Crack

Booking big-hitters for nightclub at the tail end of July can be a risky business. The students are long gone, holidays, festivals and day-drinking have kicked in, and occasionally it’s just too damn hot to dance.

None of this appears to have fazed the Ist Das promoters, who have had the nerve to line up a massive summer double header at Timbuk2. Friday finds infamous ghetto house pioneer DJ Funk arriving from Chicago, while Dutch synth aficionado Legowelt, purveyor of gorgeously whacked-out house, techno and disco, steps up the following night. Hard hats on then.

Coming up to midnight on Friday, the signs don’t look promising. The DJs in the main room work hard to build a tempo fast enough for Funk to make an entrance, resulting in some of the light smattering of punters in the venue being scared off the floor by the punishing techno selection.

Fortunately the place is filling nicely by the time the more spacious sounds of Ramadanman’s Glut, influenced by a younger generation of Chi-town producers, usher the headliner’s skinny, hyperactive frame into the booth shortly after 1am.
For the next two hours, he does exactly what’s expected of him. He bangs in a new tune about once a minute, unleashing an infectious onslaught of hard-jacking 140 bpm rhythms – including his own raw classics such as Work That Body – and pottymouthed chants, some of which are bolstered by Funk hollering over the mic.

For those not familiar with the sound he helped create, it’s a pretty full on introduction, while for his fans – some of whom have travelled from as far away as Sheffield – it’s time to go totally nuts. But during the second hour the music’s one-dimensional nature starts to take its toll. Versions of played-out anthems such as Paul Johnson’s Get Get Down and Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You, and some of Funk’s shinier, newer material, add to the sense of a slight dip.

A storming finale, featuring DJ Deeon’s, Let Me Bang, among a slew of solid-gold booty workouts, whips things back into shape. But as Funk’s set ends and gets followed by the stuttering syncopations and booming bass of some current Chicago juke tracks, it feels like an exhilaratingly filthy snapshot of the 90s being rudely shown the door by the sounds of tomorrow.

No such continuity issues are present on Saturday, which finds the residents switching smoothly between old and new. Fresh UK house from the likes of Julio Bashmore leads into vintage Detroit in the shape of Derrick May and Darryl Wynn’s R-Tyme project, and the place is getting warm from early on.

The timeless vibe suits Legowelt, aka Danny Wolfers (plus about a million ridiculous aliases), down to the ground. The Dutchman has made a career out of refining and blending the sounds of late-80s house and techno with electro, italo, and a heavy dose of horror-film soundtrack darkness, into a prolific stream of releases.

Abandoning his usual clutch of synths for one small keyboard and a MacBook, Wolfers wrings a stream of intense acid lines and Roland beats out of his machines, his recent conversion to Ableton meaning that snatches of Kraftwerk and Frankie Knuckles also get thrown into the mix.

The advertised hour-long set gets extended to nearly 90 minutes, but it’s still over far too quickly, leaving a dancefloor thirsting for more – which the rezzies are happy to provide. Over the course of the weekend it’s definitely been a gamble that’s paid off.



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Words: Alex Turner

http://www.myspace.com/legowelt

http://www.myspace.com/djfunk1

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