Tag Archives: Winter Music Conference

Woody’s Roundup

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It’s that time of year: everyone has returned from a whirlwind sunny week by the pool/on a boat/on a roof top/on the beach in Miami to rain, the office and bank balances, and all we have left is the memories to keep us going. Cue rapid googling, youtubing, soundclouding and general sharing of all the things that rocked the week and will set us up for the Easter Bank Holiday.

Of course there were too many parties and DJs to list, and props already went out to some of our favourites last Friday, but we’re just going to mention a few people that have helped us get through this oh-so-tough 2-day week.

1. Joris Voorn. He was everywhere, from SET to the DJ Mag pool party, to Space, to Pete Tong, to The Victor, throwing in a few unscheduled boat party appearances along the way. He adapted his sets to fit the setting with a quick versatility and intelligence that made everything sound incredibly fresh, even a real oldie like Nalin & Kane’s Beachball.
2. James Zabiela. When James smiles, the whole world smiles with him, and it’s certainly a welcome treat to get given an album for free too. James played highlights from his new Renaissance Masters Series compilation, reminding us of his penchant for breaks and ability to play what sounds like an oxymoron; emotive tech.
3.Dennis Ferrer. He was awarded hero status for playing a double length set at the DJ Mag pool party when there was a no-show, and as we splashed around trying to dance knee deep in water on the pool steps we realised just how many releases this man is responsible for. A driving force behind beefy, shiny-happy soulful house; his own Hey Hey was a standout moment.
4. DJ Harvey and the Aquabooty party at Shore Club. Imagine the delight felt by Graeme Clark AKA The Revenge when he walked in just as the goosebump-inducing Stevie Wonder sample from his gorgeous track Night Flight rang out across a crowd whose every arm was in the air. Lanterns in the trees, Aeroplane playing by the pool, a light breeze, and a group of people who, under the influence of vintage vocals and space disco, by the end of the night felt like they’d known each other forever. Not a bad way for Joe Budious to celebrate his last Aquabooty after co-founding the night five years ago.
5. Sander Kleinenberg. Sander at Little Mountain Rocks was our last party of WMC 2010, and the atmosphere was electric from start to finish. So much so that Sander carried on playing until 6.30 after officially finishing at 5, ending with the encore to end all encores including Erotic City by Prince, Survivor’s Eye of The Tiger, and his own This Is Not Miami. The entire crowd became a sweaty mass of cuddling arms and off-key singing, and Sander got on the mic to tell us, “when I wrote this song I pictured it exactly like this.”

The whole ethos behind the Winter Music Conference is to showcase new tracks, so we’re unable to provide download links to a lot of these just yet. The ones we do have are very low quality and won’t play very loud. All the more reason to put them on your radar and go and buy them when they come out in time to recreate our own Miami during the famous UK Summer (!).

Miami tracks include:
Crookers – Cooler Couleur (Junkie XL remix)
Cassius – 1999 (Tim Green remix)
Nalin & Kane – Beachball (Joris Voorn remix)
Sander Kleinenberg – R.Y.A.N.L
The Revenge – Night Flight
Jan Driver – Tellyfoam
Dennis Ferrer – Hey Hey

James Zabiela at Pete Tong's Pool Party

Woody’s Roundup Goes West

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Howdy partner, we’re having a rootin’ tootin’ time in Miami, so we’re going to keep this short (there are about 100 DJs playing in different venues around this city right NOW so naturally we don’t want to miss out).

We wondered how Busy P and the Ed Banger crew would fare over here in the land of the free, but they’ve kept it banging and sprinkled it with hip hop and the locals have gone absolutely crazy. We’ve had the pleasure of seeing them in a dark and dirty club night as well as poolside in the shimmering sun, and both scenes have been equally epic.

Busy’s been starting his sets with this little gem to add a bit of humour to the occasion.
High Rankin – Meow

Busy P, High Rankin – Meow, Cameo Miami 24 March 2010 from Naomi Richmond-Swift on Vimeo.

Special commendation has to go to the wonderful Aeroplane, who played the sunset yesterday in a beautiful resort overlooking the beach, and got us up after 8 hours dancing when we thought we could do no more. Full of floaty disco, including delights such as Tensnake’s Coma Cat, and our favourite:
Crave You ft. Giselle (The C90s Remix)

Wolf + Lamb: Ready For Love

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Wolf + Lamb are New York based DJ duo Zev Eisenberg and Gadi Mizrahi, who have been together for almost a decade. Priding themselves on engaging with music from all over the world, they started their record label Wolf + Lamb Music in 2005.

It was also in 2005 that they also began the famous Marcy Hotel parties, describing the philosophy behind them as “a special place where we share our passion with discriminating music lovers from around the world. Though it seems like chaos to the untrained eye, everything about our space is carefully calibrated; the music, staff, artists, the sound, and you, our guests…” The Marcy Hotel itself acts as not only their party venue of choice, but their studio too; perhaps more surprising is that it is actually a five-star hotel!


Love or hate the concept, the parties were no doubt an exciting addition to the New York underground dance scene. When they first began the entrance fee set out not to make money, but to cover overheads and to filter out anyone not ‘in the know’. The message to their guests is as follows, “…while most of our guests are part of the wonderful New York dance community, some are there simply because it’s a good party that’s open real late with cheap drinks; we’re pretty sure they don’t know or care who Damian Lazaraus or Jamie Jones are. For those people, there are plenty of other incredible parties to go to, but with the limited space at the Marcy, they are taking up precious space that we’d rather have for more of you…” It’s controversial dialogue which presumably does just enough to intimidate those who aren’t considering it for the ‘right’ reasons…

Last month played host to a huge warehouse party in Brooklyn (reviewed here), which showcased label DJs No Regular Play, Soul Clap, Nicholas Jaar and Gadi Mizrahi himself, accompanied by a backdrop of performance art. Wolf + Lamb are also set to take on the Miami Winter Music Conference next week with a party at Electric Pickle in downtown Miami on the Friday, which is being hyped as the ‘most versatile Winter Music Conference party this year’.

Wolf + Lamb as a label have a fair few strings to their bow; initially starting out as a digital label in 2005, and in the spirit doing things against the grain, they have since moved into vinyl distribution (in 2008) to satisfy a diversifying, and somewhat retrospective, music market. The boys also keep it light-hearted with a further label Wolf + Lamb Black which pulls together a collection of edits and bootlegs including fresh takes on greats like Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.

There are a number of tracks available via the Wolf + Lamb Music site which give you a taste of the eclectic medley of artists they select, as well as huge history of Wolf + Lamb podcasts. Below are my favourites of the free downloads up for grabs (most notable being Gadi Mizrahi’s remix of Seth Troxler’s Love Never Sleeps), as well as Nicholas Jaar’s incredibly different interpretation of Billy Jean (probably not one for die-hard MJ fans)…

Seth Troxler - Love Never Sleeps (Gadi Mizrahi remix)
Gadi Mizrahi – I’ll Hold Your Hand (Bodycode Remix)
Nicolas Jaar – Billie Jean (Nico Rework)

… and two stunning new tracks which prompted me to look more closely at Wolf + Lamb in the first place: Gadi Mizrahi - I Can Never Get Enough (Spectral Sound) [buy] and the BPM defying Nicholas Jaar – A Time for Us (Wolf + Lamb) [buy].

For a sneaky look inside the Marcy Hotel parties check out this video by RebelRave featured on the Wolf + Lamb website.

Complex Rhythm Architecture

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Resident Advisor published their RA.157 podcast by Reboot on Monday, which Reboot describes as “a nice range of the stuff I play and love to listen to at the moment. Something like a brief summary of a club set I would play these days.”

It’s certainly worth checking him out. In an interview with RA last month he described his productions as “complex rhythm architecture” from the Rhein-Main-House scene:

“If we’re talking about this Rhein-Main-House thing, we’re basically talking about a super-stripped-down house track, yeah? Without the filter-pianos or whatever, it’s like just this basic rhythm. Like a deep bassline, but funky and groovy, and this is riding down for six or seven minutes without anything happening really. So it’s up to the DJ to bring in some a cappellas or whatever, tools to make it interesting…”

Although Reboot has been in the business for a long time now, he was never someone whose tracks or sets I actively tried to catch or someone who I accidentally stumbled across in clubs. Last year that all changed at the Get Physical party in Miami. This is when I stumbled across Reboot and his track Ronson – may be it was just the party memories but it became one of my favourites of 2009.

Reboot has an album coming up on Cadenza and is currently touring Europe, Mexico and Canada before heading over to Miami for the Winter Music Conference, and then Ibiza for the 2010 summer season.

As well as the RA podcast you can also find his December 2009 Essential Mix for Radio 1 and his November 2009 Triple J Mixup below.

If this isn’t usually your sort of thing why not check out Riva Starr’s mix of Reboot’s excellent Enjoy Music (released on Defected in January) to ease you in…

RA.157 podcast: Reboot & February 2010 interview
Essential Mix – Reboot – 12th December 2009
Reboot (Cadenza) – Triple J Mixup – 28th November 2009
Ronson – Reboot