Clubs

Brian d'Souza's Glasgow club night Highlife expands its horizons globally

‘Highlife started with a conversation about the mass of fantastic music being made outside of the normal Western club genres, of things like house, techno and dubstep.’ That conversation was between Brian d’Souza (speaking above) and Andrew Thomson…

Cabaret Voltaire's Alternative Freshers' Week

A list of reasons to attend the week-long club extravaganza

SBTRKT Welcome to Edinburgh, say Cab Vol, as they introduce nine big student specials in a row. Allow us to take you through who’s appearing, starting with Young Turks-signed London producer Aaron Jerome, aka SBTRKT, playing at Sugarbeat. The…

Heavy Gossip and Ultragroove join forces

DJs Nick Yuill and Gareth Sommerville discuss the past and future of the Edinburgh house nights

Nick Yuill (Heavy Gossip) ‘Myself, [promoter] Paul [Cunningham] and Gareth [Sommerville] first got together to discuss doing one-off events and we realised we had the exact same aims and goals and it kind of rumbled on from there. ‘My first club…

Death Disco: Trans-Europe Expressway

Two-venue club night featuring Factory Floor, Lindstrom, Prins Thomas and Feadz

Anyone making Glasgow their home for the new student year is in for a treat here, and would be well advised to get on board the Arches’ Trans-Europe Expressway early to see just what sort of clubbing scene their new city has to offer. The cavernous…

Electric Frog September Weekender 2011

Frankie Knuckles, The Fall, Jeff Mills, Mogwai, and Joe Claussell feature in stellar line-up

Whoever chose to carry out some large-scale maintenance at their Eastvale Place business premises on the last weekend of July has inadvertently done Glasgow’s clubbing fraternity a favour. It might have meant the planned Electric Frog Summer Weekender…

Clubbers' Decktionary: Cosmic

DJ Hobbes guides us through clubbing's myriad genres

Cosmic (disco) adj/proper noun. aka Afro Cosmic, also Space Disco. Originally an highly eclectic, mid-tempo (9-105 BPM) style, which nowadays generally exhibits a lot of space, reverb and echo/delay in the production, bubbling synths, delicate keys…

Crate digging: London Elektricity picks 5 top tracks

Hospital Records head returns to Xplicit

From the 1976 Big Terror Movie Themes album, Geoff Love & His Orchestra ‘Three Days of the Condor’ (Music For Pleasure) is an amazing piece of lounge dirty funk. I was Geoff Love’s roadie on his tour of Gibraltar in 1986. Along with the orchestra’s horn…

Crate digging: Gary Beck picks 5 great tracks

Producer releasing on Soma, Drumcode, Minus and Bek Audio

Gary Beck is one of the younger artists signed to Soma (he also has releases on Drumcode, Minus and his own Bek Audio) and he joins Slam and Animal Farm at the Edge Festival’s annual Soma Night as part of the Glasgow label’s 20th birthday celebrations.

A guide to the music genre Footwork

Clubbers Decktionary

Footwork aka [Chicago] Juke (see also [Detroit] Jit, Shangaan electro) proper noun: so-called because of the associated dance crazes – essentially a contemporary form of break dance; wildly uptempo (140–170 BPM), characterised by syncopated beats…

New Glasgow club Oh My Days from team behind Killer Kitsch

French Fries and Oneman among upcoming guests

‘I grew up going to nights like Numbers, Monox and Optimo, and more recently Stay Plastic and Fortified,’ says Martin Moffat. ‘All of whom have done or are still doing amazing things for Glasgow music. I’m just happy to get a chance to do something that…

Clubbers decktionary: Moombahton

A guide to the musical genre defined by midtempo shuffling rhythms

Moombahton (moom-bar-tonn), also Moombahsoul, Moombahcore, Moombahstep, proper noun: midtempo style (105-115 BPM), characterised by the same shuffling rhythms (or ‘riddims’) of reggaeton, cumbia and dancehall with heavy bass and beats, plus…

Ben UFO guests at Glasgow dubstep club Kollektiv

Co-founder of second wave dubstep label Hessle Audio

Alongside Ramadanman and Pangaea, Ben UFO is one of the founders of second wave dubstep label Hessle Audio, which was one of the first of the genre’s dedicated labels to originate outside London. Although he’s originally from the capital (with a mother…

bETAMAX - New Edinburgh club plays 70s and 80s edgy dance

New club from promoters behind FAST and Vintage Violence

‘In our heads bETAMAX will be halfway between some legendary NY night like Danceteria and a local disco in Basildon circa 1982. If the Tories want to drag us back to that era in the worst of ways, we can at least enjoy the soundtrack,’ explains…

Crate Digging: Club Noir on the records required for a burlesque club

Featuring Urban Voodoo Machine, Imelda May and Gogol Bordello

We all know about the burlesque shows that are the centre piece of every Club Noir, but what about the music? We ask their resident, DJ Loveless, to tell us what sets the dancefloor shaking as they prepare for their Fringe special

Five great tracks by Plump DJs

UK DJ duo set for Edinburgh club Bass Syndicate

1. Big Groovy Fucker An early Plumps production (their second release on Finger Lickin’) that takes its name literally. A big pumping groove machine that ends in a flurry of acidic breakbeat. 2. Creepshow Sees Andy Gardner and Lee Rous at their…

Interview - Mike Slott, Eclair Fifi and Machinedrum of LuckyMe

Glasgow DIY label set for Edinburgh Festival clubnight

Mike Slott (producer) I met Dom [Flannigan] who runs LuckyMe in Borders Books. He was sneaking flyers into hip hop magazines. We got chatting, we liked similar music and in Glasgow if you’re into a certain kind of music, you bump into the same people…

Crate-digging: Nick Hollywood - Electro Swing

White Mink Electro Swing Speakeasy club set for 2011 Fringe

Nick Hollywood created the White Mink: Black Cotton compilation album, which gave birth to the White Mink Electro Swing Speakeasy events. Making their Fringe debut, Hollywood lets us know what to expect from his set. Just out on my own label is the…

Clubbers' Decktionary: Krautrock

An introduction to Krautrock

Proper noun: eclectic style, originally German, mostly instrumental and usually combining a traditional rock band line-up (guitars, bass, drums) with electronic instruments; often characterised by a four-four time signature and stripped-back productions…

Virgo Four guest at Rubadub’s 19th birthday

Chicago house greats set for Glasgow record shop's Sub Club night

‘We weren’t cool with any of the other DJs back then,’ says Merwyn ‘Merl’ Sanders, one half of old school 1980s Chicago house duo Virgo Four alongside Eric Lewis. ‘Our stuff was weird, it was a little mellow, and I’m coming from a Christian Church…

Interview: DJ Sneak - set for Edinburgh's Telefunken

The legendary DJ on 'real' underground house

DJ Sneak loves house music. In fact he’s kinda protective of the genre. ‘The word “house” has been murdered by the media and people like Swedish “blank” Mafia, which clearly know nothing about house music. Underground house will always keep the spirit…

DC69 & Diversify Loch Lomond Boat Party

Glasgow techno night takes party onto boat

If you run a successful local techno night, why uproot it all and take your regular crowd to a paddle steamer cruising around Loch Lomond on a Saturday afternoon? ‘It’s an absolutely brilliant venue,’ explains co-promoter Raymond Studden, aka DJ…

Nicolas Jaar interview - Electronic pop artist on UK tour

NY-based experimental DJ and head of the Clown and Sunset label

Trends bloom and wither fast in the fragmented landscape of modern music, and most die out without ever seeing the light of the popular consciousness. In the high-turnover world of electronic music this ephemeral air is accelerated, although it’s…

Electric Frog

The EF Weekender may have been reduced to one day but it’s still one of the best parties in Glasgow

Disappointment at this year’s second instalment of Glasgow’s hipster warehouse weekender Electric Frog being reduced from two days to one will be tempered by the fact that the single day should still rank among the music events of the summer. Although…

Crate Digging: Before he lays waste to the Slam tent techno titan Dave Clarke takes us though his favourite albums

I’m going to go completely vinyl, as you are probably aware I haven’t actually played professionally with vinyl for at least nine years so I’m going to go ‘back in the box’. I’ve had Devo Freedom of Choice (Warner Brothers) since it came out, I…

Clubbers' Decktionary: B-more

DJ Hobbes guides us through clubbing's myriad genres

B-more or Bmore, aka B-more Club, adj: Uptempo (120-140 BPM) hip hop/breaks originally from Baltimore, with an 8/4 time signature, using short, repetitive vocal samples – often call-and-response-style raps or chants – over old school drum breaks…