…play on! The importance of sustenance at home, rations on the road and the dreaded promoters dinner. Culinary memories of Kraft macaroni and slaughtering your own meal with Ivan Smagghe, Simian Mobile Disco, Deepgroove, Shaun Reeves, Bones and Heidi.
Featuring performances from 2020Soundsystem live at We Love – Ministry of Sound London, Ivan Smagghe in the Discoteca for We Love Space and DJ Hell in London also.
We heard Ministry of Sound have installed a spankin’ new, sicker-than-thou custom sound system and we’ve got to pop over from the white isle to check it out. Aural proceedings from DJ Hell, 2020:Soundsystem, Ralph Lawson, Paul Woolford, Todd Terje and Tim Sweeney. It’s gonna be a long, blossoming weekend… More info, here.
Monster mash
Expect everything from screaming high-energy bangers to sleazy downtempo morning music, classic New York into Italo and deep, repetitive proto-techno-disco. Things should be as balearic as they come, a speakeasy feel with a tight-knit but large turnout and no grumpy collector types stroking their beards and demanding original French pressings. As Dan describes the party in London, “all of London’s tribes are there; There’s the fashion crowd, music heads, people that mainly go to gay clubs, or indie clubs or minimal clubs, there’s no one tribe that dominates our dance floor. I think a lot of people are fed up of what “club music” has turned into … the music policy does it’s own job of filtering out that dickhead element.”
As the flyer says, Disco Bloodbath will be taking over our neat little back room El Salon on the 20th of June alongside the likes of Hercules & Love Affair and the 11th of July, also appearing on that day are Hot Chip and The Juan MacClean. The Bloodbath lads have kindly provided us with a mix described by a wise man thus, “Gay vampire disco for the blood sucking hordes!” … download it here.
Work-ford Playford
Dance music is a fickle industry. It’s true to say that many artists operating within its sphere are people who create records on a whim, and through a combination of luck and timing, experience a typical ascent: a string of ill-prepared DJ gigs, an overnight change into the emperor’s new headphones, substance abuse swiftly becoming a habit… It is these self promoting types who tend to break through, sometimes detracting from artists right underneath our noses – the artists that have respect, understanding and a genuine love of their craft. Mat Playford is one such artist. His passion for music began when, at the age of 5, he took it upon himself to be the tape operator at his mother’s aerobics class. Throughout his teenage years and to the present day, Mat has spent many hundreds of hours and equivalent pounds tracking down keyboards and synthesizers of all ilks and vintages, it’s clear that Giorgio Moroder and Jean Michel Jarre are big influences.
After building, creating and curating (considering its contents) a small studio in his mid-teens, Mat followed his inspiration and enrolled at Leeds College of Music for 5 years of study. By the 4th year he was being asked to lecture at the college. Around this time Mat met two US house producers who would further shape his future. In 1996 he went to Brooklyn NY with Sandy Rivera and Angel Moraes to hang out, soak up their advice and skills and generally have his mind blown by what was now possible. Experiences like this breed life-changing moments, these times fueled Mat’s mind and drive to keep pushing forward. ‘96 was a pivotal year for dance music, the likes of Photek and Source Direct (incidentally also from Mat’s hometown of St Albans) were transcending their local surroundings and breaking through in the world of drum n’ bass.
A collaboration with acid-house exponent Paul Woolford brought about a deal with Arista. Sidelines in A&R appeared when Mat scouted and signed M1 – Electronic Funk, picking up more experience, this time with mechanics of the majors. The original track by Paul and Mat sat languishing in “development-hell” to use Hollywood parlance; Arista signed it and sat on it. Around this time Mat also ploughed a huge amount of energy into the Play Music record shop in Leeds which was nominated in it’s first year as Best Independent Record Store in Musik Magazine awards. The scope of his musical trajectory and volume of experience has secured Mat Playford four exclusive days on the Space Terrace this summer 2010 with We Love… on 13th June, 11th July, 8th August and 5th September…
Kosack synths - Photo credit, Emma J Woolhouse Studios
Is there one book that you have read that has been life-changing for you?
All You Need To Know About The Music Business by Donald S Passman and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.
Did your parents encourage you to work in music?
My parents have encouraged me in anything I’ve wanted to do. My mum’s fit and my dad is very witty…
How did you begin to work professionally in music?
I started promoting parties and DJing when I was 14.
How do you apply your past experiences to what you do today?
I definitely write music from experiences I have or something that sets me off, but there’s no set way or blueprint.
Where is your current studio and what is it like?
I’d say I have one of the strangest set ups there is… or so people tell me. I have six 40ft Portacabins all joined together in London Docklands, it runs off a generator on red-diesel – so although I don’t travel as much as James Zabiela, my carbon footprint is about 20 times the size, which isn’t that good I suppose. It’s funny to think I turn red-diesel into house music though. My speakers are in front of a 10 foot window so I have battle ships and all sorts go past me on the river. I make as much noise as possible at all times. If you think Blade Runner, dystopian future, the steel works scene from Robocop, you’re in the right zone. As for equipment, I have about 20 analogue synthesizers and I use Protools and no MIDI.
How much have you had to consider marketing issues since embarking on your career and how has that affected your creativity?
Interesting question… I would have said it would be a bad thing for myself 5 years ago. But in the last few days alone I’ve done some really creative things to help market my music involving shooting and editing videos which I’ve found to be nothing but fun, which pushes your creative self forward I think.
How would you describe your work?
Spacey house.
Who were your teachers?
Sandy Rivera, Angel Moraes, Phil Greenwood, Donald S Passman and Leeds College of Music.
Your home is burgled but fortunately the culprits are caught and your possessions returned to you. What would you deem a suitable punishment for the burglars?
I’m happy to say my place is impossible for burglars to break in to, professional jewel thieves maybe… I’m set in 2 acres of land surrounded by an 11ft high fence with CCTV and motion detectors, then I’m on the second floor with no less than 6 doors to go through before entering my studio (in which is my home). However, if what you are looking for is a violently creative answer how’s this: Wire them up to my oldest analogue keyboard (Korg MS 10) and run 240 volts through them and tweak the cut off and pitch so the electrical frequencies displace the volts all over them, record it into Protools and send a copy to his family… Or, put his hands in toasters and set it on 5. Here’s a picture…
You were such a nice boy when you operated that tape-deck at your mum's aerobics class Mat.
You have to make one species of animal extinct. Excluding insects, which species would that be?
Humans. (sorry)
If you could spend one week in any period of history, which period would you choose?
I don’t like the sound of this question because I’m sure anything I thought of would be an anti-climax. I we could choose something from the future it would be more fun. You could just make things up instead of worrying about what they did at Studio 54 or what Churchill had for breakfast.
Many thanks to Mat for kindly taking the time to answer our questions (and many, many thanks to Paul Woolford for the copy), if you go to Mat’s profile and scroll down the bottom of the page, you can find his latest mix produced this very day! Especially for us, it starts off as a cosmic slow house jam before moving thing up a notch with some future classics from his very own studio. Also check out this self-produced video he has made as a short promo for an upcoming album…
Although in the past we have featured only online radio broadcasting, this time we look at a station still doing it on the airwaves in London. Resonance104.4fm makes public those artworks that have no place in traditional broadcasting. A radio station like no other, that is an archive of the new, the undiscovered, the forgotten, the impossible. It is an invisible gallery, a virtual arts centre whose location is at once local, global and timeless. And that is itself a work of art. Imagine a radio station that responds rapidly to new initiatives, has time to draw breath and reflect. A laboratory for experimentation, that by virtue of its uniqueness brings into being a new audience of listeners and creators. All this and more, Resonance104.4fm aims to make London’s airwaves available to the widest possible range of practitioners of contemporary art.
The service includes “radio artworks” made especially for and exploring the medium of radio. The music based output places an emphasis on alternative and experimental music with a bias towards the avant-garde (how many broadcasters are willing to devote programming to found sounds and field recordings?). The speech based output includes discussion, alternative news, documentary and literary spoken word. Subjects covered include anything from cultural theory to pensioners’ rights and mental health to visual arts. The station provides a service for practising artists and engaged consumers whose interests fall outside the mainstream media or for those whose access to media is restricted or limited due to cultural bias or lack of formal training. The multicultural service transcends age barriers, it’s youngest regular broadcasters are 16, it’s oldest 77, from communities as diverse as Brazilian, Serbian and Congolese who are encouraged to initiate and realise their own programming.
You can hear nonsense sound poetry recorded halfway up a mountain on the Isle of Jura, a preacher in Glasgow or a Babylonian Jewish Choir, a huge variety of unique spoken word radio basically. That’s not to mention great specific music shows such as Is Black Music, featuring maverick black musicians who are involed in non-commerial, alternative outside of the industry mainstream. The program broadcasts Black folk, country, avant-garde, classical and rock music. It encourages the promotion of unusual black music such as Urb Alt and Afro Punk, and is a good way to challenge industry, artist and consumer stereotypes.
Resonance104.4fm started broadcasting on May 1st 2002, established by London Musicians’ Collective. Its brief? To provide a radical alternative to the universal formulae of mainstream broadcasting. Resonance 104.4 fm features programmes made by musicians, artists and critics who represent the diversity of London’s arts scenes, with regular weekly contributions from nearly two hundred musicians, artists, thinkers, critics, activists and instigators. You can also listen online or download one of their various podcasts for maximum aural pleasure.
Get in
It is easy to dislike a place that only lets in the rich, but before we get too self-satisfied let’s remember that nightclubs have never been the most democratic of institutions. The domains of cliques and gangs, they tread a fine line between the two meanings of the verb ‘to discriminate’. Trying to keep out those who aren’t regulars, don’t wear the right clothes, don’t get the music or take the right drugs even if done with the best of intentions – creating an exciting other space for freaks and their friends – still tips easily into exclusivity. Even the biggest, most seemingly democratic places contain velvet ropes, backrooms, inner-sanctums, huts and caravans for workers, owners, friends and random people who think that to be there means to be somehow special. Élitism, even if it’s only against those who don’t possess the right subcultural capital, is still an -ism (if not one of the really nasty kinds). – Ewan Pearson
The subject off door policy within nightclubs has reared it’s high-and-mighty head lately. From the basement sweatboxes and grungy warehouses to pulsing castles with palatial interiors, almost every club will have a policy of some sorts. Decisions on which clientele to admit or reject rest largely with the door staff, although the code and system (if any) is generally devised by the management. It can be a hard thing to define – and easier to do so on who not to allow. For example, if The Social in Paris really is for “clueless, aggressive, Sarkozy loving, rayban wearing, coked up posh kids”, it would be hard for a club to define this custom with a notice on the door.
It is a self fulfilling prophecy that if a club is harder to get into, it becomes more desirable to try to do so. Take the infamously ironclad Berghain in Berlin for example. It is ridiculously hard for some people to get into, but is widely regarded as the best nightclub in the world. It might just be so that a policy on the door is not an absurd and clueless arbitrary decision made by steroid fueled meat-heads, but is in fact a necessary attitude in order to maintain the meaning of the “club”.
Open sesame
Some people revel in the unchallenging democracy of an open door policy, such as at Fabric in London. Where the door staff are unlikely to turn anyone away unless clearly inebriated and ask only that business men remove their ties. It’s understandable to have no interest in a venue with which the first interaction you have is to be judged by your style and manner. However, a door policy is what defines a club, creating it’s atmosphere along with the music and location. In essence, the policy establishes the crowd. Surely part of the reason you go to a nightclub is for the people who you will share the night and dancefloor with? Clubs which could easily fill the capacity twice over on any given night don’t because they care about maintaining a special atmosphere and a crowd that cares about the music being played.
With your market analyst head on, you can see that a strict door leads to a loyal clientele and a hand-picked demographic. Where there is a healthy scene clubs can afford to be fastidious. Ibiza is unique in its door style, having a historical reputation of wide admittance (and with the main clubs only open for four months per year) they generally welcome all and sundry. Venues that stretch into the thousands in capacity perhaps help to dilute the undesirables.
In any case, our top tips for getting in would be: Be yourself and treat your surroundings with respect. If you are in Perth, Australia: No Ed Hardy, or dyed rat tails.
