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This review was posted in the Insekt 2nd Birthday!! forum

Subject

Insekt 2nd Birthday!! @ The Fridge in London (UK)

Fri 13 Oct 2006

Review

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Subject

The DJ, the music... the crowd... the INSEKT!

Nutter	Living in Brighton, it's not often I go to London for a club night. We've got decent nights in Brighton nearly every week and the long haul to the capital and back can be a bit off-putting, so it had to be be something special.... I had heard of Insekt from my good friend and DSI buddie Ty and when he told me the line up for this 2nd birthday event I just had to go! And it did not disappoint. This was the very BEST in hard house - hard, danceable, and, importantly, fresh and new... After Type1's interesting techno-eclectic opening set, Twist resi Steve Maynard went b2b with Richard Toomz for some seriously funky groovy warm up hard house, with some fantastic sexy tunes, one of my favourites being (and I think I've got this right) 'Organ Grinder' by Olive Grooves (is that yet another Maddox alias?). Hard house with soul! Next up Insekt mainmain James Nardi upped the pace and the crowd stomped a bit harder. Then, at midnight, something we were all very excited about - Brighton's finest, Dom Sweeten, aka Defective Audio playing (ableton) live. Dom is probably my favourite hardhouse writer-producer at the mo - not only all that Def Audio stuff, but also Base Graffitti, one half of OD404 and plenty of other aliases - in each case the finest dirty tunage and the sharpest tightest remixes. He could have chosen from dozens of his classics to play tonight but mostly treated us to new and newish stuff, perhaps my favourite being 'Eject'. Now that rocks! But it got better (unbelievably) for next up was KARIM. You may have heard some of his records played by others but to see him play out is something else. He always gets a massive reaction not only because of his relentless hardness and quality tunage but because he has a truly unique and original sound and style. There is honestly no one like him. I have been told by DSI DJ buddies who know a lot more about this sort of thing than me (thanks Miss Nasty and Pathogen) that some of the tracks that Karim plays in his sets are his own tracks or remixes that he doesn't make available for others - hence you get something exclusive with Karim. Not only different tracks but, in terms of sound and production sound, something incredibly fresh BRIGHT pokey funky primal... it's so refreshing, so different. Along with his own compositions he also dropped Maddox 'have faith', Incisions' 'Beyond motion' (very fast!), 'raise your hands have a good time' (the one TDV used to play) and some Captain Tinrib stuff at the end. But it all sounded Karim-style and fitted in perfectly with an incredibly distinctive set... How could this be followed....? Next up was Justin Bourne b2b with Paul Glazby. They had to be different, not better. Actually, I felt they could have upped the bpm a little from the start of their set, since they were following Karim (they did up it considerably later in the set) and perhaps not have as many breakdowns. But these are minor quibbles. This was QUALITY all the way, and one of the very best sets I have heard (by anyone) since the last time I saw Glaz in Brighton in October last year. I have every single mix CD The Great Gatsby has ever put out and I think I only recognized a couple of tracks that were played during this two-hour set. What this tells you is that Glaz is not only the master of danceability - relentlessy hard and solid in sound, hypnotic and absorbing - but that he is right at the cutting edge, and this was just what I wanted. Few DJs will play so much new music - CAN get away with playing so much new music - at once and keep the crowd, but Glaz is the master. He is in my view the best all rounder in the business now - not only in terms of danceability playing out, but a top top writer producer and remixer (with a wide range of styles of music within the overall 'hard, dark' brief) as well as being head honcho of every hard fan's favourite label, Vicious Circle, which has broken such new talents as Ben Stevens, and released new stuff from the original hard DJs/producers - Ian M, Pete Wardman, Captain Tinrib, and in doing so defining an identity and direction for hardhouse which has kept the underground alive (and even made it accessible to the wider hard dance audience at a time when the genre as whole has gone a bit stale). To end such a night, and after these star acts, Marc Johnson, the other Insekt mainman of course had to be hard hard HARD. So he treated the crowd to some wonderful tracks from the unholy dark hard trinity: Karim, Captain Tinrib and RR Fierce, at 10 million bpm ;o) If that wasn't enough, the lucky loyal punters who stayed to the end (and there were plenty of them) were treated to free Flashpoint records and an Insekt birthday CD of mostly new tracks, my favourites being Karim & Captain's 'Heartbreak' and Marc Johnson's 'Hoof' (Nik Denton remix). Get in there! Musically the best night I've been to since I went to the Superfish party at the same venue back in the Summer, and easily on a par with 'I love VC'. TOP music for punters who love music and love to dance! Well done Insekt! :o) Reply Quote Posted Mon 16 Oct 2006

Nutter

Living in Brighton, it's not often I go to London for a club night. We've got decent nights in Brighton nearly every week and the long haul to the capital and back can be a bit off-putting, so it had to be be something special.... I had heard of Insekt from my good friend and DSI buddie Ty and when he told me the line up for this 2nd birthday event I just had to go!

And it did not disappoint. This was the very BEST in hard house - hard, danceable, and, importantly, fresh and new...

After Type1's interesting techno-eclectic opening set, Twist resi Steve Maynard went b2b with Richard Toomz for some seriously funky groovy warm up hard house, with some fantastic sexy tunes, one of my favourites being (and I think I've got this right) 'Organ Grinder' by Olive Grooves (is that yet another Maddox alias?). Hard house with soul! Next up Insekt mainmain James Nardi upped the pace and the crowd stomped a bit harder.

Then, at midnight, something we were all very excited about - Brighton's finest, Dom Sweeten, aka Defective Audio playing (ableton) live. Dom is probably my favourite hardhouse writer-producer at the mo - not only all that Def Audio stuff, but also Base Graffitti, one half of OD404 and plenty of other aliases - in each case the finest dirty tunage and the sharpest tightest remixes. He could have chosen from dozens of his classics to play tonight but mostly treated us to new and newish stuff, perhaps my favourite being 'Eject'. Now that rocks!

But it got better (unbelievably) for next up was KARIM. You may have heard some of his records played by others but to see him play out is something else. He always gets a massive reaction not only because of his relentless hardness and quality tunage but because he has a truly unique and original sound and style. There is honestly no one like him. I have been told by DSI DJ buddies who know a lot more about this sort of thing than me (thanks Miss Nasty and Pathogen) that some of the tracks that Karim plays in his sets are his own tracks or remixes that he doesn't make available for others - hence you get something exclusive with Karim. Not only different tracks but, in terms of sound and production sound, something incredibly fresh BRIGHT pokey funky primal... it's so refreshing, so different. Along with his own compositions he also dropped Maddox 'have faith', Incisions' 'Beyond motion' (very fast!), 'raise your hands have a good time' (the one TDV used to play) and some Captain Tinrib stuff at the end. But it all sounded Karim-style and fitted in perfectly with an incredibly distinctive set...

How could this be followed....? Next up was Justin Bourne b2b with Paul Glazby. They had to be different, not better. Actually, I felt they could have upped the bpm a little from the start of their set, since they were following Karim (they did up it considerably later in the set) and perhaps not have as many breakdowns. But these are minor quibbles. This was QUALITY all the way, and one of the very best sets I have heard (by anyone) since the last time I saw Glaz in Brighton in October last year. I have every single mix CD The Great Gatsby has ever put out and I think I only recognized a couple of tracks that were played during this two-hour set.

What this tells you is that Glaz is not only the master of danceability - relentlessy hard and solid in sound, hypnotic and absorbing - but that he is right at the cutting edge, and this was just what I wanted. Few DJs will play so much new music - CAN get away with playing so much new music - at once and keep the crowd, but Glaz is the master. He is in my view the best all rounder in the business now - not only in terms of danceability playing out, but a top top writer producer and remixer (with a wide range of styles of music within the overall 'hard, dark' brief) as well as being head honcho of every hard fan's favourite label, Vicious Circle, which has broken such new talents as Ben Stevens, and released new stuff from the original hard DJs/producers - Ian M, Pete Wardman, Captain Tinrib, and in doing so defining an identity and direction for hardhouse which has kept the underground alive (and even made it accessible to the wider hard dance audience at a time when the genre as whole has gone a bit stale).

To end such a night, and after these star acts, Marc Johnson, the other Insekt mainman of course had to be hard hard HARD. So he treated the crowd to some wonderful tracks from the unholy dark hard trinity: Karim, Captain Tinrib and RR Fierce, at 10 million bpm ;o)

If that wasn't enough, the lucky loyal punters who stayed to the end (and there were plenty of them) were treated to free Flashpoint records and an Insekt birthday CD of mostly new tracks, my favourites being Karim & Captain's 'Heartbreak' and Marc Johnson's 'Hoof' (Nik Denton remix). Get in there!

Musically the best night I've been to since I went to the Superfish party at the same venue back in the Summer, and easily on a par with 'I love VC'. TOP music for punters who love music and love to dance! Well done Insekt! :o)