- Arriving at the world renowned Spacelab Yellow we were faced with an empty dancefloor and a rather desperate warm up DJ. It didn't bode well, until we remembered that in Tokyo clubs tend to kick off late, fill up, and stay that way until closing due to the absence of night transport. So, faced with the roomy dancefloor we did the logical thing…and hit the bar.
It wasn’t long before DJ Kent (Force Of Nature) brought the disco action we were hungry for, and the crowd responded, filling the floor. His set went down well, dropping big balls-out percussion breaks and some tasty re-edits, which brought whoops of recognition from the Japanese heads, before building to a climax with some dirty guitars and full on rock with a cover of The Spencer Davis Group's 'I'm A Man'.
Suddenly the attention shifted to the back of the room as Altz began his live set at the other end of the dancefloor with a deafening explosion of white noise and bass. Utilising the legendary soundsystem (and probably registering as seismic activity) this heavy wall of noise gave way to a sparse, funky ‘80s disco loop, somewhere between The Peech Boys and Throbbing Gristle. Altz, behind a mound of boxes, wires and pedals tweaked the mixer like an instrument, throwing his body behind the knob twists and adding an effective performance element to what was essentially a laptop set - two PowerBooks, including one running the application fast becoming the industry standard in innovative electronic performance, Ableton Live.
The mixer was sent through a selection of effects pedals, which he periodically bashed to the rhythm. His full body tweaks were frequent and extreme but really added to the groove rather than detract from it, like so many DJs who've just bought some new toys. Veering and ducking through an unusual selection of genres, from old school New York style disco to some more industrial UK sounding stuff, almost Art Of Noisy in places, he steered us through some very funky, breaksy percussion to chunky house. At one point he even added a super random twangy country guitar interlude replete with jaws harp! Obviously having fun, throwing his shaggy hair about and making rock star style grimaces whilst wrenching the knobs almost off the mixer. My mate described it as ‘bukkake disco’ (google if you’re not sure, but not on your office computer!).
There were loads of heated builds and drops, but not many full tracks, just straight money shots all the way. Frenetic, noisy and exciting, but I couldn't help feeling that he could have lingered over some of the styles a bit longer. This could have been due to how his set was structured - or maybe he just has a short attention span - either way it was explosive stuff, spattered with effects and dripping with disco energy.
Only one third of the Chicken Lips posse was in effect tonight, but this was more than enough to satisfy the modern disco lovers in attendance. Steve 'Fella' Kotey is a new addition to the Chicken Lips camp, fulfilling international bookings while founding members Andy Meecham and Dean Meredith stay at home to work on new material. A regular at London's Fabric and Back to Basics he has remixed for Nuphonic, Tummy Touch and Strut amongst others.
Starting with some spacious Metro Area style grooves, he kept it deep and melodic, exploring the deeper side of disco, gradually moving into full on pumping, nasty, in-yer-face house. Some quick, subtle eq tweaks teased us but were far from gratuitous, allowing the tracks space to breathe so that we were swept away with, rather than simply impressed by, the tunes. Although he didn't play any old rarities like I was hoping for, he kept it hot with some classically inspired tracks. Congas and cowbells straight from lost Salsoul gems, compressed into snapping bouncy grooves, distilling the disco influence and fermenting it into something faster and stronger, rather than trying to emulate the classic style.
After popping into the booth to try and get a look in his box, to my surprise I saw that along with the vinyl, some tracks were being played through his iBook using Stanton Final Scratch. I honestly couldn't tell the difference, even through one of the tastiest sound systems in the world.
It just goes to show, people, digital is the way forward...