cue
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clubland’s fiercest live shows
Garden City Movement @ Shh! X Mahogany, secret location London Behind green steel doors by a rundown Camberwell pub we discover a condemned warehouse. Donning silent disco headphones, Mixmag’s remaining senses pick out the smell of jerk chicken and a bunch of bobbing heads vying for space between a big ‘GIRL I WANNA MAKE YOU SWEAT’ mural and the Shh! DJs behind a cut-out ice cream van. Then there’s ping pong, a real turf croquet lawn and the Tel Aviv band Garden City Movement set up with trigger pads, guitars and drum machines among shawl-wrapped tables. “This is a new experience for us,” claims vocalist Johnny, yet between technological glitches the band’s super-tight sound creates real atmosphere. The dubby melodics and plinky guitars on ‘Modern West’ and ‘My Only Love’ splice what you love about SBTRKT and The xx with irresistible groove: shouts, synths and cowbells bustling between headphone-clad heads and the bubbles floating in the air. This should have been a tough gig, but to this band’s credit, here’s a vibe that refuses to burst. Phil Dudman
chemical brothers @ sónar, barcelona
Return of the kings While the parties taking place off Sónar are as widely attended as the main event, this year’s festival line-up is enough to draw over 70,000 people to Fira Gran Via L’Hospitalet for the main event. The biggest draw is a new live show from The Chemical Brothers, and with new album ‘Born In The Echoes’ about to drop, the excitement is palpable. Ten minutes before showtime we make our way into the vast SónarClub. We can hardly squeeze in as people rush and push to get a glimpse of the newly revamped live show. Twenty years on from their first album, The Chems are
live b ites
solomun
[[1L]] august 2015
as popular as ever, and despite Ed Simons taking a break from touring to focus on academic studies, the anticipation is sky high. Adam Smith returns with his mind-boggling, brainshredding visuals and as the first note hits, deafening cheers fill the room. ‘Hey Boy, Hey Girl’ kicks things off as blinding green lasers beam out. The crowd’s so big that there’s a definite time lag as cheers echo from front to back. Classics like ‘Do It Again’, ‘Galvanise’ and ‘Saturate’ receive rapturous cheers, but tracks from the upcoming album are just as powerful, the sound as accomplished
Head to Freeze at Liverpool’s Bombed Out Church for Stimming live on July 18 ... Vitalic is taking his show to Onzieme in Osaka-shi, Japan on the same date ... The WEDIDIT Tour hosts live
shows from both Shlohmo and Purple at the Kings Arms in Auckland, New Zealand on July 23 ... In Ibiza? Check out Âme live as he joins Solomun’s party at Destino on July 23 ... Join DJ Ease for the Nightmares on Wax
as ever: heavy-hitting with a polished edge. Hearing Q Tip’s vocals on new cut ‘Go’ brings back memories. The images on screen are also captivating. Every break is a dreamy interlude of cosmic, intergalactic whispers backed by trippy and disorienting graphics. At one point, two giant robots appear at each side of the stage, bugging everyone out with the patterns on their chest and lights flickering in their eyes. This live show is a triumph of sounds, colours and visuals, proving that when it comes to a festival-sized spectacle, no-one does it like The Chems. Jeremy Abbott
(live) soundsystem for Wax Da Jam at Las Dalias, Ibiza on July26... New XOYO residents Bicep will host a live show from Omar Souleyman on August 1 ... Altern8 and Radioactive Man bring the old-skool vibes to The Liquid Room,
Edinburgh on August 8 for Jackhammer ... Dubfire brings his love show to the Button Factory, Dublin on August 28 ... Finally it’s Kink live for Wet Your Self!’s Bank Holiday special at Fabric in London on August 30.
DIE VöG EL @ LOST VILLAG E FESTIVAL, LINCOLNSHIRE When delivering something unique is the order of the day, Hamburg-based psych-house duo Die Vögel have it nailed. The name means ‘the birds’ and these multi-instrumentalists (Jakobus Siebels and Mense Reents) soar between flute, trombone, clarinet, trumpet and percussion as samples within their 45-minute live set, mixing techno with, at times, the sound of a marching band. This, their second UK show (they played Crucifix Lane in London with DJ Koze in 2012), attracts a sizeable crowd. “They really suit the festival,” says one Villager in full tribal attire, while another, with a Geisha-white face and bowl cut, presents near-contortionist dance moves. It’s 3pm on Bank Holiday Sunday but ‘Fratzengulasch’s perfect-for-Panorama Bar sound marks them out as the weekend’s most creative set. “For the time of day it was astonishingly euphoric,” Jakobus tells us post-show; “they’ve only just woken up, crawled out of their tents, and meet Die Vögel”. Ben Jolley
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sebastian matthes, ariel martini, mr doodman
The Chemical Brothers galvanise Sónar