Jaunt (jônt, jänt) n. A short trip or excursion, usually for pleasure; an outing
Plain and Simple’s roving reporter/man about town and clubbing addict Jammy brings you his eye view of the event he was partying at in the last week… We welcome him back and this time he spent his jaunts at Boiler Room presents Downwards and M_nus at Fabric.
Hello and welcome to Jammy’s Jaunts! Your weekly clubbing review of London! This jaunt covered the very special Downwards Boiler Room Special with DVA Damas, Samuel Kerridge, The KVB and Tropic of Cancer and also Richie Hawtin’s return to Fabric 5 years later with the M_nus takeover. So to start off on the Thursday was the usual trip now to Boiler Room in East London with the special Downwards showcase. This was an interesting jaunt for this special night as I had never seen any of them play before and their sound was certainly very distinctive and different to what I usually listen to.
The first act up was DVA Damas (Taylor Burch and Joe Cocherell). They are a live 2 piece band with Taylor singing and Joe on the instrumentals. They are off Regis’s label fusing 1980’s dark post punk with subtle elements of rock and this is just what they performed there. This Boiler Room was very different as it was more of a live show, than a pumping dancey event. Lots of people were watching and taking it in and it was very interesting to see. The amount of equipment that was around them was incredible and so much thought and effort was put into their performance. A break from the techno norm, but certainly enjoyable.
Next up was Samuel Kerridge. Again this was the first time I have seen him play and he was the act that was more dance orientated then the rest. His own style of experimental/techno worked really well. As well as Downwards, he has also released on Horizontal Ground and also co-founded the contort events in Berlin. His sound was very much a heavy bassline set of distortions that powered techno through the speakers. I was quite surprised. In a good way! It was crushing blow after crushing blow and the kick drums and feedback were immense. Incredibly powerful stuff. I was really glad that I managed to catch him play as I missed him back in August when he played for the Blueprint night featuring Underground Resistance. So definitely another one to catch play and am grateful that I managed to hear him play for a short amount of time.
After Samuel was The KVB. The duo of Nicholas Wood and Kat Day played live and it was very interesting to hear them play with Nicholas on the guitar and Kat on the Akai Miniak and Moog expressing their sound. It was again, music to watch and take in and not meant for the dancefloor which is sometimes good and in this instance it made sense for this sound to continue through, for the rest of the night. They played well for what it was and indeed, very talented musicians. Last up was Tropic of Cancer all the way from LA, this double act were again on instruments and were made up of the girl from DVA Damas (Taylor Burch) and Camella Lobo. They sang and played their haunting melodies and as before, it was very interesting to watch them play and take it all in. They had a very distinctive dark punk/rock style with flair and pomp from the 80’s and it showed in their music and indeed their fashion sense that they had brought to Boiler Room. A real talent from the Downwards label and a very special Boiler Room.
Next up on Saturday was the very special M_nus night at Fabric and Richie Hawtin’s return after 5 years. All 3 rooms had M_nus acts. Terry Francis warmed up room 1 from 22:30 – 00:00, Barem 00:00 – 03:00, Gaiser 03:00, 04:00, Richie Hawtin 04:00 – close. Room 2: 23:00 – 02:00, Matador 02:00 – 03:00, Paco Osuna 03:00 – 07:00. Room 3: Terry Francis 00:00 – 03:00, Heartthrob 03:00 – 06:00. So I arrived there are 2 am and quickly popped into see a bit of Barem who was really playing some great stuff. Really driving groove belted out of that incredible room 1 soundystem. I split my time in room 2 also where Matador was playing and from front to back the room was absolutely rammed. Haven’t seen that room, that packed in a long time. The energy and sound was absolutely buzzing and Matador really turned on his party pieces for the adoring M_nus crowd. It was so tightly packed while Matador was playing; I had to leave to get some air and to check out how Gaiser was doing. He performed his live show as usual and by the time Barem had finished, again room 1 was solidly packed and as you can imagine for such a huge night for Fabric, space was hard to come by!
Gaiser’s hour flew by and I was between 2 rooms as Paco Osuna came on and the bits that I did see of Paco, he really nailed it. He played so much harder than what I have heard him play recently which was surprisingly good and the people that were there, were certainly having a great time! It wasn’t as packed in room 2 as it was whilst Gaiser was playing in room 1 which was good, and was actually really good to hear some of the tracks that Paco was dropping.
As it got nearer to 4 am, room 1 was bustling with activity for the imminent arrival of Richie. He played till 09:30 and he took you on a very special journey for anyone that was there. He played a lot of his old Richie Hawtin tracks as well as very recent ones that I just about remember. Yes there will always be people who have gone off Richie and his sound and what he has become in terms of his success over the years, but you can’t deny his talent and what he has done for techno over the last 25 years. Respect has to be paid to him and he certainly pulled all the stops to treat the faithful and M_nus fans at Fabric with an exceptional display. It really was one of those nights where you had to be there to take it all in! Another great weekend and another great jaunt!
