News / / 06.06.13

FIELDS w/ MAX COOPER

Dance Tunnel, Dalston | May 31st

Dalston’s latest featureless basement-turned-venue plays host to the London leg of Fields’ label tour. Mainstay Max Cooper heads the bill above Ghosting Season’s live show and a performance from The Slow Revolt. 

The suitably titled Dance Tunnel comes with only one frill; a disco ball adjacent to the DJ booth, phenomenally positioned so that wherever in the club you decide to stand there’s a shaft of light aimed directly into your eyeballs. But seeing exactly where you are tonight isn’t all that important anyway, and the rest of the room is a blank canvas for a colourful selection of music.

Ghosting Season’s set is a polished affair and sounds, from the back of the room, like deep techy electronics. It’s only when we manage to dodge the blinding disco ball that we realise the sounds are driven by live guitar and percussion, layered on top of an electronic grounding. The duo’s work as Ghosting Season is an increasingly impressive prospect, having honed their craft under their Worriedaboutsatan moniker since way back. A more rock influenced incarnation, two of their tracks even cropped up, puzzlingly, in episodes of Coronation Street back in 2008.

At 1.30 the man everyone’s been waiting for is up. Max Cooper, the Belfast-born London producer and DJ has gained a truly international cult following in the last decade or so. One such example encountered on the evening was a self-professed “Lebanese hipster’ (apparently “the only thing worse than an everyday hipster is a Lebanese hipster”). He told us that Cooper was big in Beirut. We were unable to verify this fact at this time, but now believe it to be solid.

The crux of people’s obsession with Cooper lies in his unique fusing of upbeat techno and more leftfield electronica, always with a strong underlying melodic element. He’s known for roving off unexpectedly into ambient territory, but more often than not returns to earth before reaching a crescendo. His critically acclaimed RA mix is a perfect example of this. Tonight’s set leans more towards the mainstream techno side of Cooper’s expansive influences, but is not without its fascinating and sometimes baffling bits. As usual his set is hours long, with the driving 4/4 rhythm punctuated by glitched sections where Cooper moves across from the CDJs to an APC40 which is wired into the mixer and used to make everything go a bit wonky. This part has the interesting effect of stopping everyone in their tracks while simultaneously grabbing their attention, before jumping back into the groove.

The entire night feels extremely well thought-out, with Cooper as the deserved centre of attention and the remainder of the Fields posse accurately reflecting a diverse yet distinctive outfit.

 

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fieldsldn.net

Words: Jack Lucas Dolan

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