Next up to the plate were headliners Aspects in the current line up of original MC’s El Eye, Probe Mantis and Bubber Louie with Monkey Moo on turntable and beatbox duties. The opener was the ever popular ‘Top Choice’, opening track from the first album and seemingly a favourite with the crowd. There was an unfortunate yet typical hip hop style lack of microphone volume and lack of effort from the sound engineer but this didn’t stop the ‘Spects delivering a nice blend of new material, notably the DJ Format produced ‘Beat Tape’ and old Bristol Hip Hop classics such as ‘We Get Fowl’. DJ Format with musical cohort The Simonsound surrounded by an abundance of wires and equipment followed with a unique set of DJ Format tracks from all three albums with the odd Simonsound joint thrown in for very good measure with the added bonus visuals showing video’s and animation perfectly synced with the music.

Finishing touches to the evening were Bristol’s Bastard Sunz who also suffered from a lack of sound engineering prowess and for half of the show managed with one microphone but this again didn’t impede too badly on the performance and the crowd had the added bonus of Awkward handling turntables in typical dazzling fashion. The more adventurous members of the crowd that ventured into room 2 between acts were treated to a live MPC and iPad set from Ben One and Awkward in the way they do best.

Nights like this are much missed from Bristol judging by the crowd so hopefully The Lakota could capitalize and get some more running.

Words: Mr Fantasic

Even before this event kicked of you could tell it was going to be something special with over 23 hours of music, across 2 days, at two of the best underground clubs. Boasting over 50 acts with an astonishing 17 foreign acts from the likes of France, Holland, Italy and even as far as Australia you know that they were pulling out all the stops to make this one hell of a party.

As you walked into Motion the first room you came to was the cave. This was nicknamed ‘North –The early years ’ And that’s exactly what it was with sets from legendary North DJ’s such as Producer, Clarkee, Scorpio, Loftgroover , Akira, Dolphin and many more showing you exactly why North is 15 years old and still going strong. As you walked further into the venue you the next room you came to was the tunnel, once again boasting an array of top name DJ’s such as Dutch duo Outside Agency and fellow Dutchman Ophidian just a few of the big names playing in this room. Finally you enter the main room and the production in this room was spot on, big open warehouse with stunning lights and visuals, a massive system plus some of the biggest names within the hardcore techno scene such as Dione, Endymion and Ruffneck (who can usually be found playing to crowds of 20,000 people in their native country of the Netherlands) made for some blinding main room action.

All in all this was a top night, good atmosphere, top music from some brilliant DJ’s. The North crew should be very pleased with themselves. My only criticism about the night (and several others that I spoke to after the event) was the heavy handedness from the security which unfortunately seems to be a growing trend among the larger venues.
Words: Neil Rumble
Photo: Peter White Photography and Promotions

Check out photos from the event HERE

Check out these images from the night…

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As punters trickled into the sparsely-populated main room, London-based knob-twiddler Jon Hopkins took on the challenge of filling the massive venue and succeeded despite playing without the visuals around which his compositions often wrap. Overrunning slightly, his set wove together a myriad styles and sounds and warmed the ears of the steadily-growing crowd.

If Hopkins greased the wheels, it was Hudson Mohwake who started the engine. Again, impossible to put in a box, the artist known by his fans as HudMo laid down a set that explored, confused and excited. Starting off mainly with his own material as though he was testing the waters, his fingers were constantly working away, chopping his creations up and rearranging them in completely unique fashion – a bit like a kid with a frog and a scalpel in a high school science class. As he progressed, he moved more towards his recent work on the Pleasure Principle label, which rearranges cheesy 1990s R&B into massive party tunes, as well as a nod to Warp Records stablemate Rustie with After Light, which may soon become laughing gas’s official theme.

While HudMo gave his masterclass in sound manipulation, Washed Out went for the opposite extreme and delivered a performance that shied away from their more synthetic influences and focused on the organic. In the past, Washed Out was very much Ernest Greene-and-band: anyone present during Washed Out’s first visit to Bristol (Dot to Dot, 2010) would know Greene is more than capable of performing with just a MacBook and a microphone. But from opening number Hold Out to set-closer Eyes Be Closed, this was a full band effort that offered a consistency absent in performances from other acts. Their billing on the venue’s largest stage warranted a fuller sound and as we saw on this year’s Within and Without LP, the ‘chillwave’ tag doesn’t do them justice; there’s a lot more to this band.

Erol Alkan, on the other hand, showed the kind of complacency you wouldn’t expect from one of the biggest names in electro today. We all know what he can do: a glance at his CV proves he’s as effective a producer as he is remixer and re-remixer. Some of the mixes floating about on the internet are so good it’s insane. But across his two-hour set he kept the drops to a disappointing minimum and worked his CDJs mainly to keep things ebbing and flowing in generic manner. The sole big moment came as he segued a cut from Daft Punk’s Tron Legacy score into his reworking of Metronomy’s The Bay. Impressively, as he held back on the latter, a simple movement of his hand had the entire crowd crouch down Prodigy-style before returning to their feet as he finally let loose. A massive moment to end an otherwise underwhelming set – disappointing, when you consider the calibre of performances earlier in the night.

Words and photo: Michael Inglis

I managed to get there just in time to see DJ Yoda do his audio visual set. DJ Yoda does what DJ Yoda does very well – mixing audio and visuals together. Starting off with his typical intro referencing Star Wars and decending into his almost stereotypical cut and paste style, if you have seen him once then you have seen him a million times and after a while it loses its WOW factor, but I suppose, if the machine aint broke then no need to fix it.

The same could be said about Ugly Duckling in the ‘if it aint broke then dont change it’ attitude. But boy are they good, taking old skool styled hip hop beats, referencing stuff like Jurrasic 5 and the Sugar Hill Gang whilst coming out sounding like an overly sarcastic Beastie Boys. They’re definitely not a band who like to take things too seriously. Who cares that they have been doing pretty much the same thing for 18 years – it is so much fun. It’s proper hip hop, minus all the blinging or bragging about being the best at anything. All of their raps resemble old school party vibes and near constant stoner jibes, encouraging crowd participation, getting the entire crowd jumping or shouting out 1-2-3, or whatever chorus lyric they are trying to get us motivated by.

Each one of the grooves lays the thick old skool funk of Young Einstein over MCs Andy Cat and Dizzy Dustin’s lyrical party flows, with sprinkles of added sarcasm – cue the track where they pull and unsuspecting girl from the audience and perform a rap about dodgy chat up lines that have failed to impress, before getting the girl too choose between the two MCs. It was very much Old Skool Tricks well complimented by Old Skool Licks!

It’s all kind of silly but ultimately good fun as they thank pretty much everyone and Blow Pop for supporting them over the past 10 years! I must admit that’s the main reason I wanted to go! I didn’t think that anyone could follow it, so I took a bit of a break, just to catch a breath, because if you have ever been to Motion (Bristol’s biggest club) then you know how breathless it can get!

I returned for Krafty Kuts who provided some seriously cheesy big bass and beats, even though some of his mixing was technical and well crafted at times with real precision, it did feel like as if he was mixing from a Now compilation mix tape, complete with an electro version of Blur’s Song Two. It was all perfectly fine and pretty fun until he decided to drop some dubstep (or Dullstep depending on what side you see things). At that point I decided to take another break.

I returned for the Plump DJs, who were, in my opinion, the best of the whole DJ line-up. m
Mixing smartly crafted deep house together with driving bleeps, with scrumptious atmospherics, which create almost trippy effects for the last of the revellers who have out stayed into the very early hours of the morning!

Words: Jeffrey Johns

Words: Pat Lucas

Last weekend saw the world’s greatest dance event come to London’s Smirnoff presents Sensation come to Londons O2 arena in which thousands of party-goers dressed in white to see performances from Mr. White, Erick E, Joris Voorn, Nic Fanciulli & Fedde Le Grand, Martin Solveig Sander Van Doorn.

After more than a decade of creating dance music history and rocking over a million people around the globe with one-of-a-kind stage shows, acrobats, performers, state-of-the-art lightshows, lasers and fireworks which cost over £2million to create, this particular Sensation event turned out to be an unforgettable night.

Launched in Amsterdam in 2000, Sensation has taken the world by storm, touring the legendary nightlife celebration event to 21 countries to date, and counting. Filling stadiums and arenas with a sea of people dressed head to toe in white, from Barcelona to Melbourne and Prague to Sao Paulo, the spectacle was brought to the UK for the first time ever by The Smirnoff Co. With the vodka brand’s history of creating one-of-a-kind nightlife experiences around the world including Smirnoff Experience, Smirnoff U.R. The Night and the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project – this exciting new partnership proved to be a perfect combination.

The soundtrack was provided by the seven of the world’s top DJs who jetted in especially to play their sets. UK born superstar DJ Nic Fanciulli stunned the crowd with a special DJ set where he partnered with Joris Voorn. London DJ Nic commented that he “was nervous but extremely honoured to be playing to such a huge home crowd” other highlights included chart topper Martin Solveig impressing the 10,000 strong crowd with his spectacular show.

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Photos: Matt Smith