Redshape: The Man in the Mask

My monthly column from Real Groove magazine - this month: Redshape


CLUBLAND - AUGUST

For the past two years he’s been prescribing raw slabs of Detroit techno funk to a self-medicating faithful behind the anonymity of a red mask. Little is known about Redshape except that he is of shorn head and European decent. The rumours are many; that he is a well known producer; that he has produced for Delsin and Music Man before he adopted his current guise; that he is in fact Carl Craig/Deetron/Dave Clarke/Luke Slater/Tiesto… okay maybe not Tiesto.

We Have Band

WE HAVE BAND


Some of the best ideas start life as little more than an idealised supposition. So it is with We Have Band, the hotly tipped post-punk funk newcomers who started making music to fit the superlative name they conjured up one day.
Married couple Thomas and Dede Wegg-Prosser wanted a creative venture they could work on together, and thus was born We Have Band. Without any music having been thought up, they told friend Darren Bancroft of the band name, who immediately demanded entry into the group.

BUZZIN' FLY & VILLALOBOS

CLUBLAND JUNE



Listening to the innocuous soft house meanderings of Everything But The Girl (EBTG as a generation of MOR dance music lovers came to know them) it comes as no surprise that Ben Watt needed something a little different from his day job to keep his creativity piqued. Enter his Lazy Dog project with Jay Hannan and more recently his Buzzin' Fly label, which is a continuation and evolution of Watt's club night/label vision and just turned five years old. With his interest in house music gradually exploring the more minimal and synthetic end of the spectrum, the latest Buzzin' Fly release sees German producer (Martin) Stimming contribute a melodic, deep tech house twelve inch that would probably appeal to many of those aforementioned EBTG fans - though it can be fairly said that Stimming crafts his sound sculpture with a great degree more subtlety than the crossover hit artists.

Debbie Harry

I've been lucky enough in my career to interview some of my favourite artists and producers, but interviewing Debbie Harry was one of the coolest things I've done.

DEBBIE HARRY


They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago, and now, thirty years after the release of their breakthrough album Parallel Lines, Blondie have announced a world tour to celebrate the milestone. No Magazine speaks to singer Debbie Harry whose image stands as legacy to the band, perhaps even more so than the music they created.

Minilogue & Loco Dice

CLUBLAND MAY


The Swedish production team of Minilogue have barely put a foot wrong over the last few years. Originally starting out as Son Kite, producing progressive house and trance, they quickly branched out into more techno and house-centric material, finally abandoning their Son Kite project in 2004 in favour of their Minilogue moniker. Most of the releases have always held some element of this beginning but with ever more stylistic touches they have been refining their art, stripping back the clutter whilst enhancing the overall effect. With their debut album Animals recently released it looks like they have reached the zenith of this process. The album is in two parts; a dance oriented chapter and an ambient one, but let’s just look at the floor fare for now.

Portishead

PORTISHEAD

Back from the hinterland of an eleven year hiatus, Portishead gear up to release the aptly titled Third album; just don’t call it trip hop.

The nineties nostalgia capsule may be filled with rollerblades, Vanilla Ice and more about Jennifer Aniston’s hair than anybody ever wanted to know, but it also gave us musical sustenance (and pigeon-holing terminology) with grunge, drum & bass, brit-pop, and trip hop. The latter was one of those sleight of hand moments in music journalism that sought to define a style of emerging music but generally looked upon by the artists unfavourably.

The Littl'ans

NO MORE HIDING FROM SATURDAY NIGHT


London four-piece, the Littl’ans saw their indie rock star rise with an instant hit aided by the effortlessly shambolic Pete Doherty. Now after crashing back to earth they’ve picked up the pieces and once more set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Mark 'The Cobrasnake' Hunter

CAMERAS READY, PREPARE TO FLASH!


It’s there, for your immediate friends - no, the world to see. Your eyes fluttering even in the frozen still-motion of a captured image; drink hanging lazily by your side like a faithful puppy and cigarette pasted to the corner of your mouth but perilously close to succumbing to gravity’s inevitable conclusion. It’s not necessarily how you remember (?) your night but thanks to some scurrilous camera jockey and their photo blog it’s how it will go down in history. Elsewhere on the page everyone else perfectly epitomizes your imagined hipness.

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.