Saturday 3 April 2010

Halcyon - Matter Feb 12th - Review

Right here goes... my first attempt at a blog entry on the wonderful Musical Mana blog which I have been checking out for a while now. Since Chris is not connected to the intra-web at home at the mo, he's asked me to start contributing. So gonna keep them short and sweet at first (ha ha!... authors comment post blog... its a long-un!)

HALCYON at Matter 12th March 2010

What an unusual way to celebrate your mum's B-Day!... after springing a surprise visit on her at around 6pm and providing a healthy picnic meal for the dining table (cholesterol concerns are ingrained in my family at the moment)... I then drove down from Notts to pick up CD-Ra in the Saburbiton-Jungle and we headed to East London to the O2 Arena... having driven past this on NYE and seeing it all being lit up I was disappointed not to get the full-lit-up-dome show on arrival.... but once we figured out how to get in I appreciated the walk by the river to get in (all-be-it through the bitter cold in only club wear)... Although the same walk back past the river was also much appreciated in the morning; maybe a bit of sunshine would have been nice.... still it never rained so that's a bonus... RA!

Once in the club we spent some time meeting up with peeps in the main room but soon decided that the music we were really after was in the 2nd room up-tut-stairs and soon found ourselves parked by the first available speaker dancing to Atomic Drop, I think (never to really return to the main room really). After some weeks of just filling my head with phat beats via earphones it was so lovely to be covered all over it grating, serrrrrated, crrrrrackling beats that could be experienced by the whole body. Nothing like feeling the bass all over and scratching you behind the ears...mmmm... bass shower!

For most of the early part of the night 1-4am was spent just pissing around meeting people and chatting, loosely based around some dancing and comedy photograph taking (which was also based loosely around the magic shades - which I did loose for a bit but someone found them and gave them back to me - nice!).

It wasn't until Mary Miss Fairy was on the decks that things got serious. A palpable change in the heaviness of the music was evident as she blasted one floor stomper after the other. My favourite being "Felguk - Buzz Me" which I recognised from one of my favourite mixes (also by Mary) called Wonk this Way which I think is also on this blog with other exclusive releases from MMF a while ago.

At times her Matter set was bordering on the edges of actually-melting-my-brain. But probably the best way to sum it up is Chris-Ra's Tweet that I think was sent (long word alert) semicontemporaneously to the actual violence on our psykeeees (rhymes with cheese):

"Speakers are growling and giant slabs of techno are dropping from the ceiling!" - C-Ra mid attack

I think I got hit by a few of dose slabs and fully appreciated the power of this set from the very lovely and talented Mary who recently pushed several other top DJ's to the margins of the pages of Highlight mag (nothing to do with the sizzling picture of her I'm sure ;)


This is one of her at Matter after many shaky blurry failed attempts:

.... turns out she also loves alliteration alot... as I qoute: "(Mary) is shopping for some exceptionally edible electro and some tantalisingly tasty techno" ...Nice words me'dears, loving your work...word-play and music-play :)

Next up was Hedflux who I first found out about through this Blog via his Glade09 minimix... which is where I first heard Basscake, which is my ALL TIME favourite track (at the moment ;). So I was looking forward to his set immensely and it didn't disappoint, with some lovely toones and top mixing, all capped by finishing with a new 'in progress' track. If you wanna check out some new stuff from him check out this new Hedflux Feb mix which you can download for nowt... top value! For slightly more you can buy his new remix that is busting its way up the neatport charts as of 4th April 2010... please support if you can ! Here's Dr. Hedflux in action at Matter early doors...



Regarding the Feb mix - once again a lovely progression from thick/deep/solid but mid- energy music then escalating up to some more full-on-stuff. All great tracks and lovely to listen too fully without tinkering about doing udder stuff (i.e. just sit and listen and focus!). Although I'd like to hear a mix from Steve that stays at one tempo just so I can go-to a Hedflux mix for a stable-mood rather than a journey if I want to. Just so I can have both options... not too much to ask is it! ;) Turns out he's a lovely person with great values too, which makes the music even better when you listen to it. Read this to see what I mean about where its all coming from!

So after Hedflux (not to be confused with the imposter HEADflux who either just seems to copy Dr. Hedflux or doesn't do anything for ages!!) it was into the main room for some meandering and general winding down.... but given the general feeling of "I'm so over Psy-trance" when in the main room, it was soon time to head off after a top night.... and many adventuRAs after that in all kinds of landscapes to follow.... ups and downs but all RAlly REAL!

Here's the full line up:
MAIN ROOM

HALLUCINOGEN LIVE
SHPONGLE DJ SET
TICON LIVE
EAT STATIC LIVE
DEJAVOO LIVE
LIQUID ROSS
LIBRA 9 B2B ANDI LEPPARD
ZEUS B2B FABRY
MATT LORAINE

ROOM 2 – HOSTED BY ALPHAOMEGA in association with ARCHANGEL

TIM HEALEY
HEDFLUX
ATOMIC DROP – LIVE
MONK3YLOGIC – LIVE
CASANUEVA
GEO
MARY MISS FAIRY

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