The release date of our man James Holden's eagerly anticipated DJ Kicks compilation is slowly edging closer - perhaps painfully so as far as all of you real fanatics are concerned. We feel your pain.
But thankfully those good folk over at !K7 are here to help, by offering up the mp3 of Mr Holden's exclusive new DJ Kicks track Triangle Folds for free download to tide you over until the dramatic unveiling of the full mix CD. Simply click here: Happy Friday indeed!
Vinyl junkies need not feel left out, for the 'Triangle Folds' exclusive track (and bonus Holden-special alternative mix) will also see a proper vinyl release on May 24th alongside the full mix album, which you can pre-order here now. Just over 3 weeks to go!
This track is awesome! I wish there were more producers like Holden: less releases because each track actually takes a lot of time....so much detail that stands above and beyond techno, minimal, or anything else....little compositions.
it really is an amazing song, very nice easy listening loose and free, kind of reminds me of zuckerzeit. oeh and the ending is dizzying in a great way!
James you achieved it again to break open new directions in music.. This song is so far away removed from planet earth.. Great job! I love what you're doing!
the christmas elves living in james' head pitter pattered out another schlager killing parade of goody goodness. schlager took one to the cranium with triangle folds, you can even hear the sound it made near the end...BAM. makes me want to get out my schulze gets the blues dvd and watch schulze slap the evil spirits of schlager around on stage at the polka festival. james' production style is perfectly mimicing the second law of thermodynamics. nothing beats a track laced with the stumbling facts of entropy. bravo hamster.
Any Londoners at a loose end next Friday would do well to drop in on new monthly club night Formula, kicking off at 10pm at a venue calling itself The Islington Metal Works at 7 Torrens Street - which seems to be a beloved place known better to me as the Electrowerkz going under another name (fellow golden oldies may remember Hooj Choons' amazing Elements parties that were the highlight of our clubbing calendar when we first moved to London). The rough-around-the-edges venue is a personal favourite, and the door tax is just five pounds (tickets available now from Resident Advisor), which grants access to the following entertainment:
For Border Commies it offers a welcome opportunity to snatch a sneak preview of krautling Luke Abbott's forthcoming debut album 'Holkham Drones' in its embryonic live set form, but Jori Hulkonnen-co-produced Finnish double act Villa Nah also promise to provide further fuel for our unshakeable synth-pop addiction. A live set from Tirk's Architeq and DJ sets from Ali Renault, occasional partner of Radio Slave Joel Martin (of their Quiet Village collaboration fame), Crispin Dior, Lauren Canyon and Andreas Presley should also ensure that the evening passes in a manner that is altogether pleasing to the ear. So I trust we will be seeing you? RSVP here.
The White Heat mailout has just informed me that Mr Etienne Jaumet will be making a London stop-off at their Madame Jojo's night on June 8th (tickets on sale now via Ticketweb), which gives me the perfect excuse to share with you this live video we recently uncovered amongst the archives of the ambitious Grandcrew live concert filming site, captured at a Versatile Records party back in 2008:
Etienne Jaumet may just be the cutest nerd you are ever likely to see. One half of the also-awesome Zombie-Zombie synth-and-drum duo (which I suppose makes him a plain old Zombie), Etienne can also count himself amongst just a handful of current purveyors of dance music that our own ever-particular James Holden actually likes. And contrary to what you might have assumed from the Night Music recordings, we are not dealing with cheap saxophone samples here: a minute into opening track and Holden-favourite 'Repeat Again After Me' Etienne wheels out his own extraordinary live sax skills to complement his synth-love to jaw-dropping effect. Wow.
It is always nice to get an update from sometime Border Community collaboratorDextro: the latest tells of forthcoming EP 'Zero Circle', which will see a limited-edition-of-200 12" release on his own 16k Records label on May 17th. As well as the uplifting original version of Ring Cycle (which will already be familiar to converts to his life-affirming Winded album) and a bonus live version, Dextro auteur Ewan has drafted in a trio of remix support in the form of Numbers' TVO, Socco Chico and Anticon's Alias (who takes on alternative 'Winded' track 'The Pacifist').
We're particularly taken with the accompanying video to Ring Cycle, where a simple mirroring effect transforms footage shot by Ewan's brother from the Tokyo monorail and "a very smooth bus" on the way to the airport into a series of magical otherworldly floating landscapes. The results are balletic, psychedelic, kaleidoscopic and hypnotic, one minute recalling expensive CGI, the next bringing to mind Fuck Buttons' signature artwork geometry. I could literally watch this stuff for hours:
Any Polish readers out there (you never know!) might be interested to know that Ewan is bringing his one-man-band Dextro live show to Poland this weekend, to the Bytomskie Centrum Kultury in Bytom this Saturday (25th April). But in the likely event that you can't make that particular show, Ewan has also made a host of previous live sets available to download for everyone everywhere from the Dextro website. And hopefully there will be more live dates to come that are a little closer to home, provided that Ewan's recently embarked upon PhD in Sociology doesn't get in the way...
ODDSAC is the, well, odd name of the industrious Animal Collective's forthcoming new 54 minute long "visual album", where a brand new Animal Collective score is set against the dark and twisted visual imaginings of filmmaker Danny Perez. You may already be familiar with the work of Mr Perez from his intense video backdrops to complement the respective Black Dice and Panda Bear live experiences. If not, this short and definitely not sweet trailer should give you some idea of what to expect:
The DVD is slated for release "in the summer", but those impatient souls who can't wait that long can hunt down one of the many screening and Q&A combo deals featuring the director and members of Animal Collective, and maybe even a guest DJ after party to boot (lucky old Londoners get a DJ set from the Collective themselves). The full bumper list of American sessions is available on the ODDSAC website, whilst Europeans will have to hope they live near one of the locations below:
13th May: ICA, London, UK (18.30, 20.30, 22.30) 14th May: Mint Lounge, Manchester, UK (18.00, 20.00) 15th May: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK (15.00, 17.00) 18th May: Berlin Babylon (Rosa Luxembourg Str. 30) (21.00) 19th May: Uebel und Gefeahrlich, Hamburg, Germany (20.00) 21st May: Smart Space, Amsterdam, Netherlands (20.00)
Meanwhile, those of you eagerly awaiting a hard copy of the truly awesome new Panda Bear material unveiled at his recent date in London (and beyond) will be as disappointed as I was to read that Pitchfork reckons it won't be out until September (and Paw Tracks won't give us anything more specific than a will hopefully be released this year), on an album called 'Tomboy' (this much is true - and there are T-shirts to prove it). A couple of those songs in particular are just the thing that James has been looking for for his DJ sets; but I guess that he, like the rest of us, will just have to wait patiently until September, contenting ourselves with the ODDSAC Animal Collective visual fix in the meantime. Sometimes life is just not fair.
panda bear needs to quit the coy hype machine and start delivering promos to the right people. you would expect everybody from animal collective to ariel pink is taking notes and witnessing the BC fitness. it's like drug makers not knowing which doctors will make the best of the new medicine. but then again you have to take into account that we do live in a reality where idiots bid way too early on ebay auctions and where bumper stickers are placed on everything but bumpers. bumper stickers do not go on fucking trunk lids or back windows. only bumper stickers that say "i'm an idiot" can go elsewhere on a car than the bumper. fucking upside down world. atleast the BC has stupendous in patient care.
As the release date of James Holden's eagerly-anticipated DJ-Kicks compilation edges ever closer (May 24th on !K7, in case you were wondering), James is also readying himself to bring the physical DJ-Kicks experience to the people with an extensive programme of worldwide dates throughout May, June and July. As well as some more frequently visited favourite destinations in the UK, Europe and Japan, James will also be making a long-awaited return to Australia (his first since 2006). A comprehensive trip round the US is also on the cards, as he makes good on the first stage of a new commitment to twice-yearly residencies at New York's Cielo and LA's King King.
The full ball-busting tour schedule runs as follows, so with a bit of luck Mr Holden will be passing by your way very soon:
May 2010 21st Lux, Lisbon, Portugal (DJ-Kicks) 22nd Silo, Leuven, Belgium (DJ-Kicks) 27th Melkweg, Amsterdam, Netherlands (DJ-Kicks) 28th Liquid Lounge Club, Cork, Ireland (DJ-Kicks) 29th Alter Ego, Verona (DJ-Kicks)
June 2010 4th Übel & Gefährlich, Hamburg, Germany (DJ-Kicks) 5th We love Sonique @ Grande Halle de la Villette, Paris, France (DJ-Kicks) 11th Village Underground, London, UK (DJ-Kicks) 12th Watergate, Berlin, Germany (DJ-Kicks) 18th The Loft, Barcelona, Spain (DJ Kicks) 19th Fabrik, Madrid, Spain (DJ-Kicks) 26th Awakenings Festival 10 years anniversary, Amsterdam, Netherlands
July 2010 1st Supperclub, San Francisco, USA (DJ-Kicks) 2nd King King, Los Angeles, USA (DJ-Kicks) 3rd Neumo's, Seattle, USA (DJ-Kicks) 8th Cielo, New York, USA (DJ-Kicks) 9th Smart Bar, Chicago, USA (DJ-Kicks) 10th The Vault, El Paso, USA (DJ-Kicks) 17th Womb, Tokyo, Japan (DJ-Kicks) 18th Triangle, Osaka, Japan (DJ-Kicks) 19th Mago Club, Nagoya, Japan (DJ-Kicks) 23rd Villa, Perth, Australia (DJ-Kicks) 24th Chinese Laundry, Sydney, Australia (DJ-Kicks) 25th Lot 33, Canberra, Australia (DJ-Kicks) 26th Revolver, Melbourne, Australia (DJ-Kicks) 30th Nachtdigital # 13 Festival, Olganitz, Germany 31st Field Day, London, UK
seattle is going to be fun. i suggest seeing zen beach of course, cobain's bridge in aberdeen (from something in the way), the magician's supply shop at pikes place market, and coffee and cherry pie at the twin peaks diner. doesn't get any better than that.
Describing PEACE as "the first music atlas in the net" is definitely underselling it: what it actually is is a bumper selection of 180 mp3s collected from across the globe and available for as-good-as-free download in return for a very modest (€5 - €25) donation to the Catalan wing of Amnesty International.
And these aren't just any old mp3s either, as coordinators Buffet Libre have managed to coax contributions out of a seriously impressive selection of international names. Donators of particular note include the truly mighty Mogwai, future electrician Dan Deacon, fun-personified in the form of Stereo Total, the delicate textures of Austria's Fennesz and his Japanese mate Ryuchi Sakamoto, old Hefner-man Darren Hayman, the glossy electro-pop of Greek birds Marsheaux, Belgium's new wave legends The Neon Judgement and France's own dabblers in the same direction Black Strobe, our own friends from Catalunya The Requesters and Undo, the polite twinkles of Finland's Jori Hulkonnen, beat poet for the computer generation AGF/Delay, Brazilian nut jobs Bonde Do Role and the naive electro-rave of South Africa's Mujava feat Nonsense. Not to mention the USA's Micah P. Hinson And The Pioneer Saboteurs, Marissa Nadler, A Place To Bury Strangers, Asobi Seksu, The Spinto Band feat. The Beast Pageant, Dent May & Cowboy Maloney's Electric City and Jeffrey Lewis; Canada's Buck 65 and Malajube; Venezuela's Kid606 feat. Barbara Panther; the UK's Marc Almond, 4hero, Patrick Wolf, Dubstar, Si Begg, Gyratory System, Cicada and The Boy Least Likely To; Norway's Ane Brun; Germany's Ascii.Disko, Console and Jeans Team; France's Tahiti 80, The Toxic Avenger and Amélie-les-crayons; Italy's Dusty Kid; Iceland's Amiina & Kippi Kaninus; Sweden's I'm From Barcelona; Netherlands' Don Diablo; Switzerland's Heidi Happy feat. Paul Niehaus (Calexico) and Low Motion Disco; Israel's Nico Teen; and Australia's Operator Please.
And that is just the artists I have heard of: the hard-drive filling bumper stash also includes plenty of random play surprises you didn't realise you liked yet hailing from pretty much all over the world - Mexico, Cuba, Chile, Columbia, Bolivia, Argentina, Greenland, Denmark, Ireland, Hungary, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Tibet, China, Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Palestine, Thailand, Singapore, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, Ghana, Mali, Uganda, Bikya, Mozambique, Congo and New Zealand. There ought to be something amongst that lot to expand even the broadest of musical horizons, so set the downloading and unzipping marathon in motion here.
The Buffet Libre team who have put together this mammoth undertaking have their fingers in many pies, mainly mp3 flavoured: the multi-platform site includes the Spanish language mp3 blog Continental Breakfast, a 150-strong series of downloadable cover versions in their Rewind division, and the typically ambitious remix competition project Batidora which gives access to remouldable parts from the likes of Cut Copy, Shitdisco, The Go! Team, Holy Fuck, The Bravery, Ladyhawke, The Teenagers, Does it Offend You, Yeah?, Passion Pit, The Mae Shi, Infadels, The Rumble Strips, Dragonette, Wolf Gang, Stereo MCs, Don Diablo, Munk and Frankmusik. That ought to keep you busy for a while.
With lighting technology getting cleverer, cheaper and ever more accessible, it is clearly time for live performers to up their game. And it seems that everyone is at it: our own new recruitKate Wax is currently readying her new light-and-sound set-up for its Mapping Festival debut in Geneva (May 7th), the ever-adventurous Caribou's new live show has an advanced new visual component (as previously reported here), and latest Crosstown Rebels addition Deniz Kurtel comes from a full-blown light-and-art installation background.
Our old friends We Love Art (previous hosts of the lovely We Love Border Community summer extravaganza) are predictably right behind these evolutions in technology, commiting to a pair of forward-thinking light presentations sandwiched either end of this year's Villette Sonique festival in Paris. The main festival runs between 31st May and 6th June and features performances from Joanna Newsom, Owen Pallett, Young Marble Giants, Atlas Sound, Manuel Gottsching, Oneohtrix Point Never, Acid Mothers Temple, Wolf Eyes, Growing, Fuck Buttons, Oneida, Washed Out and Blues Control.
Proceedings are officially launched by the We Love Art crew on May 8th with the only French outing for Richie Hawtin's much-hyped new Plastikman multimedia live show, supported by usual suspects and Minus cohorts Magda, Troy Pierce and Marc Houle. The whole light and sound extravaganza is complemented by a special Plastikman iPhone app called SYNK, which links up with the live visuals and a camera showing what Richie can see, and probably explains why so many people are waving their phones about in this sneak preview clip from the Timewarp festival a couple of weekends ago. For a moment there we thought perhaps someone had invented a lighters-in-the-air app for the iPhone (they have, as it happens - 16 of them!).
And then on June 5th the series of events draws towards a close with homegrown hero Vitalic's own take on cutting edge live electronic performance, using a system of LED screens and mirrors put together by "stage design architects" 1024 to seemingly epic effect:
Claiming to present the future of the live electronic music show, both ambitious We Love Sonique events take place in the impressive Grande Halle de la Villette: get your tickets now (priced at €29,50 each, or €48,50 for a pass giving entry to both events) from Digitick.
Also watching Joanna Newsom as she hatchet faces her way into a niche sound makes me wanna chew gum forgetting to take the foil wrapper off. facial contortion-ism is the next level in gaining access to the dimension where you are indie, but the very system you shunned by going to liberal arts college is now paying the roof that's over your head and the organic fair trade coffee thats coursing through your veins as waves of calcium stimulate a never ending itune selling buccinator wrestling act. whatever happened to tori amos? exactly. guess this is not really happenenan.
Exciting news to announce today: as the observant may already have guessed, the supremely talented Kate Wax has now officially joined the family here at Border Community, as she puts the finishing touches to her vocally exhilarating second album 'Dust Collision' (slated for release in late 2010).
Kate Wax is the alter ego of Aisha Devi Enz, the Swiss-born, half-Tibetan, totally-driven, self-producing avant-garde singer-songwriter that gifted the world with her Reflections of the Dark Heat debut album via Switzerland's ambassadors of cool Mental Groove back in 2006. And now, after a natural break for baby-making and subsequent months spent holed up with her beloved machines in her cosy studio cave, Aisha finds herself ready to dust off her Kate Wax persona and return to the dancefloor fray to unveil a bold new collection of dark, unconventional electronic post-pop going by the name of 'Dust Collision'.
But before all of that, the reincarnation of the Kate Wax live presence is set to take place on May 7th at Geneva's La Parfumerie, when Aisha is set to resume the stage at the city's VJ culture-promoting Mapping Festival in her native Switzerland, complete with three-piece band line-up and an impressive new complementary light show that promises to give a fleeting, pulsing visual presence to her fully-formed dark poetic visions. A uniquely physical fusion of her machine-loving electronic mastery and her soaring free-soprano vocal flights, the added intensity of this new light (and shadow) component serves to advance the Kate Wax live experience to a whole new level of fully-immersive performance art that befits the refined and mature, abstract yet fully cohesive nature of her new material.
The Mapping Festival is an international visual and audio festival based in Geneva, Switzerland, which this year runs between May 6th and May 16th 2010. The festival was formed in 2005 around the goal of promoting the VJ medium, its culture and its connection to electronic music. Since then it has evolved to also present related projects in contemporary art such as audiovisual performances and interactive installations, as well as including workshops and lectures that further emphasize the aspect of community that is a strong component of the VJ movement. This year's event also features performances and showcases from Skream, DFuse, Chicks on Speed present “Monsters of Tech”, Dat Politics, Hijak, Otto Von Schirach, Gangpol und mit, Nosaj Thing & Fair Enough and Sinner DC.
This special early showcase of Kate Wax's new material and accompanying light show offers a unique sneak preview at the delights to come when new album 'Dust Collision' hits the shelves later this year. In the meantime, whilst she puts the finishing touch to this second longplayer, the Kate Wax three-person-plus-light-show live production is ready and available for further opportunities to showcase her evolving new material in the live arena. Aisha is also keen to now reconnect with the dancefloor by showcasing her own idiosyncratic taste in the form of a highly-recommended Kate Wax DJ set, an upfront example of which has just been unveiled over on our good friends Allez-Allez' blog, going by the intriguing name of Carl Jung & Me.
Watch this space for further release information and live / DJ dates; promoters should direct their requests to the lovely Katja at Border Booking.
Montreal's dedicated festival of electronics Mutek have just added our own travelling technologist Nathan Fake (amongst a host of illustrious others) to the line-up for this year's event (their 11th so far), which takes place in a series of venues across the city between 2nd and 6th of June. Nathan will round off a showcase featuring recipients of the Krautrock baton Mouse On Mars, Domino's composer for the 21st century Jon Hopkins and local boys Jedi Electro at the Metropolis venue on Thursday 3rd June, where we can count on him to deliver on the festival brief of compelling live electronic performance.
Early bird passports giving access to the whole five day festival are on sale now for the special price of $195 (in Canadian money), which will also give you access to performances from Matmos, Matias Aguayo (featuring the excellently-named Original Hamster), Nurse With Wound, Ikonika, Actress, Jacek Sienkiewicz, Pepe Braddock, Moritz Von Oswald Trio and Theo Parrish. Saturday 5th is the biggie, when our favourite DJ Koze joins Paul Kalkbrenner and Sweden's Minilogue for their North American live debut at one of the festivals two highly-recommended outdoor MUTEK//Piknics in the day time, before moving on to the brutal audio experiments of Carl Michael Von Hausswolff, Tim Hecker, Ben Frost and Vadislav Delay in the evening, or alternatively the deeper musings of Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts, Henrik Schwarz and Dixon over in the Metropolis.
And of course there are more names still to come, so I would keep checking the Mutek website for details, particularly around April 13th when the complete line-up for the full five days will be unveiled.
As promised a few weeks back on this very blog, I can now finally bring you the eagerly anticipated announcement of James Holden's next musical step. Taking his place in an illustrious line of previous pioneers, James will deliver the next installment in !K7's definitive mix album series DJ Kicks on May 24th (May 25th if you are in the US):
And now that the mix is signed, sealed and delivered in all of its primal, rhythmic glory, I am also allowed to unveil the tracklisting. Which may seem a bit like spoiling the surprise, but you know as well as I do that even if you do manage to track down all of the records below, noone can put them together quite like our man Holden:
1) Piano Magic - Wintersport / Cross-Country 2) Grackle - Disco (Musiccargo Remix) 3) Mordant Music - Olde Wobbly 4) Maserati - No More Sages 5) Caribou - Lemon Yoghourt 6) Luke Abbott - Soft Attacks 7) Mogwai - The Sun Smells Too Loud (Holden Remix) 8) Kieran Hebden / Steve Reid - Departure 9) Ursula Bogner - Punkte 10) Eric Copeland - Auto Dimmer 11) Mit - Rauch (Luke Abbott Remix) 12) ARP - Potentialities 13) Lucky Dragons - Open Melody 14) Holden - Triangle Folds (DJ-KiCKS) 15) James Ruskin - Definition Of 16) Legowelt - Flight of the Jupiter 17) Walls - Gaberdine 18) Lukas Nystrand - Never Fail (Vocal) 19) Didier Paquette - Arwen, Namarie 20) SS Pyramid Snake - Catacomb City
Much might be made of the tracklisting's eclectic nature, but let me say unequivocally that this is most definitely music-for-dancing-to that enraptures our most basic instincts to do so, even if it doesn't come pre-stamped with the term "dance music". You'll see.
And more than just his latest mix CD installment, the DJ Kicks formula also provides a vehicle for some new original Holden music, in the form of new single 'Triangle Folds', which will emerge in two lascivious alternative versions on an accompanying vinyl release. The eagle-eyed will also note the presence of a certain previously-unreleased Holden remix of our teenage heroes Mogwai, which will also finally be available for your own DJing pleasure on the downright essential DJ-Kicks double vinyl package, along with the hitherto unavailable on vinyl Luke Abbott remix of Mit's 'Rauch' and an exclusive preview of 'Soft Attacks' from the same Luke Abbott's forthcoming Border Community album 'Holkham Drones' - and many more goodies besides. Exciting times we live in, no?
Very exciting times indeed. Seems like James managed to sort himself out after our little chat at Corsica studios :) Really looking forward to this one..... WOOP WOOP!!!
Is that Triangle Folds track the latest greatest production? The battle tech files have been quite ever since The Reckoner remix. I think James should begin wearing a mustache or some kind of facial hair. Look at Nick Galifianakis, that in one badass beard wearing Greek.
Is anybody playing Future Islands - In the Fall up in da club?? If that shit doesn't melt faces I don't know what will.
this clip just proves how it would not be possible to inspire crowd response with out moral fortitude driving the choice of tunes. it is not possible to reach this kind of connection unless you're fucking jedi fighting the forces of darkness, but then in this case you swap the light-saber out for a deck. sure man is fallible but it's moments like these that make you wonder is it just someone playing something they think sounds ill and will rock a club? or is it something being said here? what a fucking genuine moment. behold http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njzC4FBNsZc
The music-for-dancing-to movement is fast gathering pace, as it prepares to advance another album for admission to the cannon on April 20th when the new installment from Caribou (Swim) hits the shops.
Like his good friend (and major proponent of the movement to get gig crowds dancing again) Kieran Hebden, the artist formerly known as Manitoba (aka Danitoba or Danibou, as he is more commonly known round these parts) has recently explored a growing interest in that unique multicellular organism of the dancefloor via guest DJ spots for the likes of Four Tet and our good selves. And it seems that this notion of a new loose, organic form of music-for-dancing-to is key to the sound of this latest Caribou album (which comes highly recommended from what our own Nathan Fake and James Holden have heard so far), as Dan explains:
"I got excited by the idea of making dance music that's liquid in the way it flows back and forth, the sounds slosh around in pitch, timbre, pan... Dance music that sounds like it's made out of water, rather than made out of metallic stuff like most dance music does."
I hate to say I told you so! Actually, I love it.
With this new album comes the obligatory tour marathon, which will see the already impressive four man Caribou live set up evolve into a cutting edge technological interplay between visuals, electronics and the human players, as Kraftwerk's fabled man-machine moves a step closer to its extremely belated realisation. You really have to be there, but if you weren't quite quick enough to bag tickets for the truly hot sold out line-up of Caribou, Gold Panda, Hounds of Hate and Kieran Hebden at Corsica Studios on April 20th, there is still a chance to take part in the happening when Caribou returns to London on June 16th for another Heaven live extravaganza: the full supporting cast has yet to be announced, but I'd get those advance tickets now anyway to be sure.
Or there is always Field Day on July 31st (tickets here), when Dan joins our own James Holden and many more for an outdoor session; and since setting seems particularly well-matched to sound here, this might well be the ultimate way to take in the Caribou experience.
Advance tickets for this year's edition of the annual Victoria Park takeover Field Day on 31st July are already on sale, and since our own James Holden has been mentioned amongst the early release of names, you may want to ensure your attendance by securing yours well upfront here for the bizarre price of £33.33 (which I must warn you actually comes out at closer to 40 quid once you factor in booking fees...).
By now, the Field Day country-fete themed extravaganza has become a welcome mainstay of London's summer outdoor party scene, and the best thing about this festival is that you get to go home and sleep in your own bed at the end of it. The line-up is still being added to all the time, but so far the likes of Silver Apples, Caribou, Gold Panda, Max Tundra, No Age, Hudson Mohawke, Joker, Andrew Weatherall, Phoenix, Chilly Gonzalez, Mouse On Mars, The Fall, Simian Mobile Disco, These New Puritans, Esben and the Witch, Pantha Du Prince and Lightspeed Champion offer a good additional incentive to join us. In fact, such a fan am I of the mythical Simeon that I think that the presence of Silver Apples alone makes up for having to cut short our adventures in Germany (more about which will appear in this space very soon...).
It might sound like the beginning of a joke, but I am afraid you will have to write your own punchline, for actually this is a little plug for Border Community's impending Mexico excursion. This morning James Holden and Avus (the Scott of my headline!) set off for Mexico via Amsterdam, where they will join up with their exuberant Border Booking comrade Phil Kieran (from Belfast) for the journey onwards to play at their first stop-off, Mexico City's H2o club tonight (18th March).
James used to be a regular visitor to Mexico a few years back, and became a bit of a local hero; the feeling was reciprocated by James, who became quite a fan of the country's laid back attitude, as well as their Queso Fundido. But now several years have passed since his last visit (I think maybe it was as long ago as 2007?), which makes this latest tour long overdue. Monterey will be the second port of call for our intrepid trio tomorrow evening (19th), where they play together at the AM Club.
Then finally it is on to Juarez on Saturday 20th, the real-life border community that lies at a crossing point between Mexico and the USA, which unfortunately has recently hit the international headlines for all of the wrong reasons. Juarez (care of the Hardpop and Pastilla Digital crew) in particular was the place in Mexico that took most readily to James' sound, and their Germanic-themed club has played host to some wild nights with James at the helm, as well as a whole host of the rest of our Border Community crew. Life has been tough in the city of Juarez in more recent years, but on Saturday it is hoped that the loyal Holden-fans will feel ready to come out and play again:
Residents just over the border in Juarez' Texas counterpart El Paso may be wondering what happened to the previously advertised Sunday evening show at The Vault that has now mysteriously vanished from James' calendar: due to visa considerations this particular date has been moved back to July, when James will be back for a long-awaited full US tour. As ever, watch this space for details, and until then you can relax safe in the knowledge that you will get your Holden-fix eventually!
It's too bad that James didn't make his way down to central america. I got to see him in El Salvador back in 2005 and 2007, it sure would be lovely for him to visit again!
As tonight's Corsica Studios shakedown dawns, I undoubtedly have better things to be doing than updating my blog (now I see why they invented Twitter!). But I thought some of you may appreciate some set-times in advance, so I feel duty-bound:
I also have a sad announcement to make: the Tombola has been cancelled this time, on account of a lack of effort on my part. But if anyone finds themselves too traumatised by this devastating news, I will be offering my counselling services on the evening. Hey, maybe next time?
Hopefully the Kraut-tinged live set from Falling From Cloud 9 will offer enough incentive to get yourself down there early (check his Myspace and the Avus guest mix for a sneak preview); fans of a certain other Border Community artist on tonights bill should pay particular attention to the Falling From Cloud 9 set for a special guitar-based re-interpretation of something very familiar!
And beyond that there lies the magical mystery tour of a Kate Wax DJ set, Fuck Buttons' Andrew Hung's taming of the dancefloor, Avus' mainroom big guns, Ed Chamberlain's extremely BC twinkles, the long-awaited revelation of wherever it is that Petter' head is at nowadays, and of course, our old faithful golden Holden. I can't wait!
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