soul, with all manner of stuttering, syncopated and dub-inflected joy in between. An interesting proposition to juxtapose this man against the mighty Trojan Soundsystem, renowned for its quality reggae output delivered with a veteran swagger. Simbad, part of Mad Mat's Raw Fusion crew – the label putting out his debut – played a set steeped deep in the spirit of his album, with a bit of madness thrown into the mix. It was in his second set that he really found his groove, throwing in some filthy dub-step and deliciously off-kilter beats. Interspersed, the Trojan boys did what they do best, digging up the requisite reggae flavour and attitude; but the leap between the two camps felt a little extreme. On their own, it was perfect, but together, it jarred. Collaboration can be a beautiful thing when it works, but when that's not the case, the set-up has the danger of coming across just a little diluted. Words: Helene Dancer
tags: | more...
Hospitality
Hospitality
31/10/2007
Whistle? Check. Horn? Check. Glowsticks? Check. Oh, I'm sorry, drum n bass seems to have moved on since my raving days of 1996. Good thing too as I'm not sure my –near-30-year-old pins can carry off the hotpants look so well anymore. I approached Hospitality at Heaven with slight trepidation, it having been a few years since I last ventured away from DnB on the sofa and explored DnB in a club. Would I come away feeling like I'm broaching OAPdom? Could I handle an all-nighter without a pocket full of disco biscuits? Would I even recognise any of the tunes?? Well it turned out that Hospital Records deserves it revered reputation...although not in my wildest dreams had a trip to heaven involved swimming in a sea of sweat. With the likes of DJ Hype, High Contrast, London Elektricity and Fabio among the line-up - accompanied by MCs including Wrec and Stamina - it was highly unlikely this night would disappoint. High Contrast's set was, as per usual, a corker, with the crowd particularly loving absolutely banging remixes of Justice's 'We are your friends' and Daft Punk's 'Harder Stronger'. And a personal favourite of mine was also clearly a favourite for those on the other side of the decks, with Q Project, Fabio and High Contrast all slipping Chase & Status' 'Hurt You' into the mix. DJ Hype's first event for Hospital also went down a treat, with the big man having clearly put some serious TLC into his allotted hour. Hype set the tone with an exhilarating mix of 'Together' from Logistics, and continued to lay down track after track of golden nuggets, providing the perfect background for Wrec to do his thing. As a huge fan of London Elektricity Live, I was delighted to see the Surrey-born lyricist looking and sounding as good in front of the decks as he does in front of an orchestra. But then I would say that: I'm female. There was one downside to the night, and it was a biggie: the heat. Heaven is in dire need of a major air con rehaul. With water bottles not even big enough to satisfy a small gibbon, and tap refills not allowed, the sauna that was Room 1 was verging on unbearable by midnight, and by the early hours had gone from sauna to steam room, tipping me over the edge. So off to Room 2, where Nottingham's mega-promoters Detonate had lined up Doc Scott, BBC 1xtra's Bailey, Dom & Roland and Metalheadz's Commix. As expected, Doc Scott pulled dirty tune after tune out of the bag, although 'Shadow Boxing' was sorely missed. I guess times have changed after all. Commix was slick n sick, and all acts were accompanied by a sweet multilaser display that was enough to remind me of my chemical romance of yesteryear but without actually inducing gurning. Rooms 3 and 4 provided a much needed breather - from the heat and sweat if nothing else - with underground electro beats from Oslo's Todd Terje and DJ Gymbag, funky party tracks from The Doctor's Orders, and DMC champion Mr Thing doing his...errr...thing. Hospitality supplied the ingredients for a perfect end to the summer festival season, and although the sun may have failed us for most of it you couldn't tell from looking at the smiling residents of Heaven. Hospitality attracts a mixed and friendly crowd, even if the guys kicking seven shades out of one poor laddie outside didn't agree. Still, heat stroke aside, the night that marked my return to club land was nothing less than a complete success and reinstalled my desire to become a fully-fledged member of the party crew. Long live drum n bass. Amen. Now where are my slippers...?
tags: | hospitality | more...
Imax
Imax
24/08/2007
Imax London Thick pink, purple and green light-lines pulsate and writhe around the mammoth screen before the audience, keeping rhythm with some industrial house beat. A possessed tribe of neon serpents, snaking their way to en-jaw us? Some bunch of optical fibres, seething with crucial messages about the Apocalypse? Or just so many lasers, marking out oblique meanings along their unpredictable course… Right on time the voice of an internal tormentor arrives to chastise: ‘Stop just sitting there in confusion! Surely you can extract some deep meaning from this audiovisual artefact, you vacant heretic?’ Soon enough the screen blacks-out to accommodate a particularly expressive white square. This cube throbs and rattles along to the accelerating beat with quasi-human responsiveness, passion almost, and you’re still left sitting there puzzling over what in the world of leftfield wonders it is trying to tell you. Just as you’re on the brink of epiphany, the square retires to usher in a lively crew of coloured zig-zags, the music relaxes its tempo, and the audience is propelled into another alternative mental position. ‘Yeah, people have commented a lot about that square. We wanted something spiky in the middle, so that it wasn’t too serene all of the way through,’ Lemonjelly’s Fred Deakin tells me after the show. ‘IOTA’ (‘Inventions Of The Abstract’) is their offering for this year’s Optronica festival at the mighty London IMAX. Was this the hugest screen the pair has ever turned into a freewheeling audiovisual spectacle? ‘Absolutely! We made ‘IOTA’ with this screen in mind. Unlike music videos or with film soundtracks, we made the music just as we received segments of the visuals from our artists – it was an integrated project.’ Integrated this work may be, and as suitable as ‘spiky’ is to describe that insistent little assault on my spirit and my sanity, Deakin is going to have to throw me more of a bone before I march straight up to the next square I see and violently extract a more satisfying explanation. ‘Well, we wanted to work with the most abstract elements but make them as animated as we possibly could. The Japanese are the best at that – twisting the rules of character without actually breaking them.’ ‘Abstract’ was Lemonjelly’s watchword, rendering any cerebral efforts on the behalf of the audience completely out of place. Deakin continues: ‘I think that what we did was for people who have experienced a club environment. The aim really was just to get you to feel something.’ Fear, bewilderment, empathy, elation; any feeling would have done. It seems that my (over)reaction wasn’t too far off the mark. Not so with one disgruntled Guardian critic, for whom ‘The unkind thought… occurred to me that I was sitting in a noisy nightclub watching the world’s biggest screen saver.’ ‘You have a go then!’ is Deakin’s ready answer to combat the inevitable sceptics, referencing Disney’s ‘Fantasia,’ Pink Floyd’s unforgettable light shows and the challenging Op Art of the 60s and 70s as the (pop) cultural signposts such audiovisual initiatives have reflected and taken off from. As for the development of this burgeoning sub culture, Deakin enthuses about the different types of technology arriving ‘daily’ to assist an audiovisual revolution. Citing Pioneer’s DVD turntables – ‘They’re excellent, you can treat DVDs just like vinyl! – and looking forward to ‘animated and digitalised music packaging’ reversing the threat to album artwork thanks to MP3s, Deakin also promises me that soon there will be ‘a strong audiovisual community, putting out as much of their work as musicians do on myspace.’ Ditch those 3D shades (Calvin Harris, are you listening?) and stamp out the last sparks of life in your glow sticks (for the love of progress, Klaxons, please instruct your disciples accordingly). Stand by for your eyes to be widened and your brain to be addled by audiovisual works just like these. After all, who needs chemicals when you’ve got gregarious geometry and emotionally intelligent light-lines to orchestrate your raving steps? With Lemonjelly leading the way – Deakin’s passion and the duo’s flair indicate their dominance on the scene – there’s sure to be some treats in store. As an older member of the audience sitting behind me comically said, ‘Well, it’s not rock n roll is it?’ Curiosities like ‘IOTA’ are specifically built to rip you right out of your remit and excite an emotion to make you feel alive again. Wake up!
tags: | imax | london
Miami WMC
Miami WMC
23/08/2007
Miami WMC James Zabiela is ripping it up on the decks, fruity new Thai tipple Sabai is flowing copiously and the bold and the beautiful are here. All we need now is the sun. So that it can set, this being a sunset cruise and all. Braving the threat of rocky waters and a sky the colour of doom, the boat is let loose and some serious drinking ensues. Before the official Miami launch later that week of Zabiela’s One + One project, which sees him undertake a breakneck 75 date global tour sharing the wheels of steel with longtime mixing partner Nic Fanciulli, the duo are here to play for the first time under the alias to a private party of hand-picked movers and shakers. Pioneer have kitted the beat brothers out with a fully digital Pro DJ set-up: Zabiela opens the cruise with a stomping mix seething somewhere in the future, paving the way for Fanciulli’s acidic onslaught before the two flex some impressive styles back-to-back. Steering clear of vinyl and potential needle slippages by bringing out the CDRs, it appears that One + One have come prepared to weather a storm. Offer the men a bottle for their thirsty work and each politely refuses. Forget, ask them slightly more enthusiastically a couple of hours later, and the answer is still the same: ‘I don’t drink when I’m DJing, sorry.’ Fair enough, spinning psychedelic house wobblers to a vessel of inebriated industry types would be challenging enough for even the sturdiest of tunesmiths. ‘I love playing on water, although it wasn’t as choppy as it can get back in the UK!’ James later discloses once the boat party has morphed into a Miami bar crawl. ‘It’s especially funny seeing all of the drunk people swaying in front of the decks, sometimes they get it right to be in time with the music!’ And some suitably stylised swaying there is this time around. Just because someone forgot to invite the sun doesn’t mean Miami dress codes can be broken, dahling! Set clinchers from One + One are some exclusive original remixes in the form of Zabiela’s ‘Human’ and Fanciulli’s ‘Scratch n Sniff.’ Equally effective at orchestrating our rhythmical sways are JZ’s edit of Crazy Penis’ ‘The Way We Swing,’ the trailblazing ‘Pinhole Of Light’ from Phil Kieran and Nick DK’s edited ‘Wiggin’ by Mayday. Selecta! Three hours of alternately rowdy and blissed-out revelling pass in Sabai-soaked obscurity and somehow we’re back where we started. The One + One boys are off to enjoy some well deserved alcoholic refreshment, while the rest of us make a sea-legged stumble back to solid terrain. A generous moon hangs over the Miami skyline to pick out the odd star, and you can almost see them throb along to the lasting echo of laughter, beats and toasted bottles – now that’s what we call a cruise, quality! THE ONE + ONE DOUBLE CD ALBUM IS OUT NOW (MINISTRY) – FANS CAN THEN DOWNLOAD A FREE THIRD MIX OF THE PAIR’S POST-PARTY FAVOURITES www.onepulsone.dj / www.sabaichilled.com / www.pioneer.co.uk
tags: | miami wmc | more...
Torture Garden Valentine's Ball
Torture Garden Valentine's Ball
15/05/2007
TORTURE GARDEN VALETINE’S BALL FEBRUARY 10 @ MASS, BRIXTON Torture Garden is a journalist’s fantasy island. It’s on nights like these that you wish that words were as elastic as the ubiquitous G-strings being sported across polysexual buttcheeks; that you could plunder a black hole in the universe of language where secret codes lurk to unlock the weirdest human experiences. You also wish that you weren’t so damned conservative underneath it all. That the sudden clutch of some bloke in a leather catsuit on your thigh as he leans into another bloke to administer oral pleasure at six in the morning after a heavy night on the greasy, feather scattered tiles doesn’t make you fantasise about a nice cup of tea. ‘There’s a bloke over there with tits,’ and ‘Fancy a spliff?’ have to be the two greatest understatements my fella Chris will utter all year. Pure hilarity, acceleration, intensity, unfettered imagination, scrutiny, hypersensitivity and the masterstroke: some truly decent beats. These were the invisible signposts I set up for myself about the club TG took over for the night - you try to attach what you are witnessing, what you can hear and what you’re being invited to join to something recognisable, wholesome? Wherever to start... The beauty of a fetish club like TG is that pleasure abounds in the most unexpected ways and places. Sure, gimp masks might not make for the kindest faces to have about the place, but did you ever expect to find a large transvestite fairy who gives stellar hugs skanking to The Specials? Or to get along famously with Alexis, a PVC clad stock broker, who chats to me as her wigged, nurse-uniformed boyfriend massages another bird they’ve just met. Some unseen thread entwines your path about the labyrinthine venue with certain other individuals’; a winding staircase that links assorted levels of sin seems to magnetise one guy wearing rubber Speedos, diving shoes and goggles. His movements are jerky and eager, but all of that energy is entirely focused on each inevitable step. Other regular passerbys are a girl with a bloody something like a cross between a cock and the head of a foetus protruding from her exposed chest, a guy dressed in surgeon’s scrubs about to roll into surgery, the hairiest man you have ever seen – these are no curly wurlies but hedgehog style static hair spikes all over his naked back arms and chest. His girlfriend’s eyes are bouncing about as if on chemically charged springs and her lunges in, uninvited, to kiss me are so miscalculated that she nearly falls over...To the dancefloor! As varied as the clientele is, the music is an inspired mash up of jungle, breaks, swing, ‘slut rock,’ ‘atmospheric;’ never did I expect to hear the exquisite melancholia of Anthony and The Johnsons’ ‘Hope There’s Someone,’ with the added percussion of people spanking each other. Speaking of spanking, in my early elated honeymoon state when a certain lady whispered to me as she slipped past, ‘I’ll be back to dominate you in a minute,’ I found myself stopped in the Dungeon Room laid face down on a leather operating table, waiting to be slapped about the arse. Five minutes later my buttocks are aflame and I’m wondering if there’s something deep inside of me that is irrevocably changed; whether it was an enraged or an enraptured glint I noticed in Chris’ eyes as I squeezed his hand. I’m at least losing my London Underground mentality that will only allow me to glance at another person; but then everything and everyone are so preternatural you have to look at least twice to trust your very vision. Six hours in and the tightrope I’m walking between laughter and tears is tilting a little too frequently to the sadder side. Enough is enough. My eyes have been wrenched right open but my claustrophobia has finally sealed up my mind; I’m rammed into a fleshy sex fest and if I feel even the unintentional brush of one more alien body I might just need to be spray cleaned by the local kebab chef as soon as we hit home. Never before have I enjoyed the bus journey East so much; never has buying a pack of Rich Tea biscuits on the walk back felt this liberating. TG means a hell of a lot to numerous people; first it’s a friendly place full of unique characters in creative outfits. Sure there are no real boundaries between these consenting adults, but for me the magic of the night is to discover where my personal boundaries lie. This time there’s an internal ticking bomb that explodes after precisely six hours. My brain is fried, my fishnets are ripped and I need to get to bed before the Hollyoaks omnibus starts. Alright, let me get one final thing off my chest: where were all of the beautiful people?! So not only am I Jo Ordinary but woefully shallow as well. But the good thing is that I did need to go to TG to learn that; you think that by getting onto the guest list you’re automatically super advanced, way more daring than any of your mates and built to deflect shocks of the violent kind. And what’s on next weekend for this taste-making Princess Of The Edge? Supersize popcorn (salt mixed with sweet, thank you very much) and a central seat in the cinema, next to my man. Whether sticking your toe – or any other body part you feel like flexing – into fetish culture allows you to discover new fixations or serves to weld you closer to your enduring object of love, emotions will assault you thick and fast; more than anything you are alive to the fact that you are a thinking, feeling human, which makes you just like everyone else, nipples clamped or not. Ask me if I’ll ever go again once the flashbacks have stopped...Here’s Chris’ take on the wildness... “Take off your shirt and it will stay off!” was the first thing I heard; there you were naked (apart from kilt and workmens’ boots) with hundreds of fellow, also naked Londoners (apart from leather straps and PVC). The regular staff were totally untroubled by the fact that Steve from last weekend was now Stacey. Well nearly. Some choose to be chained to huge wooden apparatus to be abused, some rock up, get a little high and chat to randoms like your typical Friday night. Why some men choose to don a skimpy pair of PVC pants and crawl around in the dirt is still beyond me, but when was the last time you went to a club and EVERYONE was loving it? ‘People don’t dance no more...’ TEXT: LUCY WILSON AND CHRIS SHAW
tags: | torture garden | more...
NEWSLETTER!
Click here and sign up to our weekly newsletter, to get the latest Notion goodness.
Contact Us Support Us Music HQ Ltd / Notion
Site Map Advertise with Us Website designed and developed by PS Europe Ltd.