From Bob Bannister Sent Tue, Jan 5th 1999, 22:51
From Bob Bannister Sent Tue, Jan 5th 1999, 22:51
I got to the head of the line in at the Knitting Factory just after the last ticket for Amon Tobin had been sold - decided to check out the Mutiny (New York Asian Underground) event downstairs which proved to be very fine indeed. It started with a brief warmup set by DJ Rekha - heavy on the d & b but all kinds of cool sampled bits (everything from grand piano to tabla drums) flying around - she's one of the ringleaders of this scene but hasn't released anything to my knowledge. The longest set that I stayed for was from DJ State of Bengal who uses a lot of Indian elements and long trancey sections - he takes his time getting to the real dance floor-stirring action but for overall pleasantly swaying, beer-drinking attentive listening, he fills the bill - he has stuff on the Singh "Anokha" comp, yes? Is he from the UK - is everyone that's on that compilation? I'm sure everyone here has said everything they have to say about that comp. ages ago, but if someone could resurrect a few sentences pro or con... DJ SoB had brought another UK friend whose name I didn't quite catch - sounded like something that almost comically underscored the fact that he was the only non-Indian - Mark Blond or something (sorry for the half-info) - his set included a lot of reggae, not usually my favorite thing but very skillfully deployed on this occasion. The atmosphere at the show was at least 50% cigarette smoke - I was thinking of all you Los Angelenos at the Lexaunculpt etc. gig toking on those oxygen tubes! So did anyone see Tobin and how was it? I wasn't entirely sorry to be missing openers DJ Logic and Melvin Gibbs which I feared would be overloaded with show-off thumb-popping bass (but wait, I like Squarepusher) - I'd be happy to be wrong though! Bob Bannister