ITAL TEK + MY PANDA SHALL FLY
Birthdays, Dalston | May 26th
Soundcrash present yet another well-organised and attractive line-up, this time at Kingsland Road’s Birthdays. Just the right kind of inspiration to keep you going at the tail end of yet another May bank holiday.
It’s easy to envisage the logic behind bringing Ital Tek, My Panda Shall Fly and Eagles For Hands, three extremely tuneful and unique electronic artists, together on a single bill. But you could equally misled by any preconceptions, as tonight represented an opportunity for the trio to let loose and have a little fun.
Eagles For Hands’ live set opened up to a fairly sparse crowd, but nonetheless he presented all the multi-layered, fluttering electronics and instrumental melodies you could ask for. His is a sound you can almost reach out and touch, a pleasure in any context from bedroom to dancefloor.
My Panda Shall Fly’s recorded output usually revolves around techy, almost IDM-tinged electronica, with a pervasive sense of fun. But in his DJ guise, the man Suren Seneviratne thrives on playing out a range of UK garage. The satisfaction he garners from this is obvious, the energy translating itself directly through the swelling crowd. He dropped classics such as Roy Davis Jr./Peven Everett’s Gabriel and Tina Moore’s Never Gonna Let You Go alongside curveballs including a garage remix of Tainted Love. No one was expecting that.
Planet Mu’s Ital Tek stepped up and did exactly what was expected of him, delivering a dose of progressive, IDM-style euphoric dubstep – for starters, anyway. But just like the man before him he took the opportunity for a little deviation, busting into some intense breakbeat rhythms, and amping it up into some monstrously reverberating basslines. Dubstep warbles morphed into dangerous D’n’B breaks, and further into house and even grimy bangers, as well as his own recent creations Hyper Real and Froze Up. It was an irresistible set, beautifully combining the elements which define his production.
Boba Fett was on hand to end things, firing off a Kendrick Lamar jam to open his set then working into some liquid drum ‘n’ bass. Such diversity continued to dominate, dropping Fools Rhythm from Amon Tobin pseudonym Two Fingers, and then leaving the room to fully lose its shit with a crowd-pleasing hip-hop bonanza mix featuring Jay-Z, Dead Prez and an array of ‘everyone-thinks-they-can-breakdance-when-they’re-drunk’ anthems. All in all, hugely entertaining.
– – – – – – – – – –
Words: Claude Barbé-Brown
CONNECT TO CRACK
