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Discs roll out at Hush
Friday night at Hush , Adam Marshall celebrated the release of his new 12-inch on Chicago’s Antenna label. Most would probably consider the five-song Experimental House Approach EP techno, but it’s slow enough to fit into house sets. Lots of the programming seems to be lifted from house patterns, but the glitchy metallic sounds are pure tech. Nice disc, with appeal to fans of Akufen and Geoff White.
Local producer Daniel Lui also delivered a considerably less minimal new 12-inch test pressing called Blackout Theory from his Chair label. This one is more rooted in electro and classic Detroit techno, full of bubbling synths and angular breakbeats. The mastering job is top notch – it sounds huge next to comparable records.
The party itself grew slowly but filled up in time for the Chicago headliners, Josh W and Marko Katic , to lay down some throbbing tech-house.
Hype springs eternal
Later on Friday night we ended up at 99 Sudbury for I Get Hype , a party devoted to the late-80s sound of hiphouse and acid house, featuring one of the originators of the hip-house sound, Tyree Cooper . This was a proper sweaty and dark warehouse jam, and most of the crowd was up for a jacking night of classics.
The night was ravey compared to contemporary house sounds, and there was a certain amount of cheese, but what the hell – this is supposed to be a party, right? Would we really want it to be that serious?
Lately, second-wave Chicago DJs like Derrick Carter have been dropping more and more hiphop remixes into their sets, and the acid sound has made a big comeback in the tech-house scene. So maybe next time someone throws a jam like this, it’ll feature more records from this millennium.
Lucid launches
Checked out the grand opening of Lucid on Thursday night, a new mega-club in the space last used for huge video game arcade Playdium. Looks like the owners’ association with the UK’s Ministry of Sound has brought a lot of cash into the project, but, unfortunately, they haven’t been able to keep it from feeling like a mall.
It’s a huge maze-like space, sharing the layout of its former incarnation, escalators and all.
And this is Ontario, so multiple levels means you have to drain your drink whenever you want to move around. The sound is very boomy and uneven, although they’ve invested in good equipment. Wide open spaces, glass and concrete are a bad recipe for dance-club sound.
Hard to say if they’ll pull off their underground-style nights, but the venue will probably do well for corporate functions.
Soulutions’ not so Sound decision
Too bad deep house crew Soulutions celebrated their fourth anniversary Saturday night at Sound Emporium . They’ve made their name in more underground locations, and the move into the club district seemed to scare off much of their following. All the same, kudos to them for infusing some much needed energy into the scene over the past few years.
