Archive for the ‘london’ tag
From LA, Glasgow, Tokyo to London
As a friend mentioned, it’s times like this when you realise why you pay 10 times as much as everyone else in the country to live in London. A packed out Saturday night warehouse party with the illuminaries of a new, hard-to-define, exciting new cross atlantic scene, followed by a Sunday night reunion of a group of legendary pioneers.
Brainfeeder was an event organised by the chaps at Warp Records in conjunction with their new signee, Flying Lotus. It’s times like these where you can’t help saying “I was going on about him aaaages ago”, despite sounding like an absolute nob. It has been clear ever since the release of “1983″ on Plug Research that Flying Lotus would emerge as the figurehead of a new, totally original futuristic sounding strain of hip-hop. It’s a development which is very welcome - after the golden era of the late 80s, and the boom-bap years of Rawkus, Company Flow and the like, hip-hop has struggled to break new ground. In recent years, however, cross fertilisation between the American hip-hop underground and European and British electronic producers has yielded a cacophony of interesting talent. Saturday night’s excellent and inspiring event was testament to how far this “new scene” has come, and acted as a handy showcase of many of the prominent names involved. Standouts on the night were the superb Gaslamp Killer, Glaswegian upstarts Rustie and Hudson Mohawke from the LuckyMe collective, and London don / Hyperdub director Kode 9. All played different styles of music, yet there is a definite sense of continuity. Here are a couple of tracks heard on the night, played out on a huge sound system to a rapid capacity crowd.
Gaslamp Killer played -
What a joy to hear this classic in a club! YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN, YOU MOTHERFUCKING CRYBABIES!
Gianfranco Reverberi - Nel Cimitero Di Tucson
Yeah, dug up a while ago, but still a good ‘un - the original track sampled by Dangermouse for last year’s hit “Crazy”.
Kode 9 played -
The Bug ft. Warrior Queen - Poison Dart
Complete dancefloor destruction, everytime - the commanding vocals of her majesty the Warrior Queen, over the terrifyingly heavy sub bass of The Bug’s production.
Flying Lotus played -
Flying Lotus - Parisian Goldfish
Standout track from new album “Los Angeles” (click link to buy), soaring synths against a shuffling, wonky-as-hell sci-fi hip-hop backdrop.
On so on to Sunday. For those in the dark, Yellow Magic Orchestra are Japan’s answer to Kraftwerk. Fans of electropop, from Gary Numan to the Junior Boys had better get to know. Their 1979 debut release “Firecracker” set the tone for the swathes of those that followed, making music like nobody had ever heard, on state-of-the-art (for the time) equipment that shocked and amazed audiences.
This was their first UK performance since 1980 - a real occasion and one clearly anticipated by the sold-out crowd, at the Massive Attack curated Meltdown festival. Unfortunately, despite the odd bellowed request, we never got “Firecracker”. We did however get a rare chance to witness 3 pioneers (Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi, and Ryuichi Sakamoto) perform their era-defining music (with 3 encores, no less). 楽しかった！