Dance and Electronica with Chris Honnery
Subsonic Music’s popular annual harbor boat cruise, Pirates of the Underground, will set sail on Sydney Harbour for its seventh instalment on Saturday December 21. A number of DJs from the Subsonic Music Festival taking to the decks. Headlining isPhilip Bader, who was a resident at the hugely popular – and now unfortunately defunct – Berlin nightclub Bar25. Bader has released as part of the Highgrade Disharmonic Orchestra and has also been involved in fruitful sonic partnerships with Heinrich & Hertinfellner’s Sascha Braemer, a union that spawned the anthemic single ‘Thank you’. Renowned Berlin DJ Red Robin will also throw down, along with France’s D-sens and a selection of locals.
New Jersey producer Kerri Chandler has mixed the next instalment in the Watergate mix series, which will be available for commercial consumption in February. Since the release of his first single ‘SuperLover/Get It Off’ way back in ’91, Chandler has accumulated a prolific body of work and established himself in the house music canon via classics tracks like ‘Bar A Thym’ and ‘Back To The Raw’ along with his curation of his Madhouse label. His forthcoming mix was recorded live and includes productions from the criminally underrated Frenchman D’Julz, Johnny D, Losoul and a Chandler/Jerome Sydenham collaboration that was crafted specifically for the compilation. If you aren’t already a fan of Chandler, I dare say you’ll be converted by the rant he reportedly delivered to dancers at Paris’ Rex Club earlier this year upon receiving one too many requests: “If you want to request more commercial David Guetta shit then get out, get the fuck out.” You heard the man.
Another man who isn’t shy of expressing some attitude from behind the decks,Kenny Dixon Jr, AKA Moodymann, is set to release a new album called ABCD: The Album. Moodymann is entrenched in the club canon for musical sketches that drift between house, disco, jazz and the avant-garde that are interspersed with blaxploitation samples and smooth beats. While I can totally understand some people being put off by KDJ’s propensity to occasionally get a little excessive with the politicisation of his music, there’s little denying his unique sound and ability to capture a sound – nay zeitgeist – that’s at once so simple yet ostensibly extinct among the younger breed of producers. ABCD: The Album features a dozen cuts, all of which bar one – the opener ‘Hold It Down’ – are previously unreleased. Fellow Detroit export Andrésguests on ‘Come To Me’, while the album artwork ought to be rated ‘MA’ and not shown to impressionable youths. Put it this way – it would’ve been a far better poster for Wes Craven’s misfiring flick A Vampire In Brooklyn than what the studio ultimately opted for.
Shrug will celebrate its fifth anniversary with a party headlined by highly touted Berlin live act Klartraum at The Burdekin on Friday December 13. Klartraum is the duo of Nadja Lind – who has released on labels such as Soma and been remixed by stalwart Terry Francis – and Helmut Ebritsch, who put out the excellent single ‘Modern Times’ under his Hatikvah moniker. Klartraum have released albums such as Evolution through their own Lucidflow imprint, which Ebritsch and Lind founded five years ago. Evolution spawned a remix album in 2011 that featured reworks from the aforementioned Terry Francis, Silicone Soul, Steve Rachmad, Mark Henning, G-Man and Marek Hemmann among others. Such a formidable list is an indication of Klartraum’s standing in the electronic music milieu. Their set at The Burdekin will be an encore for anyone planning on attending this week’s Subsonic Music Festival with Lind also set to play a DJ set later in the night along with excellent locals such as Jimi Polar and Trinity.
Looking Deeper
Friday December 6
Riverwood Downs Mountain Valley Resort
Friday December 13
Saturday December 21
Subsonic’s Pirates Of The Underground VII ft. Philip Bader
Boat Departs Rose Bay Wharf
Tuesday December 31
Marrickville Bowling Club
Deep Impressions: electronica manifesto and occasional club brand. Contact through [email protected].
