While most of my clubbing brethren were jetting off to Flanders because they love techno, I decided to take a shorter trip over to sunny (!? It was actually peeing rain all Sunday!) London for the Soviet #2 party which was being organised by those nice guys at Seed Records. To be honest, I hadn’t heard much news from Seed Records for a while, the last things I bought were the two Ardisson EPs but they’ve released a few more things since then and of course ran their first Soviet party back in March 2006 (how did I miss that one!?). But when I saw the line-up for their Soviet #2 party posted on the Littledetroit message board I had the flights, tickets and hotel booked within 5 minutes, I had my mouse nearly melted so I did!
The venue where it was being held, The Coronet Cinema, is, as the name suggested, a cinema converted with loving care into a multi-room nightclub. When I arrived I bumped into a few friends and wandered into the Mezzanine room where some electronic goth rock band were playing some pretty loud and abrasive industrial type stuff which kept me entertained during my short queue for the cloakroom (2 minutes, not too bad at all!). I had to leave the room because the music was a bit too much for me so headed upstairs to the “Attic” room where *I think* I caught a bit of Ben Pest’s set, chopped up Noodles Recordings style tomfoolery which was rather enjoyable. For a while I thought the Mezzanine was the main room but it was only after a bit of wandering that I discovered the real main room which was massive! The top balcony part still had all the cinema seats in place and a large screen had been set up so you could watch the performers on the stage and their own visuals, or angle your head up slightly and watch the bizarre edited movies being shown (eg: Howard The Duck edited down to 15 minutes of “the best bits”, the visuals were by Medlo and were one of the few I’ve seen at any night out that really impressed me since Hexstatic years ago in the TBMC). The upstairs cinema was also great for resting your weary legs after seven hours of dancing, but I’d just arrived so it was off downstairs again!
In the Mezzanine I caught all of Ardisson’s blisteringly acidic live set. He had a table full of gear including two 303s (the bastard!) and an 808 (THE BASTARD!) which he twiddled with to full effect. He sounded much more energetic and in your face than on his releases, I hope this new stuff gets put out soon! Parts of it sounded like a chopped up and distorted remix of Sleeparchive to my ears, weird huh? One of my favourite sets of the night, although I hate to play favourites!
Some more wandering (some guy upstairs was playing Maurizio when I went up there again, nice wan!) and then I stumbled upon B12 who I thought I’d missed (things weren’t exactly following the timetables stuck to the walls). A very danceable but still Warpish set from the guys marred by some slight sound problems (the sound cut out a few times but it wasn’t too bad). Down in the main room The Grid (haha, remember them?) finished up and Phil Hartnoll took to the stage and uh……..played quite a lot of cheese but melted even the snobbiest of purist techno hearts when he donned his trademark Orbital glasses-with-the-lights-on-them and dropped Chime. Unfortunately some Faithless track (or something equally rubbish) was mixed in soon after so I legged it back to the Mezzanine just in time to check out one of the main reasons I’d flown over, Cristian Vogel. And he didn’t disappoint, he was all kinds of weird and wobbly techno amazing-ness, and the cheeky fella was even lighting sparklers and waving them about at the start of his set. I don’t think I recognised a single track and I’d kill for a recording of it. Somebody has got to bring him over to Dublin! Promoters are you listening!?
And now we come to my biggest gripe of the evening, the British Murder Boys were on at the same time as Vogel!!! ARGH!! What would Jesus do? He’d leg it down after half an hour of Vogel’s set, get some quality broken beat techno in for another thirty minutes, then head back before the Voge-master finished off. A horrible clash but I suppose that’s the problem with a line-up that good, you’re always going to feel worried about missing something good (well I do anyway).
Anyway, Surgeon and Regis were on fine form, Surgeon doing his evil-statue-man thing in front of his laptop while Regis, who seemed to have borrowed some stage moves from T.Raumschmiere, hopped, skipped and rolled about the stage, swinging out of Surgeon and hamming it up for the crowd who seemed to be well into his shenanigans (and it *was* pretty entertaining). Surgeon seemed to be doing most of the musical work, layering stuff from the likes of Aphex’s Analord tracks over his industry standard kick drums, there was also some favourites thrown in (eg: Nitzer Ebb’s Join The Chant) and some grimey sounds too (Vex’D I think?), I’ve seen these guys a few times now and they’ve never failed to blow me away.
The ‘oul legs were getting slightly tired so it was off to lean at the bar and have some energising cans of……….no not Fosters the one above that………yeah Kronenberg, that’ll do. The guy at the bar was actually surprised I was going for the cans when they had it on draught too, I explained that drinking beer from cans just added to the whole rave atmosphere in my mind. Neil Landstrumm also helped add to the rave atmosphere which his signature “table full of fifty drum machines” set of twisted breaks-y techno sounds. Other highlights of the night included Milanese, I recognised at least one track off his new album out on Planet Mu. There were some other DJs I hadn’t heard of playing too, but there was a bit too much of that dubstep nonsense (as Dr. Paul Skunkenstien calls it) for my liking. I don’t mind a bit of it, but I feel it’s more for home listening, it doesn’t make me want to dance like a crazy idiot like proper electro, I think the whole half-step thing means it lacks a certain energy. A lot of crusty looking Londoners seem to love it though, but they all just mostly stand around and kind of shimmy to it rather than properly boogie down. I also heard a terrible dubstep style remix of Ghost Town, I hope it doesn’t end up like “nu skool” breaks where all they do is release bad bootlegs of pop songs with warbling bass underneath them.
Kansas City Prophets was the last act I remember any of properly, a bit of grimey stuff but leaning towards the electro end of things which kept me happy. I do remember going into the main room to see Kenny Larkin, I remember really liking his set but I couldn’t tell you what he played, the night was becoming a bit of a blur. I also remember some guy in the Attic room finishing off his set with East 17’s “Stay Another Day” while wearing a scary mask (check the photos section soon!), I’d loved to have stayed another day but I was wrecked and needed some sleep so caught the first tube back into London and crawled into my bed.
I thoroughly recommend heading over to the next night the Seed Records guys do, I can’t really fault anything about the Soviet #2 party except for the clashing of certain acts. Yes, The Grid and Phil Hartnoll weren’t really my thing but there was a lot of great stuff on in other rooms while they were cheesing it. Also there was never a queue for the toilets or bar, the security and staff were friendly and the venue was top notch! Oh yeah, the sound in the Mezzanine (which was nice, bassy and loud) did leak a bit into the top room a tad, but it wasn’t too bad most of the time. I missed quite a few other acts I’d wanted to see, espically Cursor Miner who’d been put on ridiculously early, aww well, serves me right for turning up at 11:30pm!
I’m still sorting through the photos but in the meantime check out all the videos I took, I nearly filled up my 1 gig memory card!
Fireworks over London
Ben Pest (I think!)
Tune!!!
Chime!!!
Ardisson brings the acid noise!
More Ardisson madness
B12 get an A1 from skkatter
B12, not to be confused with the B52s
Cristian Vogel
Then we leg it downstairs for British Murder Boys
Quick, run upstairs for some more Cristian Vogel!
Goddammit, downstairs again for more British Murdering, quick!
Milanese turns the bass up to 10+x where x>0
A quick swig of beer turns Milanese into a rowdy drunk
Neil Landstrumm, the crowned ruler of wonktonia