Motor City Drum Ensemble is set to hit Australian shores for two dates next month.

Danilo Plessow has been on quite a rollercoaster over the last two years, with the sample-based house of his Motor City Drum Ensemble material finding its way into the boxes of countless DJs looking to inject an organic touch into their sets. Friday 4th December will see Plessow make his Australian MCDE debut at Melbourne's Sorry Grandma! club, and if his European performances are anything to go by, the night promises to offer a heady mix of smooth house grooves and vintage disco. Danilo will be sure to bring plenty of records with him, as the following day will see him headline Sydney's Co-Op party with a specially extended five-hour set. The venue for the party is yet to be announced, but the promoters are hinting that the shindig will take place at an inner city space with a capacity of just 200 people.

Tickets for Co-Op's bash with Motor City Drum Ensemble are now available to purchase directly from RA Tickets.

Eamon Harkin and Justin Carter's Mister Saturday night bash will be hosting two NYC debut performances in November.

First up is next Saturday's bash with Detroit's Scott Grooves, who has become a pillar in the city's electronic music community over the course of the past fifteen years. Having collaborated with the likes of George Clinton and Roy Ayers, it may surprise you that this is his first gig in the Big Apple, but Grooves' DJing stock has only recently risen due to the patronage of fellow Detroiters Omar-S and Patrice Scott. Deep house in its various forms should be the name of the game at the party, which will take place in the loft space of Brooklyn's Market Hotel after a successful night there with Dixon in October.

The following weekend will see Harkin and Carter host Scottish disco and house aficionado Graeme Clark, who will don his The Revenge moniker for a set of sample-heavy mid-tempo grooves. Clark's rise to fame has accelerated this year, what with his RA podcast and a run of successful singles on his own Instruments Of Rapture and Delusions Of Grandeur imprints, and the party on Saturday 21st November—again at the Market Hotel—will act as his introduction to the New York DJing circuit.

Tickets to both the Scott GroovesA and The Revenge events are available to purchase via RA Tickets.

Glaswegian sampling addict Pablo is set to release his second full-length later this month.

Real name Michael Hunter, the Scottish producer issued his debut album under his dub-oriented The Butch Cassidy Sound System moniker, but his latest offering sees him return to his Pablo pseudonym for a lesson in cut'n'paste and sample layering. Even if you're not aware of his previous work, you will perhaps have heard Hunter's material before, as the man was responsible for creating the incidental music of the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto IV video games.

Entitled Turntable Technology, the record takes from disparate genres such as jazz, soul, classical and hip-hop to create a lush downtempo journey, with plenty of spoken word samples peppered throughout. It's not a strictly sample-based affair, however, as Hunter plays a fair few instruments on Turntable Technology himself, including the Cuatro guitar, which is Puerto Rico's national instrument. The album comes as a double disc set, with the second CD containing instrumental versions of many of the first disc's vocal tracks on top of six additional cuts.

Tracklist
CD1:
01. Turntable Technology
02. Sing
03. Fairchild (Live at the Lab)
04. Sky Is High
05. Turn The Page
06. Speed Check
07. The Story Of Sampling
08. Record Shop
09. Goes To Pluto
10. Music Maestro
11. Rooftop Chase
12. High Jazz

CD2:
01. Speed Check (Instrumental)
02. The Cuatro Track
03. The Story Of Sampling (Instrumental)
04. Into The Deep Blue
05. Turn The Page (Instrumental)
06. Sky Is High (Instrumental)
07. Act Of Persuasion
08. Turntable Technology (Instrumental)
09. Sing (Instrumental)
10. Puzzled Picture
11. Music Maestro (Instrumental)
12. Proceed With Caution
13. On The Trail
14. Journey's End
15. Reincarnation

Soma will release Turntable Technology on November 9th, 2009.

Vakant will set up for a first party at Berlin venue Horst on Saturday November 14th.

While the Sex Pistols might be the inspiration for the night's Pretty Vakant title, the label's slick minimalist aesthetic will be the order of the day at the bash, with Glaswegian label mainstay Alex Smoke set to headline. Although the premise of the night will be to expose the label's key emerging talent, the Scottish producer has been chosen to set things off in the right direction with one of his heavy-hitting live shows. Meanwhile, the new blood will come under representation from Nico Purman and DeWalta. Purman will celebrate his imminent move to the German capital with a DJ set, while Vakant's newest signing, local lad DeWalta, will also spin on the night.

Vakant have confirmed that they will continue to operate in their regular capacity as Watergate residents alongside Jeremy P. Caulfield's Dumb-Unit label. The Pretty Vakant night is rather seen as an opportunity to reach a potentially younger audience at a fresh venue.

Circo Loco are set to return to London with a New Year's Day extravaganza at matter.

The party has had a bit of a rough year, what with its Ibiza presence being threatened by the constant legal battles faced by DC-10. But they've managed to bounce back successfully, hosting more non-Ibiza parties this year than ever before. January 1st will see them kick off 2010 in the same vein with the show at matter, which will feature all three a:rpia:r members (that's Raresh, Petre Inspirescu and Rhadoo) playing a back-to-back-to-back set in the night's headlining slot. Proceedings will start at a fairly early 6pm, giving the Circo crew a full twelve hours to stretch out in the main room. DC-10 residents Tania Vulcano, Matthias Tanzmann and ex-Peace Divisioner Clive Henry will all make appearances, while their regular London resident Shane Watcha will also get a chance to spin.

Over in room two things will be on a slightly deeper tip, with 2020 Vision's Ralph Lawson topping the bill with his mix of UK and European tech-house, while Tato, Garagem and Dani King will provide support.

Tickets for Circo Loco's New Year's Day bash are available to purchase now from RA Tickets.

Online music store DJ Download have been placed into administration by the company's directors, although rivals Juno will continue to keep the website afloat.

In a frenzied 24 hours for online music retailer DJ Download, the formerly Ministry Of Sound part-owned store announced that they would enter into administration via an e-mail statement (below), before key competitor Juno stepped in to effectively save them.

"It is with great regret that we have to inform you that DJdownload Limited has been placed into administration by the Directors of the company effective today," read the statement from the company's founder Justin Pearse. "The Directors have worked extremely hard over the past few months to try and save the company: overheads were reduced and attempts to increase revenues were made but ongoing efforts to raise further finance were unsuccessful. Despite their best efforts the company was not able to continue to trade. We would like to thank you for your support and business over the years and we wish you all the best in the future."

Under the newly agreed arrangement, the administrators will still be called in, with the website continuing to trade via Juno's content and administrative guidance. The front-end experience, however, will remain the same, with Juno taking care of all back-end operations.

"DJ Download is a pioneer in digital music and a key player in the dance music business", said Juno founder Richard Atherton. "We believe that with the combined strength of the Juno and DJdownload brands, we can make the download market more competitive and improve customer choice."

DSI have announced the arrival of a new version of their Poly Evolver instrument.

Since its release back in 2005, the Poly Evolver series has proved quite the smash amongst the house and techno fraternity, with Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano and Omar-S all reportedly using the machine. Although the updated version is by no means a drastic overhaul, the introduction of 60 potentiometers (which allow the full range of a knob's values to be accessed in a single turn) among its 78 rotary controls should prove to be a welcome addition among current users—to whom a potentiometer-equipped panel board will be made available—and prospective buyers. In practical terms, operations such as filter sweeps should now be considerably more user friendly than on the previous model.

As DSI's Andrew McGowan explains, there has been also some cosmetic improvements. "We needed both lined and unlined knobs to distinguish between the pots and encoders, so we're using Prophet-style knobs. And we've updated the panel graphics a bit without changing them significantly."

Dave Smith Industries' new Poly Evolver is available now at a suggested retail price of $2,899. The conversion kit is also available now for $399, or factory installed for $449.

Audion will showcase his Hecatomb live show for North American audiences throughout November.

Matthew Dear has already been performing the audio-visual project around Europe earlier in the year, but this Friday's party at San Francisco's Mighty club will be the first time that American audiences have had the chance to sample what Dear's been preparing this year. Hecatomb (which means "large-scale sacrifice" or "slaughter" in ancient Greek) is a collaboration with Dear's longtime art director Will Calcutt and renowned Berlin-based artist Eno Henze, and features a continually morphing array of patterns and light while Dear performs one of his high-octane live sets.

Dinky will join Matthew at both of the opening dates in San Francisco and LA this weekend, the latter of which is a Get Physical party that also features a performance from Shaun Reeves as well as label head honcho DJ T. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are the Canadian stops on the tour, while clubbers in Chicago, New York and Washington DC will also get a chance to experience Dear's sensory assault.

Lisbon's Buraka Som Sistema are set to enter the Fabriclive annals with the release of next month's Fabriclive.49

Andro Carvalho, João Barbosa and Rui Pité make up the bass-obsessed Portuguese trio, who have taken the Angolan sound of kuduro and dragged it into the 21st century. Kudoro started out when a group of young African producers began to make techno on old analogue equipment, but by the time it had reached Portugal (which has a post-colonial relationship with the country), European dance music was already a popular sound in the clubs. "We bought this kuduro compilation and there were so many amazing ideas! Nothing was valid as a whole song, but the ideas, the loops, were amazing," explain the trio. "The genre exploded in popularity at the beginning, then it went back to being something leftfield that producers were trying to develop; artists were exploring the possibilities, sampling really crazy things – and coming up with something people had never heard before."

It was this ethos that they continued to follow on their debut album, Black Diamond, merging bass music tropes with African rhythms and plenty of energy. Their Fabriclive.49 mix showcases plenty of kuduro from DJ Malvado, DJ Znobia and Buraka themselves, melding their sound with urban textures from the UK: Mastiksoul's rowdy house and Skream's ravey dubstep both feature. New remixes from L-Vis 1990, Stenchman and A1 Bassline also appear, with a heavy emphasis on new and exclusive tracks. "We also wanted to avoid making a compilation of twenty club bangers that two months from now are going to be totally forgotten and people are going to be totally sick of them because they’ve heard it in the club so many times already," they explain. "We also wanted to have a lot of our fresh material on there. And thirdly, we wanted to achieve a kind of flow where there are moments in the mix for you to relax, like Zomby's track."

Tracklist
01. Dre Skull – Gone Too Far Ft Sizzla (Buraka Som Sistema Remix)
02. Buraka Som Sistema – General (Stenchman Mix)
03. Buraka Som Sistema – General (L-VIS 1990 Mix)
04. Ku Bo Ft Anbuley - Tsu Bo
05. DJ Znobia – Pausa
06. Buraka Som Sistema – Kurum (Roulet Mix)
07. Seductive - Underground Sound
08. Diplo & Laidback Luke – Hey
09. Buraka Som Sistema – IC19 (A1 Bassline Attack Mix)
10. L-VIS 1990 - United Groove (Buraka Som Sistema Remix)
11. Skream – Fick
12. DJ Riot – Mermaid Dub
13. Zomby – Dynamite Sandwich
14. Crime Mob – Rock Yo Hips Ft Lil Scrappy
15. DJ Znobia – Danca Da Mae Ju (Buraka Som Sistema Edit)
16. Batida - Bazuka (Quem Me Rusgou?)
17. Yolanda Be Cool - Afro Nuts (Douster Remix)
18. Solo – Joga Bola
19. Buraka Som Sistema Feat Deize Tigrona – Aqui Para Voces (Buratronic Mix By Buraka Som Sistema)
20. Djedjotronic - Gum Attack
21. Harvard Bass – Caked / Buraka Som Sistema Feat Pongolove – Kalema (Wegue Wegue) Acapella
22. Mastiksoul – Run For Cover (Dub Mix)
23. Nova Lima – Machete
24. DJ Malvado - Puto Mekie
25. Buraka Som Sistema – Luanda-Lisboa (Nic Sarno Mix)
26. SonicC - Stickin
27. Major Lazer – Bruk Out (Buraka Som Sistema Mix)
28. Buraka Som Sistema Feat Bruno M – Tiroza (Bert On Beats Remix)

Fabric will release Fabriclive 49: Buraka Som Sistema on December 7th, 2009.

Chez Damier will fly over to the UK for a single date later this month.

Damier (real name Anthony Pearson) hasn't been booked to play in the English capital for a good while now, although that's all set to change on Saturday 14th November as he brings his smooth Detroit house sound across the Atlantic for an exclusive show in a secret East London loft space. Giles Smith (secretsundaze) and Alex Ruello (Need2Soul) are the people behind the obviously Mancuso-inspired bash, and the opening night will also coincide with Smith's birthday. Ruello will give DJing a miss for the evening, allowing Smith, Damier, and additional guest Sven Weisemann plenty of time to get their groove going. Weisemann may be a dub techno, deep house and modern classical producer, but quickly dispel any notions of him being a relaxed selector: his DJing style is frenetic and full of energy, with Sven cutting up audio from three turntables for maximum dancefloor impact.

Seeing as he hasn't touched down in the UK for so long, we spoke to Chez Damier to ask him a few questions about the party and his current activities.

You had a new track out on Mojuba this year. Can we expect any new material from you in the near future?

Yes. There is a new release coming from Mojuba as we speak: "Why" the remix backed with "Soul Minimal."

Youve not played in the UK for quite a while. Can you recall the last time you were DJing in London?

Wow - it's been a long time. I think it was somewhere back in 1995, but I have lost some memories over the years.

How do the crowds differ when you play in Europe compared to the US?

Depending on which city you are in the parties can be quite different but overall I think people need to release the tension so I think people are people where ever you go rather US, Europe or other parts of the world.

What can fans expect from your performance at Lost In The Loft?

What people can expect is freedom from the chains of what people think house music is all about. There should always be freedom when it comes down to dance music, so I think people can at least walk away with a smile on their faces saying, "I had a great time."

Tickets for the party are now available to purchase via RA Tickets.