House Is A Feeling

You can expect much more on Bucharest (where I was for the last few days) when I return from Berlin on Monday, and at some point soon of course a Resident Advisor piece about Romania featuring Rhadoo, Raresh, and Pedro (Petre Inspirescu).

For now though check out some photos (above, with more here) of what was an amazing weekend and a good shot in the arm for me and this whole techno writing/DJing business.

I DJed several times over the few days, at a little bar (with a big heart) called Loggia (on Saturday and Sunday), as well as for 2 and a half hours at the mindbogglingly high tech Cubecast internet radio station (live video broadcast which unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to blog to you about, but it is archived I think, more on that soon too).

I also played a few records in the depths of Monday morning at a small party in an apartment. It’s quite rare to play so many times in such quick succession so I decided it’d be worth doing a little chart of the tunes I found myself playing over and over.

1. Federico Molinari-”Takk Brett” and “Enerverende” (Oslo)-Oslo once again comes with the bumpy minimal house that makes me wonder if there isn’t a big streak of Derrick Carter running through the scene lately. Played this at every gig, and still love it. Two razor sharp tracks with perfect grooves.
2. Radioslave-Bell Clap Dance (Rekids)-If you’ve heard it I need say no more, the Sebo K remix is cool too.
3. Johnny D-Walkman (8-Bit)-Serious Tuning Spork sound from this one, another cool 12 from Johnny D.
4. Marvin Dash-Rush Hour (Morris Audio)-This one is really blowing my mind and seems to inject a really fresh feeling into whatever place you play it in. It’s got a deep reverberating groove that’s similar to John Daly’s “Do It”. The rest of the release is pretty great also.
5. Christian Burkhardt-Dragee (Raum…Musik)-One of those seemingly anonymous records that leaps out of the bag (or folder I guess!) every time you play. Aren’t these the best sometimes?
6. Sascha Dive-Deep In Rhythm (Deepvibes)-This is still hot as hell. Also heard Rhadoo or Pedro play this at around 8am on Sunday in the aptly named “Session Club”.
7. Losoul-Open Door (Playhouse)-I discovered this on a Beatport chart (I think Troy Pierce’s) recently. So sue me. I was 13 when this record was released in 1996. It still sounds amazing.
8. Petre Inspirescu-Emancipare (Ar:pi:ar)-This one is good to mix, even if playing it led to me trying to explain the phrase “selling sand to the Egyptians” to a Romanian person. “In Egypt, there’s lots of sand? So to sell them sand would be stupid. In English we have made a phrase to describe this fact”.
9. David K-Three Arches (Samim Mix) (Tsuba)-Okay I should quit discussing this at this stage but I still am playing the hell out of it.
10. Luke Solomon-Space Invaders (Andomat 3000 Mix) (Rekids)-This really grabs peoples attention in the first 3 or 4 minutes, then in my experience it kind of wanes in the closing 3 or 4. But that’s what mixing is for, I really like this track and played it several times. I also quite like Luke Solomon’s “The Darkest Secret” on the flipside which is certainly different and interesting, and I say that as someone who hasn’t been into anything he’s done for quite a while. An album is forthcoming on Rekids so it may be worth checking out.

So until I get back I hope this is enough to keep you going. This blog post was written in quite a hurry so it doesn’t contain quite as many links as it could unfortunately.

Check out some of those tracks and don’t worry, once normal service resumes next week I’ll have a ton of stuff to post about, as well as the second guest podcast, this time from a Londoner who’s in love with detail. Now to get some sleep.