- Fabric Saturday (23/07/05). Another great line up. Craig Richards, Isolee (live) pushing the new album - We are monster (Playhouse) & Ivan Smagghe, half of black strobe..
Craig kicked it off, the resident b-side king was absolutely on form. I loved his set from kick off to stumps. Arriving at half 12 or so (following wonderful treatment from the door queen) Craig was playing some fluid deep techy house, almost reminding me of an early Mark Farina type sound, no vocals, no tunes i recognised, all wicked b sides and layered really nicely. Over the following two hours he built it up to his more standard rolling tech, bloopy and spun, mostly unknown to the majority of the crowd (including this one) but everyone loves it. No doubt Craig is one of my favourites, he has created a really nice little niche at fabric, he has his own playlist and people come down to hear it week in week out. you should too, you'll probably appreciate it!
By the time Isolee (also Raijko Muller) played the main floor was rammed, and quite excited. Most of his releases have come from Playhouse, with the early classic release 'Beau Mot Plauge' having come out on Classic Music in '99. The new album is fantastic in my opinion. It is house, it’s disco, it’s synth, it’s deep and it’s refined and twisted to a point that its probably pretty hard to classify. I love it, well worth a listen in my opinion. Anyway, an hour of live action from him on the excellent system on Saturday night was a showcase of his album and a wonderful visit back to ‘Beau Mot Plauge’; great to hear it live. He started with ‘Enrico’, a sweet bloopy cut full of vocal snippets and a punchy beginning (hope that makes sense). Followed that with ‘Do Re Mi’, one of my favourites, a poppy tech driven echoing tune. Beau was very well received and the crowd was very happy to hear ‘Face B’ toward the end of the mix - amazing! It’s a tougher looped deep tech tune with a wicked rolling distorted bassline. He's really managed to add so many features to these tunes its hard to describe them, all the same, its worth a listen.
Ivan Smagghe finished the night with his distinctive brand of rock infused electro for the last 3 hours. He has a great presence, the main floor at fabric loved it. We didn’t end up leaving until around 6:30 with the remaining dace floor troupe absolutely loving it. I must admit I struggled with so much electro, I still love it in small doses. He has cottoned onto a cool brand of electronica, something that will develop into a popular sound if it isn’t already. It’s an amalgamation of original guitar driven and electronically produced music, its innovative and quite cool. I'm not his biggest fan but he had me dancing all morning! Rock on.
Wanting to hear all these guys play this time round, I didn’t even make it into the other rooms. fabric has a class Saturday line up every week, they do a very good job, its hard to share yourself around i find. Anyway, another top night out, we’ll be back. See you on the Charterhouse D-Floor.