Page 51 - Zone Magazine Issue 006

Some much needed sleep after four events and a radio show on the Thursday, led to a much more chilled out Friday. The downside of this was sleeping through all the meetings we had arranged and having a monster of a hangover. Apologies to all the radio stations and labels that we were due to meet!
The day progressed when 17 other friends from Plymouth arrived and rented out a house boat, near to the centre itself.
A quick visit to see them and after a couple beers and we all headed to the centre, where half were off to Carl Cox at Gashouder, and the other half were up for Dave Clarke at Melkweg. There was also Token Records party at Reaktor that showed a remarkable line-up featuring Inigo Kennedy, Oscar Mulero, Planetary Assault Systems and Ø [Phase]. Whilst I heard glowing reports about all three, a visit to Lumina for the Supercharged Mjuzeek night was on the cards and to catch up with the UK's finest Rob Tissera for a lighter night out. Rob was there with some rocking tech house grooves, with some other quality artists from the UK and fair play to them for looking after me,when at 5 am my intoxicated and very garbled Double Dutch almost landed me in some
bother whilst waiting for the tram to the hotel. Hope the flight home that morning wasn't too savage guys!
Saturday started with a ferry to the absolutely phenomenal Dockyard event at NDSM, which was one of the highlights of last year's ADE when it launched. When you are faced with thousands of festival pundits surrounded by five arenas of ridiculously huge soundsystems in the Dockyards of Amsterdam, you know you are in for something special. After arriving later than planned due to sleeping in and the hecticness of the previous two nights, we sadly missed Johannes Heil, Truncate and Drumcell, who were three acts we definitely wanted to check out.
Sam Paganini really upped the pace, dropping tracks such as the well renowned and dropped by literally everyone 'I Wanna Go Bang' by Iceland's Bjarki amongst others. The downside of this was you could literally not move in this arena as it was packed out.
This worked out to be a blessing in disguise as we ventured to see Stefano Noferini play some funkier grooves before watching Truss hammer out his famed
style of extremely bleak and industrial techno which definitely won favour for us!
Finally came the eagerly awaited performance of Birmingham's very own Surgeon and Lady Starlight, who did not disappoint, incorporating a full live performance with hardware synths and most importantly, a relentless, driving kick drum at quite a pacey tempo which we could not stop moving to. Combine this with some awesome production and without a doubt this was the set of the weekend for me, so far. It was also quality to catch up with Stephen De Wit, who I hadn't seen since we DJ'd together in The Hague for Connected, earlier this year in March.
A detour to Amsterdam Central to have a fair few beers and actually check out the centre for something not rave related was needed, before heading to the famed 'Warehouse' for the Hyte presents M_Plant party. Being that I have championed many a track on M_Plant over the past decade, this was one that I really looked forward to with Mark Broom, Robert Hood (Floorplan) and Chris Liebing all playing extended sets.
Being at capacity due to selling out, aside from the heat, the venue being a huge warehouse sporting two rooms was certainly advantageous. Mark Broom, proved why he has amassed a large following, with three hours of funky, energetic techno that we enjoyed so much that all three hours flew by. Looking back, we only briefly broke it up to check out CLR boss Chris Liebing, who was also on form and it is fair to say the Hyte team certainly know how to throw a party!
We had high expectations for Sunday's event, with a personal preference towards harder techno and knowing that the Electric Deluxe label have a no holds barred approach for the more driving darker material, and kicking off at 6 PM was a very ambitious start for a twelve hour stint.
However, after some much needed rest and recuperation, as well as a quick mixing session with some of Plymouth's finest, the wise suggestion cropped up from one of our party to visit Derrick May and his Transmat Records night at the Westerunie beforehand.
This proved to be a remarkable decision as Frankfurt's very own Karotte were downstairs providing a quality selection of driving grooves that we all enjoyed, before Derrick May was on upstairs who chopped it up and was a mixture of funky, hard and played an awesome mixture of old and new.
This added to how spacious Westerunie is really and with a powerful soundsystem (a recurring theme for many of the events we've noted!) meant for a good party.
The group of ten of us at Derrick May all managed to get carried away after and before you know it, it was 3 AM and that meant it was time to venture to Electric Deluxe for the last few hours.
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