From Eric Frans Sent Mon, Apr 6th 1998, 20:45
From Eric Frans Sent Mon, Apr 6th 1998, 20:45
Greg Earle wrote:
> Get inside at like 9:15 to find DJ Anna had gone on
> at 8 and was already finished!
She put on a good set. None of the turntable trickery of DJ Vadim, but nice
seamless beats for an hour. Admittedly, I don't own loads of trip hop, but I
did recognize Shadow's "Organ Donor" and a track off Coldcut's newest album.
She was about the music and not about showboating, which I respected.
> Over the course of the next 45 minutes a half-full (at that time) club heard
> Ms. Neotropic cover a vast musical landscape. None of which had ever been
> released! (Found out later she played material from her upcoming album,
> which due to the glacial-like pace of Ninja Tune won't be out 'til
September.)
>
> It was notably different from "15 Levels of Magnification" in most every way.
> There was Industrial Hip-Hop (probably the closest I'll ever get to hearing
> something that sounds like Techno-Animal live), there were vocals (both her
> own and the girl singer from Sky Cries Mary, whom she's remixed), there were
> ethereal moments, there were soundtrack-y moments, there were Industrial
> moments, there were soft piano moments, and there were phat beats moments.
> Lots of phat beats moments :-)
Her set definitely had a soundtrack feel to it. I'd describe it as FSOL vs.
Techno Animal vs. Eno. Very impressive stuff. I can't wait to pick up her
upcoming album! Defnitely a departure from her _15 Levels of Magnification_
(still a good album, just completely different).
> After Neotropic came a rather forgettable set from one of the Herbalizer
> crew. No attempt to mix and I just wasn't in the mood for it after Riz's
set.
Anyone know which member of Herbalizer was DJing? He looked like Frank Black
(back when he was a bit slimmer :). The 1st half of his set was nice, but then
he started getting too far into the funk/rare groove thing... err something.
He had this smirk on his face, like he was trying to see how far he could take
the crowd before they stopped dancing and thought "geez, this is horrible."
> Next up was T-Power and his chum doing their Chocolate Weasel thing. This
> started out as a Young Person's Guide to Electro ("Planet Rock", "Tour de
> France", "Clear") but then they veered away from that to what became a mix of
> somewhat cheezy stuff mixed with some tuff Drum n' Bass (Brock 'spotted some
> Grooverider, we heard other stuff that must have come from
> "Spaghettification"
> which I haven't heard but you could kinda tell from the context). I quite
> liked the stuff I heard that sounded like it was T-Power-generated, and of
> course how could you not love those old Electro chestnuts heard loud? (Boy,
> I think I'm gonna camp out for Kraftwerk tickets. I can taste it already.)
Yeah, the electro sounded very nice out loud. I must give props to Troubadour
for having their shit together with the sound. The bass was so crisp it made
my rib cage rattle and jugulars twitch (and that's a good thing). I was
slightly disappointed, though, because I was under the impression that
Chocolate Weasel would be playing live and not spinning -- oh well.
> Next up was DJ Vadim, who was later joined by someone else on the decks in a
> 2x4. While I like Hip-Hop and scratching in small dosages, I guess I'm more
> into it from the turntablist perspective, i.e. to me the music is less
> relevant than the display of turntable talents (cf. Kid Koala, Q-Bert et al.)
> and since Vadim is none of the aforementioned, after some pleasant
> head-nodding for a bit we went outside ...
So who was this other person who joined DJ Vadim? I can't compare their skills
to Koala, Short Cut, Q-Bert, etc. since I've never experienced them, but Vadim
and pal knew how to scratch better than any DJ I've witnessed. Plus their
selections were good and it was a bonus to her Marley Marl's "The Symphony"
booming!
> But get there *early* or else you'll miss out on one of the best-kept secrets
> in IDM - Neotropic. Ignore her at your peril.
I'll second that.
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