New Edinburgh venue The Third Door launches mini-festival Qabalala

This article is from 2012.

Rudi Zygadlo

In the past month it’s seemed there’s been precious little to get excited about on Edinburgh’s clubbing and live scene, but let’s put the hand-wringing to one side for a few paragraphs and remember that people are still out there trying to get things done. Like Ten Tracks online label founder Ed Stack.

So this Easter Sunday special (named not in honour of Madonna’s spiritual leanings, but to tie the religious philosophy’s ‘celebrate everything’ mentality to what Ten Tracks do) is an opportunity to show off what’s happening at the Third Door and also to shine a light on the music programme Stack has begun at the rebranded Assembly Bar upstairs. ‘We’ve got a wide spectrum of tastes and interests, from the acoustic to the electronic,’ he says, ‘but we like to present them in a way that makes sense. Here we’ll be starting with noise bands and ending with the clean, African-influenced electronic music of [Glasgow’s] Auntie Flo.’

In between there’ll also be dubstep from Planet Mu’s Rudi Zygadlo, ‘metal-dance’ act Tokamak and Leeds industrial gang Nope, as well as DJ representatives from No Globe, Departure Lounge and many more upstairs. ‘The situation isn’t great in Edinburgh at the moment,’ concedes Stack, ‘but we have a fantastic soundsystem, the right capacity and an eclectic policy. To nurture a local scene you need to be accepting and supportive, and sometimes the most important thing is to just let things happen.’

The Third Door & Assembly Bar, Edinburgh, Sun 8 Apr.