The Weekend-Losoul/Guillaume and the Coutu Dumonts/Fabric Etc
So I managed to get to Fabric at about 1 or 2am on Saturday, and saw some of DJ Koze, a little Sebo K, Guillaume and the Coutu Dumonts, and an hour or so of the Wighnomy Brothers, before stumbling madly into the morning.
I found most of the acts pretty good without being outstanding, I couldn’t say I got a big kick out of the Kompakt guys but it was good music. Guillaume and the Coutu Dumonts’s live show on the other hand was one of the most exciting things I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s rare to get a huge cheer in Room 1, at least in my experience, but when he came on playing a long solo made up of various sampled bongos via a drum machine, then dropped his remix for Sety, the place lit up.
It seems there’s a lot of recycled kneejerk hate for bongos recently, which is like the latest incarnation of my beloved “sounds like an insect walking across a microphone” from the mnml era, but fuck that, bongos are no more variable than any other element. Guillaume’s set proved a pretty old idea, that if you’re going to bother to do live dance music, it absolutely has to offer something different (not that samey DJing is welcome but you get the point)
He also managed to get around every dance forum’s favourite cliché “is he ‘checking his email’ up there”? (”is he checking his email while playing those fucking bongos”/”they sound like an insect walking across a microphone”) by using the MPC throughout the set to give things a physical and visual feel.
It was a good show to watch as well as dance to, which is so rare with a one man band dance show. Normally I’d wonder why we need to watch something, but then, if a “live show” is just a guy basically DJing and playing all his own music then no wonder people are switched off, not least given most are so used to hearing a different artists music every few minutes in a club.
I spent most of the rest of the night in the Kompakt dominated Room 2, which was sort of unremarkable to me, though some friends enjoyed it a lot more. I found Koze fairly tame and hard to really dive into, and though the Wighnomy Brothers were better it all felt a bit gloopy. Mind you I did hear it got a lot better in the last hour, I left at about 7.30am because I wanted to not be in bed all day on Sunday.
That evening I went to Losoul at Millenium Disco’s monthly night in BarMusicHall, and had a really good time, despite some of the crowd early on seeming like they were straight out of whatever your local smalltown shit disco is (attempts at breakdancing in a large dancefloor filling circle, or limbo, shudder.)
Thankfully that crowd dispersed and the DJ before Losoul, not sure who it was, a bearded man, played some really good stuff including Lil Tony’s Arthur Russell mix which sounds great out. Losoul himself was even better, it’s so good to go to a gig for free and hear some brilliant music. His set featured a few of his own tracks, new and old, and the kind of groovy German house you’d expect.
It all went on till around 2am, at which point there were about 3 people dancing, one of whom is writing this post (the other two were a former Miss World and the actor who originally played the “One Armed Man” in “The Fugitive”, I’ll let you look them up)
The venue might have its share of weirdos due to the location but the system is quite good and “free in” is not a river in Egypt. Afterwards I sat on a step across the road for a bit with a friend and reminisced about the old days (2 weeks or shit…even as far back as 4 weeks ago….man) and how things had changed since then (not very much as it turned out.) Not sure Losoul appreciated the golf clap (think American golf audience rather than European here) we gave him as he left the venue however.
At the end of it all two great things in a weekend is pretty good going I think! Any alternative reports are welcome. Not too alternative mind you, if you spent the weekend discovering your inner wolf child at a Wiccan swingers club then I’d rather not hear about it if it’s all the same to you.
Unless you got pics. Hey now!
jeremy_a wrote:
Nice write up, Ronan
Posted 05 May 2009 at 8:54 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
Thanks Jeremy, hope you’re doing well!
Posted 05 May 2009 at 9:02 pm ¶
jeremy_a wrote:
Hi, you too! I should post a nicely written summary of my weekend, but unfortunately…nothing to report.
Disappointing that you found Koze tame -I remember him dropping Brutalga Sq in 2004 or 5 at Unit in Tokyo with extra quadrophonic speakers hauled in for the occasion - a fine party. Then a year later I saw him once more on an off night - he seemed more diffident about the whole techno DJing thing altogether in 2006-7.
Which is why I like the idea he’s back on form - he’s always been a bit half-comfortable playing straight for the dancefloor but when he is on he is on. I would pay good money to see him now
Posted 05 May 2009 at 9:27 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
I saw him at Kompakt100 in 2003 (I think) and he was the best of the lot.
To be fair I only saw about a half hour of him on Sat night but I wasn’t mad into what I did see.
Sometimes I find it odd how huge he is now, I like his tracks but something like “I Want To Sleep” felt pretty low key to me, yet people seem to really adore it.
Posted 05 May 2009 at 9:29 pm ¶
jeremy_a wrote:
Huge? I don’t know too much about this. Like destined for Booka Shade/M.A.N.D.Y style bigness in Britian I wonder… how much of that is due to putting out on Get Physical…
Not to be too blunt, but I think it’s fantastic he’s managed to not go down with the sinking on the good ship Kompakt through sheer of production talent
Posted 05 May 2009 at 9:50 pm ¶
jeremy_a wrote:
Oops, excuse that last sentence!
Posted 05 May 2009 at 9:52 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
Maybe more underground huge than that, but I guess like 6 years ago he was well below Mayer or even Superpitcher in the attention stakes for Kompakt (or even Justus Kohncke probably)
Posted 05 May 2009 at 10:02 pm ¶
Joshua Meggitt wrote:
Jeremy A? Is that you? If so hope you’re doing well, whatever it is.
Thanks for the update Ronan, if I was still in London I’d have flocked to both shows. As for Koze’s ‘I Want to Sleep’, that really speaks to me. Something almost intangible in the combination of wierd n’ wispy background noise and blank repetition that makes me swoon, present in almost all his recent tracks. Not sure if you heard ‘Abudinga’ for Areal but that was even better, and largely ignored. He has some good sets at UMP3.de.
Saw Losoul about 4 years ago at The Key and he was wonderful. The new tracks are great.
Posted 06 May 2009 at 6:43 am ¶
Ronan wrote:
Yeah I like “Abudinga” a lot actually. I was having a mix in my flat before Christmas sometime and had the window open, and was playing “Abudinga”, and a gang of people who were walking past started howling and making monkey noises…was pretty funny.
Posted 06 May 2009 at 8:30 am ¶
Joe H wrote:
We got the Kompakt crew up North the day after you, except they came complete with a live set from Reinhard Voigt, who absolutely smashed the place to bits with some straight up evil techno. Koze was off form up here too, his mixing was off-key but the track selection made up for it. He wasn’t as good as what he was at Matter for the RA Christmas du, but still very good.(a far better producer than DJ mind you). I enjoyed Wighnomy bros, especially their last hour or so. Good vibes in Leeds System do a great job at the Mint. I’m Looking forward to the next with Cassy & Pedro.
Posted 06 May 2009 at 12:37 pm ¶
Rory wrote:
Aaaaah didn’t know you were there on Sat night Ronan - would have been cool to bump into you. Yep we popped over on a jetplane to check that lineup out - totally impressed with Guillaume as well - he had that room 1 rocking! Thought Koze was mediocre at best, although Reinhart Voigt really scored some much needed points for the Kompakt crew in Room 2. It was like a techno rock concert. Hope all is well anyways
Posted 06 May 2009 at 4:54 pm ¶
audiofeen wrote:
I was there also with a few friends, Guillaume was very good. at some points the percussion could have moved around a bit more but for a live set i was very impressed.
there was one point where the laptop nearly fell off the table, and then had a 2 little glitches at the end, but this just makes you realise that were all human.
I wasn’t to impressed with the kompakt room(im not a big fan of kompakt anyway) i thought the sound was a bit muffled throughout the night in that room, Terry Francis played to hard before Koze came on and it wasn’t until 2:30am that Koze brought it back to a deeper groove, but still it felt a bit sparse and loopy.
Posted 06 May 2009 at 5:02 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
Ah shame I missed you Rory, mind you prob as likely to bump into someone on the tube as in Fabric…
Funny I didn’t notice the laptop nearly falling off. One thing which was really funny which I just remembered was that when Sebo K was playing in the DJ box in Room 1, Guillaume was setting his stuff up on the stage and everyone apart from about 20 people was looking at Guillaume, who wasn’t playing.
Hard luck Sebo!
Posted 06 May 2009 at 5:06 pm ¶
EDB wrote:
Yes, Guillaume did a similar performace here too (but didn’t play his Sety remix unfortunately). Best part ever was when the Mole came on after him, and they did a 10 minute double-team performance with the bongo pad. Those two should really do a collaboration!
Posted 06 May 2009 at 11:42 pm ¶