Crack

Crack Magazine has alluded to how much we enjoy the consistencies in our life as much as the variety that spices everything up.

So as sure as Hollyoaks will continue showcase fit chavs, spending two hours in the company of Erol Alkan in the Thekla is likely to be as enjoyable as experience as one could hope for with a DJ.

As stompy, bone-crushing electro becomes less the flavour of the month, watching Erol Alkan will be, for many, a benchmark DJ who changed peoples' attitudes to music and introduced punters to new sounds, bands and styles.

There are very few DJ’s in the world that can reduce a club to absolute jelly. This guy is one of them. The electro fashionistas who like to try and keep their cool, despite intake, are thrusting hands frantically in the air and mounting shoulders by the end of tonight’s set. The term ‘destroying’ a club is banded around far too much. Not when this guy is town.

A Blowpop regular over the years, Erol’s stock has remained at a consistently high level since the dance-disco-punk-electro (and everything in between) sound he had been championing for years hit the mainstream and pushed him full throttle into the public consciousness.

For most people, this thrust into the upper echelon of scenester regard would be enough, but herein lies a man whose first love is music and not fame, fortune and all the spangly crap that goes with it.

His CV reads like a guide to correctly harnessing respect without selling out. Having run the Monday night club night Trash at The End for 10 years, Erol championed bands like Yeah Yeah Yeahs and LCD Soundsystem in their fledgling days. Through releasing a number of well received remixes and productions for a select roster of artists and producing albums for indie darlings The Long Blondes, Mystery Jets and Late of the Pier, his desk skills are as much in demand as his mixing ability.
Throw in his own record label, an awesome podcast, a disco playing alter-ego and a psychedelic rock project into the mix, you have a musical monolith who has taken his personal credentials way beyond the turntables.

Anyway back on the dance floor. The first hour of Erol’s set night is house and disco featuring on the likes Tensnake and The Swiss. The commercial run outs are provided by Tim Green’s excellent remix of Cassius’ 1999 and a sneaky homage to Daft Punk’s Around the World.

The second hour is a breakneck twisted electro-stompathon, with the trademark Erol beat loops and cuts from his own record label and a host of future bangers. The set finishes with Waves - Erol’s release with Boys Noize that debuted last year. Credit must go to Blowpop for getting him to come back over the years. He rarely disappoints.



Tune: Erol Alkan and Boys Noize - Waves

http://www.erolalkan.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/erolalkan

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