Yesterday South Africa celebrated National Women's Day - and what
better way to round off that uneventful sham than to go shake some
ass at a dodgy dark and dingy dance club...
LUKE VIBERT // WAGON CHRIST - THE JAM, CAPE TOWN 10
AUGUST 2001
Cape Town's audiences are very polarised into the definable camps
of Trance, House, D&B and Hip Hop, etc - but predominantly house
rules. Thus the first local DJ left a few people baffled on the floor,
unsure of which way the beats were going, with a warm, organic
amalgam of floaty arrhythms.
Luke Vibert, in his Atari T-shirt, hit the decks at midnight and swiftly
turned the night into a journey of humour infused twisted funk with
drum and bass overtones shot through with a distinct jazzy flavour.
There seemed to be a few slight technical hitches to start with, but
he let the music flow on through Venusian D&B laced with acid
squelches to something that sounded like Klute's 'Hang-Up' played at
plus 8 (it wasn't, but that's not such a bad idea...)
After some serious bits he had the floor in his hands with hedonistic
dead-on disco and then took us through a quieter patch featuring
Thomas Koener-like visceral sub-bass, which had the hairs on my
arms vibrating.
The second hour built like a steam train charging on toward its
inevitably too-early end which came at two hours on the nose.
There was no bringing him back... but after dropping Popcorn,
there's nowhere to go, really, is there? :-)
He'd given us Windowlicker which fed straight into My Red Hot Car
(Girl) both of which went to whoops of recognition (good to see that
Cape Town is not THAT behind the scenes). I also loved the
inclusion of Tom Tom Club's 'Wordy Rappinghood', which sent jolts
of memories down me from the first beats of a manual typewriter
being tapped... Surely that's one of the original 'raps' - from around
'81 or so?
He also played lots of tunes I know I know; and I have somewhere -
but even if you put a gun to my head, I couldn't think of their names.
Sorry. But everything wove together in a big and beautiful way and
people begged for more and after disappearing off the stage, he
returned to triumphant anticipation, only to pick up his record box
and wave goodbye!
The dark and dense D&B DJ who came on after him swiftly swept
the floor clean to just a few stragglers, but it's certain that
everybody who had been there, had a good night out.
I
*
np : Klute - Total Self EP
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org
For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org