Events

SATURDAY 25TH JUNE

REMEDY

WITH
...
IVAN SMAGGHE (BLACKSTROBE / FABRIC)
BUCKLEY (20:20 VISION / BACK TO BASICS)

10PM TIL LATE
£6 BEFORE 11PM & DISCOUNT GUESTLIST / £9 AFTER.

Ivan Smagghe belongs to a top table of DJs that journalists like to lazily describe as “The DJ’s DJs”. Along with the likes of occasional partner-in-crime Andrew Weatherall, Ivan has the ability to play music like a raw conduit between his famously obscure records and the dancefloor’s strobe-soaked bodies, injecting something of himself seamlessly into the mix along the way.

Some would say it was always going to be like this. The son of fanatical record collectors, music filled his days and dreams throughout childhood. In adulthood his infamous tenure at the Parisian Rough Trade record store was an initiation into a burgeoning French music scene that would in turn pay for his constantly escalating record habit.

When the legendary Radio Nova called upon Ivan to broadcast four days a week for four hours a day, the Smagghe world view was finally unleashed on an unsuspecting public- a viscous concoction of post industrial psychadelia and dark post punk electronics, served raw.

Almost simultaneously, word started to spread about his irreverent, genre-defying DJ sets: British music journalists reported to the world their quasi-religious experiences at his PULP night in Paris. Soon the virus spread further afield, his bewilderingly different and highly influential DJ comps invaded open minds around the world and sketched a blueprint for what the post-millennium DJ could sound like. If there’s one thing that Ivan Smagghe has personified throughout his residencies at Bugged Out, Fabric, Mondo or Robert Johnson (and a fututre new London party in collaboration with Nathan Wilkins), – it’s vision.

His is a vision of darkly resonant sonics, antihero’s anthems and basement-shaking hypnosis. At the end of the day though, beyond his maverick reputation and constant lust for the new, stands only his father’s son. The son who’s infectious and honest love of music, ALL music, is worn plainly on his sleeve.

His genre defying/defining production work originally in Black Strobe and now in It’s A Fine Line has connected him to and garnered the praise of (amongst others) James Murphy, Trevor Jackson, Ata, Optimo and the aforementioned Weatherall. All fellow crusaders in the fight to prove that electronic music can be so much more than a one dimensional soundtrack for a night on the lash.

2011 looks to be yet another year of growth for Ivan. The success of his musical blog ‘a few things from Ivan Smagghe’ has generated a compilation series of edits for Paris uber-fashion store Colette. The first volume sold out in a couple of weeks and the second is planned for early next year. His project with Tim Paris, It’s A Fine Line, has already put out numerous remixes (from Superpitcher to the XX) and releases that can’t be pigeonholed (electro rockabilly on Kompakt to italo rickety disco on Marketing). Their new studio is now fully set. Expect a lot more from them, including the production of Battant’s second LP, As I Ride with No Horse.

Aside from his A&R role for now 10 years old label Kill The DJ (who will release the first EP of RMVN, Ivan’s project with Roman Flugel), Ivan has also started solo work (a noted remix for parisian label Meant) as well as more planned collaborations with musical friends (Ewan Pearson and Tiga being first on the list).