Claro Intelecto

Clubland April

Spring slowly brings a thaw to the chilling vise of winter that held London gripped between its icy jaws. Early mornings are met now with shimmering dew and blinding shards of golden sunlight, the foggy breath of harried commuters heaving a ragged seasonal farewell, scarves giving way to flashes of bare milky necks.

Jimpster, Aaron Carl, Booka Shade

CLUBLAND

Chatting to a friend the other day about tennis shoes, Dadaist art and finally music, he was telling me how he found the latest Poker Flat comp just a little too dry for his tastes. To be honest I haven’t heard it yet so that’s about the only mention it’s going to get in this month’s column. But I could understand what he was on about; despite the fact that we’d just taken in a rather abstract and minimal art exhibition that seemed like it could have been the visual equivalent to sparse techno and arid, housey meanderings, that ultra stripped back sound isn’t for everyone.

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

ARTROCKERS

Séances with Nick Cave, recapturing the great concerts of psychiatric hospital history and mixtapes for the social networking generation; the art world according to Forsyth and Pollard.
It’s almost a courting tool of years gone by, a knick-knack you might find in Grandma’s hope chest in decades to come, something that exists now but through changing media has lost its true essence.

Shackleton, Quantec, Pablo Bolivar

CLUBLAND

If you’d never heard of Shackleton before Ricardo Villalobos got a hold of ‘Blood on my Hands’ then that record cemented him into your memory for all time. To extol the virtues of Villalobos’ immaculate remixes in two parts is somewhat pointless; if you know the tune then more than likely it’s been hanging around in your head/record bag/lap top/top ten ever since.

Sascha Funke - Mango

CLUBLAND FEBRUARY

A slack gray sheet of cloud whimpers across the London sky, spluttering greasy grains of moisture on to my head as I await the bus that begins my morning commute. I push my ear phones deep in to my aural cavity, remnant drops of my recent shower suctioning loudly against the pliable rubber moldings. There’s only one way to blank the pressed humanity of London’s daily commute, the jostling throngs of scurrying maze-rats about tube stations, the weak pushed aside or trampled underfoot.
Music, the sunglasses of the ears.

Onur Ozer & Tolga Fidan

CLUBLAND


There’s no doubt that hip hop is well and truly a global phenomenon now. There are kids in almost every continent either listening to it or making it. In fact across nearly every genre the world of contemporary music has never seemed so small. Techno and house music is no exception. For a very long time the majority of my record collection has been made up of artists from America, England and Germany, but of late I’ve been noticing how many artists are emerging from the countries you wouldn’t necessarily associate with techno.

Anthony Rother

CLUBLAND

Having felt thoroughly ashamed at not having been out for a good London clubbing experience since I had relocated to the city I had promised myself to forget the crisp chill of the impending winter and head out to find a good gig.
It wasn’t too hard to come up with something and after browsing the various gig guides found that the best bet was the steadfast Fabric. With a lineup that made me fidget about like a small boy with a bladder problem I was counting down the days ‘til I could go see Supermayer, Geiger, Anthony Rother and Mike ‘Agent X’ Clark all on the same bill.

Swayzak

CLUBLAND

We’ve come a long way. Listening to some of the latest releases I’ve collected next to something I purchased back in the latter part of the nineties, it’s incredible how machines are changing the music we listen to. Those older records, though admittedly suffering from a few scratches and wear and tear sound down right muddy next to the pristine clarity offered by 2007’s batch of releases.

Clubland column - Copenhagen

Tales from the worldwide dancefloors, this time reporting from Copenhagen. Click the image to read the story.

Patrick Chardronnet & Connaissuer Grand Cru 2007

Clubland

It used to be that there was always a bit of a lull in the release of decent club fodder. Usually it was likely to happen around Christmas when producers would hang up their sustain pedals and induce forced hibernation upon their trusty mice. But often things would go through a bit of a flat patch for no apparent reason, the tide out in the ideas pool at indiscriminate times of the year. Though to be honest it’s been a fair while since I’ve been haunted by a lack of stimulating releases, lately the problem has been managing to keep up with the quantity of quality rather than finding it at all.