Oliver $ and Gene Siewing have been combining their Berlin-US forces into the mighty Chubby Dubz since 2004, and their album Direct Experience is forthcoming on Loungin Recordings. To celebrate, they’re offering the Art Bleek remix of the title track as a free download.
I’m not a fan of retrospectives: it’s not very inclusive to harp on about a brilliant night/festival/set for too long, unless there’s some sort of constructive end to it. Go and see so-and-so here, etc.
BUT festivals like Sonar and Miami WMC are tastemakers and fixers for the rest of the year’s musical delights, and a precursor for the Summer’s selection in Ibiza, so I thought I’d let you know what tracks we heard out and about in Barcelona. Plus, it allows me to re-live it a little bit, so indulge me.
Particular highlights were the RA by Day party on Thursday, poolside on the roof of Hotel Diagonal, which started chilled in the sun, was moved up a level to fun old skool hip-hop and disco by Space Dimenson Controller, then brought to a sundown sweat-fest frenzy by Claude VonStroke. So many new tracks and highlights which we managed to ask him about later, but he warned us we’d have quite a wait, in particular for the release of Justin Martin and Ardalan’s epic follow-up to Mr Spock; LEZGO. I found a very small taster here – only 21 seconds but thank you to ‘Rainingcaps‘ and his dancing-while-filming brother.
A few other greats which you can get hold of now are Claude’s Take a Trip mix of Chilly Gonzales - I Am Europe, and J Phlip‘s new track with Claude under his Grizzl moniker for his vinyl imprint Krush Groov, BkupGrl, and of course my favourite, (another one I’ve been waiting patiently for) J Phlip’s OMG Remix of Russ Yallop‘s Rock Me, which is a bootleg and sadly not due for release (I think)… but you can hear it 12 minutes into this mix from March this year:
Claude VonStroke – March 2011 Tour Mix by Rainbow Venues
J.PHLIP & THE GRIZZL – BKUPGRL CLIP by j.phlip
Fun fun fun was the Jackmode party on Thursday night in a tennis club high in the hills overlooking the city (complete with a slide and see-saw) and it was nice to see Oliver $ drop his own Doin’ Ya Thang to a crowd very happy to try to sing/shout along.
Oliver $_Doin´ Ya Thang by oliverdollar
Zombie Disco Squad played some old skool classics including a great that we heard again dotted around parties in the week; the MK Dub of Jodeci’s Freek N’ You, from 1995.
Download: Jodeci – Freek N’ You (MK Dub)
All the beautiful people were at Ghoa Beach Club for the Hot Natured party all day on Friday. Dancing bodies filled the pool while we danced on ledges to the stealthy bass of Thugfucker’s Disco Gnome (Tale of Us Remix). Download here.
A-Trak at Sonar Night on Friday was ridiculous. His hands were moving so fast on the decks he looked like a smartly-dressed robot. He gave us a little taster of his new ‘mystery’ track Big Bad Wolf, which when it comes out on Fool’s Gold is going to be immense.
Great sets include Cosmin TRG followed by Tiger & Woods at Sonar Day on Saturday, and the legendary Rico Passerini has kindly uploaded the Cosmin set to Soundcloud for your delight:
Cosmin TRG Live @ Sonar Festival, Sonar Dôme, Barcelona – 2011 by R_co
We rounded the week off in fitting style with the Sunday parties, and a massive thanks to Culprit vs Leftroom for good sunny times on the roof at Hotel Catalonia in the day, then Get Physical for putting on a beach party at Mac Arena Mar through to 3am. Just enough time to pack and get to the airport for a Monday morning flight home (those crazy enough to go to work on Monday). So for now, we put Sonar to bed for another year, and content ourselves with hastily booking some flights to Ibiza, stalking producers until we get our grubby mitts on the tunes we heard, and re-living some of the joy at 5 Years of Leftroom (with Room 2 hosted by Hot Natured) at Fabric on 2 July. See you there.
There’s nothing like the fear of never being able to leave your house again as it’s piled high with drifts of snow to make you rush out and have a dance while you still can. As ever, London has superbly risen to the occasion and offered a few goodies to stagger to after the office Christmas party.
Tonight Stopmakingme, Pete Herbert and Prince Pac play at The Book Club for the Big In Japan Christmas party, Retro/Grade join Villa and Acid Girls for Scandalism at Stokey’s The Nest, Motor City Drum Ensemble play at Plastic People, and Tim Sheridan plays one of my all-time favouritely-titled nights VeryVeryWrongIndeed at Lightbox in Vauxhall. Dollop host XOYO with LuckyPDF and Dollop DJs, and Eskimo Twins are joining David E Sugar free at 93 Feet East.
Tomorrow promises no sleep for the wicked as Jackmode present round two of their Pelski nights at Counter Culture, with the big boys Jesse Rose, Zombie Disco Squad, Oliver $ and Jet Project. Mr Rose was spotted grooving in the crowd to Round Table Knights last time we attended so it’ll be interesting to see how he enjoys making us move. There’s another legendary 2020 Vision party with Tensnake, Lindstrom and Crazy P, and Soul Clap are rocking Hearn Street Car Park with their Yoyoyo 90s Jam Rave E-Dition. If you’re up North (even if you’re not it’s only 2 hours on the pendolino from Euston) Wolf + Lamb have their Christmas party at Sankeys, with Gadi Mizrahi and the lovely Nicolas Jaar. Way down South My Heroes Killed Cowboys in Cornwall hosts Filthy Dukes and Stopmakingme.
Enough to dance those icicles away I’d say.
Here are some tracks to help with that:
Heartik – Wax Works (Mowgli Remix)
Prince Club – La Charma pt. 2 (Prince Club Sub-Marine Mix)
OMD – Sister Marie Says (Stopmakingme Remix)
Lykke Li – Get Some (Beck Remix) [Lykke Li remixed by Beck? Yes please]
Davide Squillace – The Other Side of the Bed
Yeasayer – Madder Red (Munk Remix)
Feed Me – Jolie [Feed Me are the latest signing to Deadmau5's Mau5trap label. Expect the Feed Me's Big Adventure EP in January]
Sometimes, when I’ve got too much time on my hands, I sit and I try and work out which label is really my favourite – Get Physical, dirtybird, Wolf + Lamb… Most of the time, I can argue any of them up to the top spot. However, the one that takes the title more often than not is Made To Play; consistently brilliant and an asset to the industry, always delivering the skills of a delicious line-up of DJ talent.
For me, the appeal is based largely on trust. Each release and signing is carefully handpicked by label boss Jesse Rose for its style and quality. If you have built a relationship with Made To Play, you have also created one with Jesse Rose’s impeccable taste in music, and it is as reliable as it is exciting.
I’m sure many of you feel the same way, which is why we should all join in the celebrations next month. Made To Play have announced they will mark their 5th Anniversary this year by releasing a brand new double CD complete with a 48 page colour booklet on 25th October. CD 1 will have fresh material from all of the Made To Play crew and CD 2 will be a mix of the best of Made To Play’s last 5 years.
On top of that they will also be on a European tour throughout October. 
London is lucky enough to have Jesse Rose, Zombie Disco Squad, Renaissance Man, Idiotproof and Oliver $ in town on Friday 15th October (venue TBC), so save the date, and we will be making every attempt to hitchhike to Panorama Bar for this party: Saturday 9th October, Midnight Saturday – Sunday night. Black Rose – Live / Jesse Rose / Heidi / Riva Starr / Round Table Knights / Zombie Disco Squad / Renaissance Man / Oliver $ / Payme.
Here are a couple of new tracks we’ve had on repeat over the last week from the Made to Play camp. First is the Jesse Rose remix of Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs on Play It Down.
PID003 – Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – Garden (Jesse Rose Remix) by Made to Play
Second, a new track called Behind The Fence from those crazy Dutch guys, Homework, who we interviewed back in March. It’s coming out as part of their new Trumpet Express EP on Made To Play.
MTP033 – Homework – Behind The Fence by Made to Play
Full details of the 5 years of Made To Play European tour dates can be found here.
This weekend was supposed to host a German musical invasion across the capital with Made to Play talent Oliver $, Get Physical’s M.A.N.D.Y. and Harry Klein girls Ana & Julietta playing at The Legion, Fabric and Cosmo Bar. However, the ongoing saga of volcanic ash lingering in the UK skies prevented many DJs leaving their home town forcing, perhaps healthily in some respects, promoters to look elsewhere and make the most of homegrown talent still residing in their respective nations. Fortunately, the power of the internet and digital music means that we can still get our fix from abroad, and for the purpose of this post, a taste of the generous array of electronic exports pouring out of Germany.
Today marks the release of Hickup Theme from new up and coming producers / DJs Hickup (or HCKP) on the ‘Future’ chapter of the Five years of Dirty Bird compilation. Dirty Bird is certainly a label known for supporting the brilliant artists coming out of Germany, and more specifically the sounds ruling the Berlin clubbing scene.
Hickup are a duo from North Germany who like their music ‘electronic and ethnic’ and Hickup Theme represents just that. Its core make-up comprises of tribal beats and ethnic melodies. They refer to it as an ‘energentic tribe dance’, and it fits perfectly with the Dirty Bird mentality and other tracks within the release. Hickup Theme has been available as single download since the end of March, but to take it away as part of the compilation, you’ll need to get yourself over to Beatport. The full tracklist looks fantastic including new and old tracks from the likes of Claude Von Stroke, Justin Martin, Style of Eye, Tim Green, Sascha Braemer and The Martin Brothers and it came out today!
Hickup also saw Hickup Theme enter in Thomas Schumacher’s RA chart this month and second track Hakazou! has been gaining support from not only Heidi on her Radio 1 show, but also Jesse Rose, who apparently dropped it recently at Panorama Bar with great success.
Hickup – Hickup Theme by HICKUP
They don’t stop at great production either, Hickup are playing in Hamburg, Kiel and Hannover over the next few months (including an evening in June with the UK’s Zombie Disco Squad at the Luna Club, Kiel) and you can find more from HCKP on their Soundcloud page. The boys are currently working on new mixes to further showcase their DJing talent.
So whilst we await some new mixes from Hickup, we’ve found a mix from the main man himself. A man responsible for the signing of so many incredibly influential tracks over the past 5 years of Dirty Bird. Enjoy:
Claude Von Stroke – Dance Under the Blue Moon – 17th April 2010
