The Hump Day Project

It’s midnight in a dark, smoke-filled nightclub in the heart of Kings Cross. The prospect of a day off work for the ANZAC Day long-weekend has proved irresistible for most and the place is packed. The dancefloor is a living creature of flushed faces and half-spilt drinks as the crowd flail about in time to the funky Electro tunes filling the room.

Suddenly, the creature slows to a halt. The music has changed. Gone is the pounding beat that was keeping all those feet moving. In it’s place is a soaring African vocal; something very familiar, but more than a little out of place. It takes everyone a moment, but they soon recognise what they are hearing as Circle of Life – the unmistakable opening song from The Lion King. The confusion falls away and is replaced by nostalgic smiles. Many try, and fail, to sing along with the Zulu lyrics. A thudding bass drum enters the track, which turns out to be a banging remix of a Disney classic. The feet start moving again with renewed energy.

Unexpected? Just a little.

But unexpected is what Sydney DJ duo The Hump Day Project – a.k.a. Steve Lind and Heath Jansson – strive for in their live sets. And the results speak for themselves. “I like stuff that’s really weird,” says Steve, “that takes you off guard”.

Stomp the Drugs

Check out this set from Stomp the Drugs (aka myself and George Nasser).

Tell your friends.

Breakbot @ Arthouse

What a shame. A potentially awesome gig, featuring Ed Rec’s newest recruit, ruined by technical fuck-ups and a venue that can’t be considered suitable for music.

I’m definitely not a regular at Arthouse, but this wasn’t the first time that the self-proclaimed ‘super club’ has let me down in terms of its sound quality. The main room feels more like a primary school hall than a dance floor. The music relentlessly echoes and reverberates around you, the final result being an almost overpowering urge to leave.

Yet, you linger. The prospect of seeing a musician of the calibre of Breakbot is enough to keep you waiting around in this god-forsaken place until 2am.

But bad goes to worse when, around 1.30am, the sound in the main room takes a nose-dive in volume. At first it feels like a weight lifted off your shoulders because the echoing mostly goes away. Then you realise that you can comfortably talk to the person next to you without even really raising your voice – never a good sign in a nightclub.

None of the Arthouse sound-techs seemed to think this lack of volume was a problem so when Breakbot
took to the stage he was already fighting a losing battle.

In the face of adversity the French ace presented us with some awesomely funky tunes that certainly got people bobbing their heads and moving about. His remix of Extraball by his fellow countryman Yuksek was a highlight.

Before long though, things went from worse to disastrous when the music clattered to a distorted halt. Now the sound-techs decided it was time to take action, but not before the headline act stormed off stage in a huff.

There was a move amongst some of the crowd towards the backroom, which seemed the obvious solution to the problem. But it didn’t take long for word to get around that Breakbot had left the building for good, and within 20 minutes three quarters of the frustrated punters had exited.

They should have stuck around however, because they finally got everything working again and the moody Frenchman was coaxed back on stage to play, albeit to a dismally empty room.

His set continued and skilfully worked it’s way to a final flurry of dirty electro and big beats, but there was a real half-hearted atmosphere about the place.

Despite the shambles, props to Breakbot for being totally rad and chilling out in the smoking area before and after his set, chatting to whoever came up to him. That’s not something you see from every international DJ.

We can only hope to see him in a working venue next time he comes out. Leave Arthouse for Kink fans.

Delphic @ Oxford Art Factory

I was lucky enough to catch Delphic a couple of Sundays ago. It was a pretty impressive gig. Check out my full review on inthemix.

Florian Meindl

I've been dabbling in a bit of minimal/tech/house sort of stuff lately, and in my search for tracks with a funky, chilled-out feel, Florian Meindl is one guy that has stood out.

Hailing from Austria, this DJ, producer and sound designer has studied at the London College of Music. His productions have a depth of detail and intricacy which characterises, for me, quality tech house.

His track 'Flashmob' - posted in Erol Alkan's Beatport chart in November last year - has the sort of bassline I could listen to all day.

I've been so overwhelmed by the amount of throwaway electro there is these days that stumbling upon this guy was like a godsend. There's definitely not enough of this sort of stuff going around Sydney clubs at the moment.


Florian Meindl - Flashmob (original mix)


Florian Meindl - Worms

Congratulations?

Psych-pop-rock luminaries MGMT have finally released Congratulations, the follow-up album to their massive 2007 success Oracular Spectacular, available as a free steam here.

The first thing that stands out for me about this album is...

Well, to be honest, I don't think anything stands out. Certainly not in the way that most of the songs on Oracular Spectacular did. Gone are the catchy synth lines and vocals melodies that we saw from radio hits 'Time to Pretend' and 'Kids'. Gone is the energy that made the more psych-rock tracks like 'Weekend Wars' and 'Pieces of What' immediately ear-grabbing. Instead, the album meanders at a steady pace with a succession of decent, but unspectacular, 60's sounding psych-rock numbers.

I guess it could be argued that Congratulations does flow better as an album than it's predecessor, which is something the Brooklyn duo set out to achieve. But, if their aim was to get people to "hear the whole album as an album", then I think they've failed miserably. I've tried to listen to it for a sustained period and I can't do it. It's just too boring.

Where Congratulations does succeed is being an album true to MGMT's current mindset. Not many bands go from obscurity to super-stardom the way they did, and they've mentioned in many interviews how uncomfortable they were with their new-found fame. They should be applauded for being brave enough to make such a huge change in their music, but that doesn't change the fact that the bulk of their audience is going to dismiss this album as a flop.

GTRONIC at Oxford Art Factory

On Saturday night the kids at Trashbags treated us with the return of Belgium's electro maestro GTRONIC.

There's no denying that this guy's music is perfectly suited for Sydney's underground electro scene at the moment, and he certainly whipped the crowd into a frenzy early on with some huge tracks.

Obviously enjoying himself, he sent the crowd even wilder by leaving the decks and crowd surfing on an inflatable boat.



As I said, it was a bit of a frenzy.

Inevitably though, the energy in the room died down. A two hour set was definitely too long and by the time he dropped his much hyped remix of Warp 1.9 the crowd could barely summon a cheer.

Here are some standout tracks from the set:


The Bloody Beetroots Ft. Steve Aoki - Warp 1.9 (GTRONIC BadAss Remix)

Jennifer Delano - Amsterdam (Riptide Remix)

Beni - Maximus (Harvard Bass Remix)

From Monuments to Masses - Beyond God & Elvis (Felix Cartal Remix)

Enjoy.