Belfast's One have revealed the first details of their festive plans with the announcement of a very special New Years Day party featuring Detroit legend and head-honcho on M-Plant Records, Robert Hood.

Hood has been described as the 'forefather of minimal techno' with his 1994 album 'Minimal Nation' setting the blueprint for an entire sub-genre of electronic music.

Support comes from One residents Samaan and Graeme, as well as Extended Play who host room 2.

 

Originally from Co. Wicklow but now based in Berlin, over the past two years Mano has dropped some amazing productions on the like of Prins Thomas Internasjonal, Permanent Vacation and most recently Buzzin' Fly imprints.

Catch him in the mix and on the phone for a quick chat with Paul Hamill this Friday night on BBC Radio Ulster from midnight.

The ‘Baron of Techno’, Dave Clarke, returns to Belfast for a DJ set at the Stiff Kitten on the 26th November.

Clarke has previously worked with acts such as the Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, Fischerspooner and Depeche Mode and has just released his new album, Fabric 60.

Also on the bill are Miniminds and Ryan Dallas.

Mano Le Tough - In My Arms from Aoise Tutty on Vimeo.

BR11001: AD Bourke - Tidal Motion by spacedimensioncontroller

Amsterdam Dance Event celebrates it's 15th Anniversary this year and for five days Amsterdam became the focus of the international dance community who descended on the city for ADE's unique blend of conference meets festival.

Thousands of DJs, promoters, labels, producers, A&R guys from all over the world went to do business, increase their networks and check out some of the hundreds of shows and music industry panel event taking place.

ATL Dance Show presenter Paul Hamill (one half of renowned electronic duo Psycatron) was over for the event and thankfully remembered to send a few postcards back to home base about what was going on.

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We arrived over late yesterday evening, got checked in with our delegates passes (which came with a nice record bag loaded with goodies) and then set off to hook up with some friends from a few Dutch and German labels.

While the emphasis at ADE is very much on the business side of things, there's a huge programme of events on every night. The big one last night was the Official Opening Party at Melkweg which saw the kings of Detroit, Carl Craig, Derrick May, Juan Atkins and co. tear up a sold-out venue until the early hours of Thursday morning with Stacey Pullen dropping one of the best sets of the evening.

After a slow start to the day, we headed straight for the conference HQ at Felix Meritis for a day long session of meetings and panels this morning with Roger Sanchez chairing discussions on the so-called 'club-crisis ' and digital promo delivery in the 21st Century.

Tonight we'll be checking out Joris Voorn's Party as well as Dave Clarke's live broadcast of his White Noise radio show....

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Day 2

So the big one last night was the Excession Showcase party featuring Sasha, James Zabiela, Robert Babicz and a load more. Best of all it was on a small cruise liner which was going to set sail from Amsterdam docks at midnight. So we hopped in a taxi around 11.30 but 45 minutes later and 40 Euro down, we were back in the city. Turned out the address we had for the party was the actual registered office address for the boat and not the actual departure address. So that was great fun.

We checked out a bit of the '5 years of the Made to Play' party with Jesse Rose and Riva Starr which was only really starting to fill-up before we headed off to Melkweg again for the Superrauw night featuring Boys Noize and Aeroplane (which was absolutely rammed). The Melkweg is a huge two-room venue with the small room resembling the Mandela hall and the main room just a large rectangular room with a high ceiling, balcony and wicked sound and lighting.

We also checked out the invite-only Network Bash which took place in a beautifully restored chapel (they actually had decks on the altar) called De Duif. Dave Clarke was there doing a 3-hour live radio broadcast for his White Noise show which I did a quick interview for. The rest of the day was spent hanging around the main conference locations, Felix Meritis and Dylan Hotel. Loads of the headliners like Josh Wink, Carl Craig, Roger Sanchez and Dubfire were all just hanging out chatting to people, as well as making the most of the various happy-hours (free booze) laid on by the likes of Beatport among others.

It'll be interesting to see on Day Three if the conference events are as busy as they have been the past few days once the festival fatigue kicks in. Right now though, I'm off for some pastries and coffee...

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Day 3

 

I can only describe today as being a rollercoaster ride of emotions, which despite my near 20 years of DJing experience and 10 years of radio experience, nothing could have prepared me for. We had our big [sold-out] show for Dave Clarke presents at The Melkweg, so we dropped the gear off at the venue and then headed for dinner at an amazing Teppan Yaki restaurant with the other DJs Dave Clarke, Green Velvet, Abe Duque, Estroe, James Watts and Tom Trago, which was truly amazing despite Curtis Green Velvet clearing everyone's plate and eating the biggest bowl of ice-cream I have ever seen.

At The Melkweg, they were on a tight turnaround from the Goldfish show before us, so they had to clear out 1500 people at 11pm and reopen at 11.30 for Dave Clarke presents, pretty hectic stuff. One of Holland's finest, Estroe opened up 'The Max' where we were playing with some lovely deep and melodic grooves, with the hall filling up nicely throughout her set. We took to the stage just before 1am and the room was at full capacity and ready for action.

Everything was going great until three tunes into the set, when the unthinkable happened, our software crashed on the main laptop - silence. For the first time in 7 years of using a laptop to perform live, it decided that tonight, in front of 1500 punters, journalists, music industry heads and assorted individuals it was going to deliver a cruel, cruel blow.

If you ever find yourself in this rather unenviable position, you'll realise it's probably one of the most un-nerving experiences you can imagine. We managed to get things going again pretty quickly and then ten minutes later - silence again. By that stage i was scrambling round the stage grabbing cd decks as I had packed some CD back-ups (best decision ever) and we managed to finish our set by DJing until Dave Clarke came on after us. Although we didn't get to play the set we have intended to, at least we weren't left standing on stage in front of all those people twiddling our thumbs and with the exception of those couple of minutes where it all went horribly wrong, the Melkweg was going off.

Afterwards we stuck around to catch awesome sets from Dave, who totally wrecked his now adopted home town and Green Velvet who was the perfect curtain closer for an amazing night which ended just before 6am.

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I woke up licking my wounds and tried to figure out what went wrong the night before but soon decided enough was enough, it was time to move on and concentrate on the day ahead. Thankfully I didn't have too much in the way of meetings set-up for today, apart from taking part in Dave Clarke's Demolition Panel XV in conjunction with Soundcloud at 5pm in the Felix Meritis.

The Demolition Panel is an annual event where producers can submit demos, via Soundcloud or in-person on the day and a panel of musos would critique them and offer feedback. Dave was the panel host and I found myself sitting alongside the legendary Toddy Terry, music journalist Jonty Skruff, head of digital promo company EPM - Jonas Stone and booking agent Niels Brand.

The Felix was packed with around two hundred people in for the event (mostly blokes unsurprisingly) and the demos (which were picked from the submissions by an independent panel) ranged from trancey progressive stuff, to house and dubstep. Despite being at the tail-end of a long week, the panel were a kind bunch, with feedback mainly constructive, and everyone trying to think of variations on the term 'not my cuppa tea'. We listened to a few of the Soundcloud submissions before Dave asked the audience if anyone had brought CDs with them. Only about 2 or 3 people put their hands-up, but when invited up on stage about 100 CDs appeared out of nowhere and we were sitting there with a mountain of new music to go through.

So we spent the best part of an hour going through some of the submissions, before whittling it down to just three finalists and then to an eventual winner. It was a pair of Amsterdam based dubstep producers under the name Stereologue and their track 'Anger'  that the majority of the panelists deemed to be the best track of the day - it's a well produced track on a very dark tip but with plenty of dancefloor punch. They walked away with a studio masterclass, loads of new DJ gear and the glory of being the Demolition XV grand winners.

We had a mixture of DJs, Producers, Promoters, Label Managers turn out to for a discussion i was chairing with DJ Paul Woolford, Creamfields WHP promoter Rich Mc Ginninis, music publisher John Truelove, Planet Mu label manager Thomas Quaye and Sean Robinson who looks after the label and management interests of The Japanese Popstars.

Richard McGinnis who runs Chibuku, Creamfields and Warehouse Project to name a few, discussed how DJs can break through the ranks to secure a spot on one of his line-ups. While they general consensus was that a DJ needs also to be a producer to make it through these days, he pointed to Yousef as a case in point of someone who started of DJing well before he began Djing. Rich also spoke about how his clubs were instrumental in the north-west of England in bringing Dubstep from the back-room to the main-room at a time when he could book Skream and Benga for £200 and had David Guetta's manager contacting him offering him DJ sets for free without any expenses.

There was advice on how to make your demos stand out from the crowd in an industry where everyone wants a piece of your time - personalize your emails, do your homework and find a contact at the label, obtain feedback  quotes from recognized figures in the industry that will catch the eye of the A&R guy and above all be patient and know your market.

There was advice on how to build relationships and networks with labels, promoters, producers and the media - hang out at the local club you want to play in, send feedback to labels you love to let them know you are playing their records, and avoid spamming people.

Visibility was a word that popped up on more than one occasion in reference to the ideas on how to increase your profile - with the concept of 'it's not what you do, it's what you don't do'  thrown in there in reference to building allegiances with the right people you want to work with.

We had 60 minutes of discussion followed by nearly another hour of Q&A from the audience who wasted no time in picking the brains of the expert panel. Overall, it was a hugely worthwhile exercise and the kind of thing that needs to happen more often to give people a bit of focus, inspiration and motivation to pursue their dreams  and in a sector of the industry where closed-doors are perceived to be the norm, it was refreshing to see such lively interaction from a great panel who gave a valuable insight into how each of their respective areas operates.

This week's essential tracks are chosen by Phil Lucas from Belfast club night Twitch.

ATL Dance is broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, Friday nights from midnight til 2am folks!

Jesse Rose - You Know It (Made to Play)
House legend Jesse Rose has consistently put out interesting house music for the last 7 years since his early releases on Frontroom. This is a smooth vocal house track with a cracking soul vocal.

Jay Shepheard - Add Arp (Retrofit)
Jay Shepheard is putting out some incredible music at the minute and every track is very different! Just a few weeks ago I was shouting about his track Umzug but then I played this track out and it got an incredible reaction! I thought Umzug was gonna be my favourite track of this year until I came across this gem. Disco speed house music with a beautiful synth line and simple drum patterns, and the lush euphoric break caps things off! Keep it coming Jay!

2. Echologist - Slow Burn (Steadfast)
Brendon Moeller is the Echologist and although he's releasing under a different guise, this is typically Moeller style deep, bass-heavy techno. The track is very busy with a number of whooshing synth sounds creating a tripped out, atmospheric track that is also tough enough to work on the dancefloor.

3. Dexter - Redbox (Dolly)
Excellent new label from Panorama Bar resident Steffi. This is the label's second release and is a driving big room techno track. Dexter is putting out some incredible music (his remix of Anton Miller - Inner8 especially!) and this is a lot tougher than the rest of his recent work, while very simple and repetative it keeps building subtly. Definitely a label to keep an eye on!

This week's essential tracks are chosen by none other than Graham from Funkasaurus/When Pilots Eject.

ATL Dance is broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, Friday nights from midnight til 2am folks!

65 Days Of Static - Mountainhead
From the latest album and showcasing a distinctly more electronic approach from these guys which is definitely a step in the right direction.

Sabres Of Paradise - Still Fighting (Sabres)
A recent Facebook page reminiscing on tunes which rocked the Art College back in the day made me think of this little beauty. One of Weatherall and companies finest moments.

This week's essential tracks are chosen by none other than Shine regular and one half of the Jet Project, Mr. Timmy Stewart.

ATL Dance is broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, Friday nights from midnight til 2am folks!

So we're not long back from Movement 2010 in Detroit which finished on Monday, or Detroit Electronic Music Festival (D.E.M.F.) as it was previously known, or Techfest as some Americans refer to it. I was there performing with Psycatron on the Movement Torino stage alongside Derrick May, Orlando Voorn and Greg Gow on the second day of the festival and rather than give you the complete A to Z of our trip, I thought I'd break it down into some highlights and low-points of our three day visit...

Everything IS Bigger In America

The festival is based in Hart Plaza which is a riverfront plaza on the banks of the Detroit river which faces onto Windsor Canada and is under the glare of the 73 storey high Renaissance Centre, world headquarters of General Motors.

It's a massive space featuring various amphitheatres in beautiful surroundings. From the soundsystems to the lighting and visuals, everything was insanely well produced and on a scale unlike anything I have ever seen at a festival. Speaking of big, when you ask for a small pizza in America, it actually arrives as a 14" x 3" deep weapon that would feed a family of four so it might be best to share.

Everything IS Hotter In America

We didn't bother with the sunscreen on the first day, cue walking round like rednecks for a couple of days as the effects of 90 degree heat took it's toll on our sensitive Irish skin. Luckily enough they had a plentiful supply of clean towels when we were DJing to avoid any nasty electric shocks from the mixer. I know of one DJ from this neck of the woods who ended up in casualty as a result of dehydration too.

Detroit Still Rules Techno

The line-up this year featured the 'Belleville Three' Juan Atkins (as Model 500), Kevin Saunderson (as Inner City) and Derrick May (as techno legend) headlining different stages across the three nights. They all absolutely killed it, but a highlight had to of been Inner City performing 'Big Fun' and 'Good Life' in front of 35000 people many of whom probably weren't even born when these tracks first came out. You also had the likes of Anthony 'Shake' Shakir, Kyle Hall, K-hand and and a whole rake of new-wave Detroit heads manning the underground Made In Detroit room all weekend. America is often remarked upon as being a barren wasteland for the most part when it comes to electronic music with the exception of a few pockets of resistance, Movement 2010 proved without a doubt that you can sell tickets (95000 in total) without resorting to the lowest common denominator - house and techno ruled for main part.

A Little Culture For The Weekend?

On the Friday night we headed to an event hosted by Carl Craig's Planet E label, where they premiered a movie charting the history of D.E.M.F. - 2010 A Detroit Odyssey. The event was held in the grand surroundings of the Detroit Music Hall, similar in style to the Grand Opera House in Belfast and was an amazing look back at the early years and the struggle people went through to make this festival an annual event. It was a remarkable tale told by those who were there, putting their livelihoods, reputations and careers on the line to bring the people of Detroit something they'd always dreamed of.

The Music Hall was at near full capacity and at the end of the movie, Mad Mike Banks from Underground Resistance performed live with his new band Timeline. Five guys on keyboards, sequencers and saxophone performing lots of the old UR Hi-Tech Jazz material including Galaxy To Galaxy. It was proper live-jazz-techno-improv. They were also joined on stage for a couple of tracks by Carl Craig who was plugging in patch cables on some modular synth. An awesome start to the weekend.

Ricardo, Is That You?

While standing at the entrance of the artist backstage area, this guy rolls up with a massive bag of vinyl trying to get in. It's Ricardo Villalobos! Quick tell the internet, you've just got the scoop. Villalobos cancelled a few days earlier due to visa issues so everyone was amazed to see him arrive. We remarked on how much weight he had lost, probably due to so many late nights but were obviously delighted to see him there. So we told the internet, and two hours later reports were coming back of  him playing on the Beatport stage. I was gutted i missed him, until i bumped into this guy up on the stage who was actually a Ricardo imposter by the name of Onur Ozur. No, Ricardo never did show.

After-Party, What After-Party?

If there was nearly 100 acts performing at Movement there must have been the same again performing at after parties all over the city. The biggest was probably the Metroplex Party on the Sunday which featured Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson performing for the first time together in 10 years, but you also had Berghain hosting parties, Moodyman hosting one of his infamous Rollerskate Discos, the Dirtybird crew were in town and loads more. We popped into the Drumcode party with Adam Beyer, Marco Carola and Ida Enberg for a while which was subsequently shut-down by the police due to an apparent shooting outside the venue. Twitter was rife with talk about cops closing down parties all over the city claiming shootings and all sorts of goings on. We didn't hang round to find out.

The Beatport Stage

Probably the most consistent stage all weekend in terms of being an absolute rave-up all day long. Highlights Claude Vonstroke dropping Vocal Chords, Richie Hawtin, Ida Enberg and Cassy.

American Airports Suck

So international departures in Chicago O' Hare doesn't even have somewhere to sit down and eat, never mind drink. We had a three-hour changeover on the way out there and ended up spending two of the hours going up and down the travelator from one end of the terminal to the other and back again. It beat walking.

You Cannot Blag An American Bouncer

A couple of friends decided they weren't going to attend the 'I'm On A Boat' after-party on the Detroit Princess which featured Hawtin (replacing Villalobos), Sneak, Carter, Carl Craig, Cassy on a boat sailing up and down the river until 4 in the morning. They told me we could use their names on the guest-list for the party. So i dropped our friends name at the door - "i gotcha buddy, you got ID?', "em, nobody said to bring ID", "ok, what's your buddy's name?" at which point Dave with the look of a rabbit in the headlights blurted out something that sounded like the bit before Bugs Bunny does his 'that's all folks' bit. The guy flipped and next thing i knew i was nose-to-nose with some Iraq war veteran screaming at us to get off his boat. We left, although not before telling him his boat was no Seacat.

Ida Engberg, The First Lady Of Techno

Despite having been on day four of a U.S. tour with 6 hours sleep in three days, the Swedish blonde bombshell ripped up the Beatport stage on Saturday afternoon even taking time to drop the Matador remix of Phil Kieran 'Dirt' along the way. We found ourselves following her around a lot for some strange reason.

Detroit, The City That America Left Behind

For a city with such a remarkable past, present day Detroit is a harrowing example of what happens when corporate America goes wrong. Poverty is rife, you have multi-billion dollar skyscrapers looking down on wasteland scrubs where survival is at the forefront of people's lives. Crime and unemployment are the highest in the country. Yet among all this, you have a breeding ground of creativity where the people are inspired by what they have and they don't have and where the rest of the world looks to for musical inspiration. They've been making electronic music in the City for over 25 years, that's a long time before everyone upped sticks and moved to Berlin. They were makingMotown way before that. Detroit is about the soul of the people and the soul of music and there's a new generation of artist emerging form the city that will carry the baton on for years to come. It'll be people like Kyle Hall or the two young black kids standing outside the festival with two makeshift snare drums playing 'Spastik' to try and raise a few dollars for a bite to eat that'll be the names of the future, not some kid who has downloaded a cracked copy of Ableton and starts knocking up some bubblegum techno he saw someone playing at a party on Youtube. Musically, there is nowhere else in the 52 states that touches Detroit and if the rest of America had an ounce of the soul that exists here, the world would would be a much better place.

This week Dollface, from the La Musique club night in Derry, tips us off his three killer new tunes.

ATL Dance is broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, Friday nights from midnight til 2am folks!

The Japanese Popstars
Destroy feat. Jon Spencer (Virgin)

This has been destroying the dancefloor at La Musique for the past few months. An awesome first single for what's shaping up to be a great follow up album to 2008's We Just Are.

Juan Maclean
Feels so Good (DFA)

Written specifically for his latest DJ Kicks album, this is pure house music at it's very best. Reminiscent of 'Happy House' but with a deeper Detroit-tinged vibe this works the floor on so many different levels.


Pharrell & Uffie
Add Suv - Armand Van Helden Mix (White)

What a combination to find all on one record. This has been all over the blogs and charts for the past few weeks and doing serious damage. AVH turns in another monster of a remix.

This week's essential tracks are chosen by none other than that regular knight of the nightspots, DJ Nik Muzka.

ATL Dance is broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, Friday nights from midnight til 2am folks!

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House Shoes - Newports (All City)
Dublin's All City label gives us another EP of top drawer beats from label new boy Jason Rockwell and J-Dilla collaborator House Shoes. I've gone for the House Shoes track which has classic Dilla style crunchy beats and simple but effective sample drops giving a soulful plodding head nodder that i'll be dropping constantly over the summer. I recommend checking the rest of the EP as Rockwell also delivers the goods on his offerings.

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Ceephax - Acid Schmichael (030303)
ACIIIEEEEEEEEEEDD!!!! is what we have here and i love it. This reminds me of early Novamute releases from the likes of Speedy J and UR. Fast paced harsh percussion, twisted 303s and a relentless kick drum come together to hit you in the face with the type of track that is best enjoyed at a sweaty rave in a dark club while dancing in unison with a few hundred like minded clubbers enjoying every beat and not spending the night checking their sunglasses or posing in the smoking area. Proper old school rave, lovely jubbly.