One Step Beyond + Cassette + Hyperdub 5 = International Bass Adventures

Somehow in the space of ten days I went to 6 different ‘live’ shows, an unusual occurence these days and not because I don’t go out but more because, as someone put it to me when I returned to London, ‘It’s easy to overdose and get turned off when there’s so much musical choice around you’. It all started with Ghostface Killa in New York at B.B. King’s and ended with the Hyperdub birthday party at Corsica Studios in Elephant & Castle, London. Two continents, and two worlds, away.

I’ve commented on the Ghostface thing already so I won’t go back. Suffice to say I also went to see the Roc Raida tribute at SOB’s in NYC last tuesday which featured such legendary names as Large Pro, Brand Nubian, DITC, Beatnuts and Immortal Technique, all throwing down live to raise money for Raida’s family following his recent, tragic passing.

And well despite this impressive line up, and the occasion, I’m still unconvinced about live hip hop in 2009. As Sasha Frere Jones put it when I saw him a few days later, hip hop is first and foremost a recorded medium and that really transpires in the oh so average live shows that many rappers get away with these days, and have been for a while. Times they are a-changing though, and hopefully these artists will wake up soon enough and realise that today’s world demands more than half-arsed rhymes and pretending your DJ is doing more than pressing play on a CD player.

Moving on, the rest of the live shows were all based around club nights. And this is where it got really interesting.

First up was One Step Beyond, a party organised at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC – quite possibly the most amazing setting for a party I’ve ever been to. On the night were Matt Shadetek, Jahdan Blackamoore and DJ/Rupture playing on a system installed on the ground floor of the museum’s new space wing right underneath the planetarium.

In between the front door and the dancefloor you walked past giant dinosaur bones, down a ramp detailing the history of the formation of the universe and onto a floor filled with people, loud music and plenty more universe facts. It was amazing.

About half way through the gig, as Jahdan was in full swing doing a P.A, I popped up to the planetarium above which was showing a movie, every 30 minutes, of the history of our planet narrated by Robert Redford. Surreal barely begins to describe it.

For me, musically the night itself wasn’t all that. Matt and Rupture obviously played to the crowd, with a lot of the more rigid, 4×4 tropical/funky stuff that’s really popular at the moment (though it did sound different to the London stuff I’ve heard, so not sure I could be wrong there) [aside: I just found this mix by Matt on his blog that is apparently a reflection of what he's been playing out, so don't take my words for it just listen]. They also played some remixes from their recent excellent ‘Solar Life Raft’ mix CD. Jahdan’s P.A was the highlight for me as well as seeing Joy Orbison’s ‘Hyph Mngo’ dropped to a packed floor of sweaty dancers after midnight – a surreal yet totally fitting setting for the track and its euphoric drop.

As far as settings go, this is hands down the best party/club night (if you can call it that) I’ve been to in a long time. To see spaces like museums recontextualised and used for things like this is great, especially when done properly. And that last part is the most important and easiest to mess up. In the case of One Step Beyond the system was loud, the whole thing was pretty well organised and the result was a great night out dancing away in a space most of us will probably not get the chance to dance in for a while. A truly out of this world experience.

Kper – Cassette Heads by laurentfintoni

Next up was Cassette, a regular club night put together by Machine Drum, Konkrete Jungle and Percussion Lab. I was hanging out with Praveen from Percussion Lab while in town and had planned to attend this as it was my last night in town and featured the kind of line up I was unlikely to see on my side of the ocean anytime soon: Machine Drum, FaltyDL, Poirier and Lando Kal (from Lazersword).

As luck would have it, the guys very kindly invited me to do a little opening set for the night – I jumped at the chance and put together a little set of new and recent music from people I know and who I thought the locals may not have heard too much of. You can hear a cleaned up version of the set in the player above.

With my set dusted I proceeded to get rather drunk and dance the night away. FaltyDL, Machine Drum alongside Lando Kal and Poirier all threw down some impressive sets, despite the small crowd (then again it was past midnight on a thursday, which in London is hard to pull people for unless you’re a big name). From Falty’s rave selection we moved to live beats from Machine Drum and Lando, alternating between dancefloor friendly hip hop, house vibes and more, before Poirier jumped on with an hour covering pretty much the entire spectrum of what’s been exciting in music this year, beats to bass to funky to tropical riddims to bootlegs of his own tracks.

By 3AM I was officially drunk and the last one left dancing to Poirier’s selection, alongside Machine Drum and Praveen. Standard dancefloor crew.

My ten day live music binge ended with the Hyperdub birthday party in London last saturday, celebrating five years of a label that continues to do the unexpected and deliver where so many others fail.

I’d actually re-arranged my flight to come back a day earlier than originally planned so I could make it to the party, with a fair bit of jetlag to add to the fun. Having been fortunate enough to know label head Kode 9 aka Steve Goodman since my university days, I’ve seen the label been born and grow and therefore I’ve always felt closely connected to Hyperdub (further helped by sharing a musical affinity with the label’s output). I was there when the label was launched in Plastic People on a grey afternoon five years ago, and it felt right to be there five years later inside a packed, grimey club in south London.

Unsurprisingly the night was rather busy, with pre-sales all gone a few days before and plenty of additional people on the night – by the time the main live sets had finished, navigating the club was proving a challenge, and not just because of the alcohol and/or jetlag.

Without a doubt the highlight of the night for me was the quadruple combo of live shows that started just before midnight: Quarta330, live from Tokyo and rocking his live set on two gameboys, King Midas Sound, doing their second ever live show complete with a giant desk manned by Kevin Bug, Kode 9 and Spaceape, doing an ‘interesting’ live set as a certain Scottish producer told me before the show, and finally Samiyam, live from L.A rocking beats and more from his SP-303. The kind of line up that not only sums up Hyperdub’s diversity as a label but also their impeccable A&R and thirst for new sounds, for pushing boundaries and keeping people on their toes. As I discussed with Marcus (who co-runs the label with Kode 9) later on, a remarkable side-effect of such a line up (and output as a label) is that some people no doubt came to the party because of the label’s historical association with dubstep as a genre and were treated to a wide ranging reflection of the many colours, variations and off-shoots/tangents that make up dance music in the 21st century. For a label to have the freedom and confidence to do this not just with the releases but live as well is a beautiful thing, which I can only hope we start to see more of.

I won’t go into too much detail but suffice to say that all the live shows were equally impressive. After seeing Quarta do his live show for the first time 2 years ago when I played with him in Tokyo (a recording from the night is available here, still full of unreleased 8-bit madness), it was a pleasure to see him rock a crowd of 200/300 sweaty ravers armed with only his two gameboys and a bunch of pedals. The way he managed to squeeze bass out of his toys was not just impressive but left quite a few crowd members shocked by the looks I was seeing on people’s faces. Even more surprising was to hear him tell me later on in the night that his own parties in Tokyo still only attract 100 or less people everytime. When I saw him play BTC 2 years ago, there must have been about 20 people in the room. It’s ironic that it’s his isolation from the west that resulted in the uniqueness of his music and live show and yet it’s the west that has the most interest in what he’s doing today.

King Midas Sound were equally impressive, picking up where the 8-bit wonder left off. Kevin Bug manned a giant desk for 45 minutes, squeezing out new versions of various tracks from their debut album while Roger Robinson and Hitomi sang and played instruments to accompany the sonic adventure masterminded by Kevin. The way they have transposed the album to the stage is masterful, taking its best elements and marrying them with stage-worthy variations that kept the crowd constantly engaged. Not only do they have one of the albums of the year but also one of the live shows by a long mile. Check their recent, and equally excellent, mix for FACT magazine.

Kode 9 & Spaceape picked up the baton and continued the night’s world-record-setting run. It was the second time I saw them live this year, and while the first one (at Brainfeeder in June) was mired by technical fuck ups, this time round there were no such problems and in turn the two of them delivered an outstanding live show, hopping between styles, jumping in and out of riddims and showing that their live show has a lot of mass appeal despite what they themselves might think. Samiyam wrapped things up in the live room after Kode and Spaceape, opening with a disjointed remix of Souljah Boy’s ‘Superman that Hoe’, which I’ve heard him drop once before at Plastic People earlier this year and is the set opener of the year for me.

As the L.A. beatsmith changed the energy levels I moved over to the second room just in time to catch Mala from Digital Mystikz go deep with a set full of classic tracks that had the likes of Martin Clark smiling from ear to ear and the room packed and sweating like I haven’t seen in a long time. Flashbacks to early FWD>> and DMZ sessions occured as I made my way into the room for a little dance. Shortly after I decided to call it a night.

As I waited for the bus home I couldn’t quite help but feel that it’d been a very surreal ten days – to have gone from the lows of the Ghostface Killa show to the highs of the Hyperdub birthday had provided interesting insights into the current state of things musically. There’s a lot to be said, and justly a lot has been said recently, for the power of live music to make you re-think and evaluate your own opinions about music. It’s all good and well sitting at home listening and talking/writing about music, but there’s nothing quite like being in the middle of a dancefloor, regardless of what’s pumping through the speakers. It puts all the headphones listening into a bright, new perspective.

Thanks and shouts go to Praveen, Travis, Ghislain, Drew, Steve, Marcus, Kevin, Kiki, Tony, Guillaume and Martin for a series of memorable nights and musical highs (and lows).