Renew @ Grande Halle de la Villette - Paris 15/09/2012

Every year, the Techno Parade takes place in the streets of Paris. This huge event gives DJs the opportunity to make a float and play around Paris with a crowd of party animals following. As an after party, the Renew was organised in the Grande Halle of the VIllette district. For 25€, you could spend the night listening to some of the biggest names of Dubstep!
The first thing which struck me was the size of the place. It was massively huge (and I mean 9000 m² big). And I thought the resonance created would be a problem, but it was nearly inexistant thanks to the great soundsystem (the same as the one in Bercy). Now about the concerts:

DJ Gero: FIrst of the night, his set was composed of basic remixes of popular songs as well as not very original songs of his composition. There were a few mixing errors (track jumped, out of sync...) as well as bad transitions. This DJ from Maisons-Alfort (aParis suburb) needs to work a bit on his sets.

DJ Pone: I learned this same night that Pone was one of the members of Birdy Nam Nam, a marvellous four-DJ collective. His set was very good apart from a few mistakes which were a bit disturbing.

Mt Eden: Now that's what I'm talking about! This amazing DJ with his famous ultra-slow Dubstep has blown my mind. I just love his music and I was glad to see him live for his first time in France. During the show you are transported to another state of mind as you float in this relaxed electronic music.

Zeds Dead: I had heard about their greatness, but never heard more than one of their songs. And they delivered! Their music is amazingly strong and dance friendly. Their bass drops are simply huge.

Dirtyphonics: And of course the hardcore Parisian crew was there. I had already seen them 2 months before in Carpentras (cf. Kolorz Festival) and saw them as the craziest performers and live music I had ever seen. Don't worry, they haven't changed a bit. I took part in a mad mosh pit under their waves of complex Dubstep, and everyone was going insane. No errors, perfect sync, and incredible ability to play together (let me remind you they are a four playing together!).

In general it was an awesome night and I got home exhausted at 6AM, still euphoric.


 
Zed's Dead @ Renew

Currywürst #4 @ Batofar - Paris 14/09/12

After a nice birthday party on the Seine's quays, we went aimlessly to the Batofar, a Parisian nightclub on a barge. I was pleasantly surprised to see, a few minutes before, that it was a minimal night (and what more, with a German name, Currywürst being a culinary specialty). Full of hope I discovered an empty club at midnight (the night had already started 2 hours before). But nontheless the night turned out interesting

Axelle Roch and Fred De Clerc: We arrived at the beginning of their set together. These two frenchies had some very good songs to share, and in this relaxed atmosphere with only a dozen spectators it all felt very cosy and trippy. However, there was a big problem. I don't tend to spit on performances, but their transitions were horrible, out of sync... every single one of them. Now I don't know if its due to a lack of work, a lack of talent or maybe they had never met before (highly unlikely since they formed the Fox Parisian Crew together), but between these magnificent tracks, my heart would skip a beat (not in a "love" way") as they were looking awkwardly at each other.

Fortunately they were soon replaced with the king of the night

Sasch BBC: A real German, born in electronic music. His show was awesome and I really recommend you listen to his work (also his transitions were amazing). With this artist came a crowd and the night had finally begun. Great night, great music, great club (partying under water level is pleasantly unusual), all this for 10 miserable euros.

Inox Park 3 @ Iles des Impressionistes - Chatou 08/09/12

On this beautiful end of summer day, at 11AM, we travelled a few kilometres out of Paris to Chatou, where the third edition of Inox Park took place. Set on the Impressionists island in the middle of the Seine river, over twenty electronic artists performed on three themed stages. The first stage (yellow stage) was more commercial music (Laidback Luke, Armin Van Buuren...) and I avoided it successfully. The second (green stage) was more minimal music and I managed to see parts of the two performances by Popof and Dubfire, the second being excellent live (great old-school music).

But most importantly, I spent most of my time close to the blue stage, where the more trash artists were. Here's my appreciation of all these lives.

Alesia: A discovery for me, this Parisian band is very talented and lays some very impressive beats with great sound originality and exhilarating drops.

Borgore: I only knew a few songs from this artists, and wasn't surprised to discover a great set with crazy remixes. As one person pointed out with his cardboard sign during the show, it provoked a "Borgasm".

Zedd: I awaited this concert eagerly as I have been following his work for some time. Under Skrillex's label OWLSA (Owned With Large Stuffed Animals) this talented artist proved himself both a great composer and a great performer. His music was mad, and I went bonkers when he played "Shave It", as well s his version of Skrillex's "Breakin' a Sweat".

Steve Aoki: His popularity is already enormous, and he is widely considered as one of the craziest artists on stage. However I was soon bored by his music, which doesn't really strike me as very interesting. He has the merit of being a great crowd warmer.

"POOL BREAK!": Since Aoki wasn't amazing to our taste, we popped off to the "Pool Party", where you basically play and dance around in a knee-high pool while listening to a DJ. It was a great way of freshening up.

Cyberpunkers: Still drenched from the pool, I managed to catch a brief glimpse of Cyberpunkers. This electro duo with their famous paintball masks played "I Needed to Go" and "Fuck the System" as their last two songs and were simply amazing, although their live performance doesn't go much beyond playing their tracks without much alteration (opinion only based on two songs beware).

Flux Pavilion: And then came the God of the night, Flux Pavilion. This fantastic Dubstep producer and DJ has made himself known through great tracks ("Line in Wax" for instance) as well as an uncountable number of massive remixes. Unfortunately - and I was prepared for this - the line-up list said "DJ Set" next to it, meaning a simplistic set with the best songs not very mixed. But apart from this detail, the show was great.

Joachim Garraud: After his concert on the yellow stage, Joachim Garraud came to the blue stage to present the premiere of his 3-D show! During the day we were given 3-D masks (blue/red) in the shape of JG's galaxian logo. I was intrigued since it was the first 3-D concert in the world (or so they said), even though I don't appreciated his music. The concept was nice but deceiving (like most 3-D images to be fair). There were only cubic or circly forms moving around looking 3-D-ish, but nothing exciting. And expectedly the music was sh*te.

To end on a good note we saw Dubfire and were pleased again. Overall this thirteen hour festival was great, especially for its relatively low price (42€).

 Inox: 12AM

Song of the Week #8

As we finish this second month of blogging, I would like to mention a very popular and talented American artist: Chris Isaak.

Like Elvis Presley before him, Chris Isaak was a magnificent singer and Rock n Roll guitarist. Over the last three decades, he has covered many different Rock styles, going from his predilection genre Rockabily, to Hawaiian-tinged acoustic music. His singing style has the particularity of holding strength and subtleness at the same time. His lyrics follow a certain pattern in strength, based on the message he wishes to convey. Moreover, he has the amazing capability of fetching high pitched notes as well as very low one, thanks to his powerful octave range.

He also composes great guitar melodies, playing lively Rock riffs as well as appealing arpeggios.

If you have difficulty appreciating Rockabily like Elvis (it is my case), then you might prefer Chris Isaak, with his softer style.

Enjoy

Wicked Game - Chris Isaak

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This is the story of a human named Arthur Dent, a simple ape descendant who no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company.

He wakes up one morning to find bulldozers ready to knock down his house to make way for a bypass. His friend Ford Prefect – who is not a human, but an alien from the vicinity of Betelgeuse – saves him a few minutes later from the earth’s explosion, which was destroyed (ironically) to make way for a Hyperspace Expressway. And here they embark on an adventure across the galaxies, updating the most complete encyclopedia known to the universe: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This handy little book is used to explain the world around our two protagonists as they travel.

Douglas Adams described his story as a five-part trilogy, divided as such:

• The Primary Phase
• The Secondary Phase
• The Tertiary Phase
• The Quandary Phase
• The Quintessential Phase

However H2G2 (short for HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) isn’t a book originally. It was first broadcasted as an audiobook on BBC Radio with great voice actors and excellent sound effects, which really plunge the listener in this mad world. The radio show was then adapted into five books by Adams himself, and recently a movie was released with Martin Freeman playing Arthur Dent. I recommend you listen to the audiobook first, because it really embodies the original idea of Douglas Adams, with a very well recreated atmosphere thanks to sound effects and a different voice for each character. It also enables you to play with your imagination, making it even weirder and funnier when something improbable happens (which is often).

In fact, this is the aim of this story: to be improbable, random and extremely funny. Adams is very smart and makes you laugh every twenty seconds while maintaining a great overall story. There are an incredible number of quotes to get from this book such as: “Time is an illusion, Lunchtime doubly so” or “- What’s so unpleasant about being drunk? – You ask a glass of water”. The audiobooks and the books become addictive very quickly as they search out for answers about the universe, the meaning of life, and god’s last message.

What I find very surprising about this story, is that the narrator has an intergalactic basis of life, and it comes as little surprise when he say seas are pink. This gives a new dimension of Arthur moving in an unknown but real world. If you like science fiction and laughing continually you'll love every bit of it.

Song of the Week #7

Let's stay in the United Kingdom but change musical genres entirely.

It's pretty hard for me to enjoy a good Hip-Hop song, as most of my favorite have a  Dubstep beat behind. But Just Jack is different from the RnB infected Rap we hear nowadays, and it is good to know that some talented artists are still able to come back to the basics of Hip-Hop: meaningful lyrics, with good music. Most Hip-Hop nowadays is extremely hypocritical, as you hear an auto-tuned millionaire who raps about how hard it is in the ghetto, or even worse talking mysoginistis sh*t. Now I'm not trying to degrade Rap in its entirety, but you have to admit it was much better in the 90s. 

Jack Christopher Allsopp, born in Camden Town (my favorite place in London, very underground culture), has imposed himself with his great flow and distinctive British accent. Over the last decade, he has released three albums, revolving around many different subjects such as fame and dealing with it. In his second album named "Overtones", he goes through the life of a rising star, strating with the "Writer's Block" meaning the difficulty to write, going through the first audition in "Starz in Their Eyes", as well as the "Glory Days".

Here is my favorite song from this album.

Enjoy

Writer's Block - Just Jack

Sound of Noise by O. Simonsson and J.S. Nilsson

Sweden must really be a magnificent country. After living six months in Denmark I really regret never going to this neighbour country. However, I was able to experience the Scandinavian culture, with its lack of taboos, and its very important freedom of speech. For instance,  a man will not be controlled by the police if he expresses extremist political views such as Nazism. And while this creates some problems (you might remember the 85 victims massacre in Norway by a neo-Nazi), the resulting sense of freedom also encourages people to express their talent, however controversial. 

And it is this misunderstood talent which we find in the movie: Sound of Noise. This Swedish film is based around the theme of music and using unusual objects and techniques to compose a masterpiece: Music for one city and six drummers. 

Six anarchist drummers use their incredible rhytmic talent to play the four movements of this piece, using the city as their instrument. These four movements are:

• Doctor, Doctor, Gimme Gas (in my ass)
• Money 4 U, Honey
• Fuck the Music! Kill! Kill!
• Electric Love

The first movement is set in a hospital with a politician as a victim, using his body as percussion and all the medical machines as intruments. In the second they hold-up a bank and once again play their incredible music. The third is using construction trucks, and I'll let you discover the last movement which completes a wonderful movie. Meanwhile, these musical terrorists are pursued by Amadeus, a tone-deaf inspector who cannot stand music and tries to free himself from this torture.

This film really carries a powerful message of a society which needs to free himself from the clutches of routine and musical dogma. The music is excellent and the movie very funny in itself. I recommend you watch it in Swedish (with subtitles).

Here is an extract and the movie's first movement: Doctor, Doctor, Gimme Gas (in my ass).

Enjoy