- With the flushing out of the university population and the sun-kissed beaches of Ibiza gradually approaching on the horizon, KeToLoCo joined the long list of Leeds parties grinding to a halt over the summer. However, unlike the more student-orientated nights in Leeds, which miserably peter out at the start of June, KeToLoCo, with its ever-growing reputation and bad-boy prestige, was set to go out with a warped and twisted tech house bang.
The rain fell on Leeds' almost abandoned red light district, Holbeck, where former car garage Kerbcrawler nestles amongst abandoned warehouses, mills and factories. Gavin Herlihy and Craig Torrance's recent collaboration "So That's What Happens" fits like a cog into this dark industrial mood, and was the precedent for this edition of KeToLoCo: clunking hammer-on-anvil beats trading with brooding basslines. The title of their collaboration refers to what happens when Herhily and Torrance stay in on a Friday night; what happens when they go out to work is, however, a different story.
After the KeToLoCo residents' solid, business-as-usual tech house, Herhily came on to an initially sparse crowd that fortunately suddenly packed out the Boiler Room of Kerbcrawler. Herhily played a perfect summer party set, with very few forays into the dark minimal edged techno sound of "So That's What Happens" and his other productions like "Machine Ate My Homework" and recent Cocoon release "Collect." Herhily instead leaned more towards a world-techno sound, much more in line with his tracks "Give Me a Funf," strongly flavoured with distorted steel drum, and his Orient-based track "Opium Haze" on Kindisch. The set was seasoned with a dash of funk and a stripped down, heavily percussive sound, with Ralph Falcon's jacking "Whateva" a stand-out track of the night.
Craig Torrance toyed with a deeper techno sound, which was a complete divergence from Herhily and initially disorienting. But this initial setback was overcome by the increasingly more welcome jazz-orientated tracks which slowly permeated and neutralised his harder techno edge. Influences from flatmate, production partner and jazz-musician Philip Hochstrate were very evident.
The lack of anything approaching "summer weather," which appeared to reduce the numbers attending quite drastically, eventually worked to the night's advantage, forcing everyone inside the small Boiler Room or under the patio heaters outside—creating a relaxed intimacy that other Leeds clubs lack.
Partly due to its name as well as its off-centre home at Kerbcrawler, KeToLoCo has a bit of an unwarranted reputation for harder, darker and inaccessible techno and ridiculous over-indulgence and decadence, which no doubt puts a lot off people off. Juxtaposing its situation in one of the more dilapidated and debauched areas of Leeds, the night has a friendliness to it where intense substance use and just having a few beers are equally acceptable. Although tech house always seems like a bit of a compromise, KeToLoCo have got it just right, maintaining a perfect balance that should appeal to both the new recruits and veterans of the dance music scene.