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 events he was shuffling at in the last week… This time he spent his jaunts at ELM, Motek, Lost Souls and Jaded!
Hey and welcome to Jammy’s Olympic Jaunts! A weekly round-up of my weekend’s proceedings. This weekend consisted of my first ELM, The Motek daytime rooftop party, Lost Souls showcase and Jaded afterhours. So to start off the weekend, I began my Jaunts late on Friday after celebrating the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. It was really a spur of the moment decision to head down to Crucifix Lane for ELM, as I never really planned a big weekend, but this one kinda snowballed into a big one as usual! Playing at ELM was Roberto Amo, Andrea Giudice, Mathieu Mirande and head of Moon Harbour: Matthias Tanzmann. I got there quite late on and only caught Mathieu’s set and all of Tanzmann’s. The place was rammed and the vibe of the ELM party was really cool and laid back. It was the first of those kinds of parties that I have been to and certainly will attempt to make more ELM parties in the future. Rolling tech house bassline slammed through Crucifix Lane’s soundsystem and Mirande certainly set the mood for Tanzmann to come on and in all honesty he was really very good. Never seen him play before and there are many people that I have spoken to that haven’t really liked his style of music or the way he plays, but on this occasion I will always give respect and props where it’s due. He really had the crowd in his hand and every drop he created, he made the crowd go into a mass frenzy. It was pretty cool to witness. At times the music was quite banging and as a Techno purist at heart this was great to see. A real treat and a great name to have play for ELM and to cap off the night, ‘La La Land’ by Green Velvet was played and as you can imagine the whole place went off and it was amazing to see the crowd reaction. Such a classic track to finish the night off and I was thoroughly pleased for the ELM crew for pulling off a great night.
The next stage in my Jaunts was the Motek rooftop party. A relatively new party in London breaking through and I have a lot of time for this new collective. Run by Ben Coda and Matthew Hardinge, they already have had Mark Henning and Max Cooper headlining their parties and at the end of September they will have Techno legends Slam playing for them. Very exciting news indeed. At the rooftop
party situated in Dalston, the vibe was very cool, very intimate and luckily the sun was out which made for an even better party. I’ve never been to this venue before and for sure there are loads of potential here for this outdoor space as long as the sun is shining! The deep tech house vibe which continued throughout the afternoon was perfect for the time. The crowd of people that Matt Hardinge and Yiannis Balkizas worked up were really appreciative of their deep grooves and it was really impressive to see the crowd reaction. Due to licensing agreements, more people could have allowed there, but due to health and safety reasons, this wasn’t the case. This was a shame, but nothing could be done about it. In the end the rooftop was packed and the crowd were really approving of the beats that were being played. In all, a very successful party for the Motek crew and definitely keep an eye out for this party in London as they will be making big waves very soon!
Continuing the party, was the Lost Souls showcase at Egg. The last one featured Rebekah and that one was pretty special. Techno flowed from beginning to end and the grin on my face never disappeared! This time headlining was the very talented Roberto, currently releasing on Affin and previously played at Fabric and very soon playing at the very prestigious Tresor in Berlin! Showcasing and timings of Lost Souls: 00:00-03:00 Antony Difrancesco & Harry McCanna, 03:00-05:00 Roberto, 05:00-07:00 Chris Stanford. Difrancesco and McCanna got the room going with the tech house beats and slowly the room began to fill. Egg is a tricky one with its crowd and slowly it began to fill up. All I was waiting for was Roberto to start and he played a very good Tech House set, something he doesn’t really get to play out and it was really cool and refreshing to see this. The crowd enjoyed what he was playing and the quality of the tracks being played was exceptional especially ‘Love Technique ’ by Levon Vincent ; a real pleasure for Roberto to play for Lost Souls. His set was set up perfectly for head of Lost Souls: Chris Stanford to destroy Egg’s soundsystem with his own brand of ferocious Techno, which as always is a pleasure to hear out. He started off really well and ended up really going for it. The best way to carry and finish off and as always it was great to see amazing Techno being played out. Definitely well worth catching a Lost Souls night and especially Chris Stanford out and about playing out in London. Next headlining Lost Souls will be Samuel L Session and the very delightful Rebekah, ready to smash to pieces the Techno! In all, a really enjoyable night! Love it! The end of the night ended up with the weekly jaunt into Jaded.
Last but not least the final chapter in the jaunts this weekend was Jaded afterhours. The special guest this week was Geddes in the main room alongside Jaded stalwart Raymundo Rodriguez. In the balcony room, proceedings were taken over by the very talent Nick Maleedy and making his debut at Jaded, Alex Nagshineh. Really deep dark bassline groove was the main focus of music and this suited the mood of Jaded extremely well. Every track was exceptional in its own right. Raymundo took control of the main room at the beginning and Geddes suitably smashed Cable’s soundsystem to pieces. Just the way it should be! What a successful weekend! I had the most amazing fun! Same time, next weekend..?