Here it is, my final lump of brain farts to the final party of my first working season that requires my brain farts. After being expelled from a three day closing party sesh of Amnesia, Space and finally a ten hour DC10 beast, brain farts is definitely the most appropriate phrase to use. I left DC10 on Tuesday morning stating I wasn’t going to touch the techno trove for a good few days, instead I was going to get right into South Korean pop or anything that didn’t come packaged with a heavy bassline. Absolute lies. By 8pm, I was back in techno’s deepest, girthiest depths. I can’t resist the stuff and I was all geared up for the Sankeys closing party with a packing of meat masters including Eats Everything, B. traits, Todd Terry, Second City and Shlomi Aber. It was pretty mobbed, and with a completely different crowd I’m used to seeing in its basements. A load of Spanish and Italians, most of who were no doubt workers finally released to give it big licks to the timed ticks under the pavements of Bossa.
Eats Everything blew the place apart with his innate ability to do just that at the flick of a digit. One member of crowd blowers was Coyu & Edu Imbernon’s tech house pounder El Baile Aleman (Patrick Topping remix). Excellent stuff from the Brit but I’ve already seen him do his thing in Ibiza and beyond and with music, you’re constantly on a trail for the new, waiting to be surprised by some Big Bad Wolf. If I’m Little Red Riding Hood then one such wolf came in the form of petit Canadian flowster, B. Traits. She careered through slow paced, emotive bombs in Fatima Yamaha’s What’s A Girl To Do before diving into the drum & bass banks with The Lodge’s murky pounder Overlook, appearing to close off until she brought in Bjarki’s pulsating banger that’s been blasted out everywhere, I Wanna Go Bang.
The basement was close to bursting its banks and it stayed that steady at the turn of Shlomi Aber who I absolutely love and wish I’d heard more of this summer. I stayed for a smashing of Ilario Alicante’s whirred remixed pounder of Mattia Trani’s Over The Future and slotted into the Lab for a slice of Todd Terry’s stalwart offering. You couldn’t roll a tin of Baxter’s scotch broth soup through its floor at this point; el rammo’d. Brilliant atmosphere and another which gave you that taste of 'this is happening one final time' until next year. I caught the final tail of body jerker Work, A Masters at Work creation that was given an amplified mix and then he juiced out some classics, including his own Lil Crash (Tee’s InHouse Mix), Inner City’s Big Fun and another of his own, Our House Is Our House.
Sankeys, a house of compact sound stations, was nearing close and not wanting to miss the ferocious flushing of what everyone had to offer, it was Spektrum’s turn which was under Andrea Perini’s ownership - and he turned out to be another Big Bad Wolf. A little less packed, more room to dance which was being taken full advantage of by some beauty with a curly doo. Absolutely nae caution and why should she eh? As Terry commanded, it’s all our house and it's in Ibiza; go mental doll. She was giving it all she had, and some, to the likes of Matador’s Hitbox which is exactly that, a hit in a box. In Big Bad Wolf style, he lured us and teased us by closing the box and leaving everyone thinking it’s all over and then cranked it right back open to release more of Hitbox’s heavy-weighted beastlyness.
He finished off with an absolute peach remix of Missy Elliot’s I’m Really Hot; sounds like it could have been shockin' but it was proper groovy. I didn’t even realise the manipulated lyrics were from Missy until Shazam named it.The lights came on and it was full blown appreciation society for this guy; everyone eating it up like a chinese carry-out on a hangover.
Terry closed and it was left to Aber, who for the final timeloop, crashed on with some of the best techno I’d heard all weekend. And that’s it, it’s nearly all over. My techno tipped pen is hung up.
God speed.
PHOTO | The agony; the ecstasy. Our writer waits patiently for the drop.
WORDS | Aimee Lawrence PHOTOGRAPHY | Sankeys
