Dancing about architecture

I mentioned recently that I was going to a rather tasty-looking techno night in Leeds called Extract, featuring the likes of Sandwell District (Regis and Function), Octave One, Ben Pest and DJ Bone.

Well, I went. And I did try to write up a bit of a report on it, but words kind of failed me. Going to give it another go with the aid of some random Youtube vids (from other nights) to fill in the blanks. As Elvis Costello rightly pointed out, 'writing about music is like dancing about architecture'.
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So... it's midnight as we arrive at the club, a dingy little factory on the wrong side of Leeds city centre, south of the river in deepest Holbeck. The bar area looks like a youth club, with arcade machines, air hockey tables, and mixers served from 2l bottles. Big sound system that seems kind of out of place, but a nice vibe building nonetheless.

Trip to the bar for Red Stripe and on into the main room. Beaverworks (for such is the name of the club) is a sprawling kind of place at the best of times and there are even more rooms open than usual this evening. The main room upstairs is a good-sized warehouse space, with a beefy sub-bass enabled sound system, two huge industrial fans spinning slowly in the corner, a laser and a strobe. There's a filthy basement ravepit too, with fog and a strobe and not much else. A couple of other little rooms and an outdoor courtyard for the smokers. All (g)ravey.

Jim Masters is doing his usual plodding soulless clatterybang thing as we enter the main room. I've never understood what the attraction is, it's the sort of shit that gives techno a bad name. Plus he looks like he works in IT for the council and has just turned up to ghost your hard drive. He'll probably read some Terry Pratchett whilst he's waiting for it to defrag. Aaaanyway...

After five minutes Sandwell turn up on stage, and start fiddling with some laptops. There are looks of consternation all round as they try to plug things into stuff. I should mention that the sound was not up to its usual standards at this point, and I see the manager of the place get up and start moving monitors speakers about. Sandwell are now late to start their set, and there are some grim faces up there.

I realise that I've never actually seen Regis live before - Jo booked him for Test three times before eventually giving up, as he was a no show each time (for various valid reasons apparently). Anyway I'm getting a bad feeling about this.

A few minutes later Jim Master stops playing - thankfully - and the room goes quiet. And then something a bit like this happens:





Tricky to put into words. Dark, shuffly, moody soundscape material. That's extremely fucking banging and yet strangely funky at the same time.

Towards the end of the set, Octave One turn up at the back of the stage, and show everyone what anonymous faceless technobastards they are by jumping about, clapping, whooping and generally cheering Sandwell on. The brothers Burden appear to be on one.

My cousin Al walks up to them a few minutes later and asks what they think of Sandwell. "Incredible man" comes the response. "You're going to have to pull one out the bag here eh?" he suggests (just repping for his Brummie brothers Sandwell, and winding up our American guests a bit). There's a laugh, and then the brothers go and have a quick word with each other - dark mutterings in the corner...

A little while later, Sandwell finish up their laptop set, and we move to something a bit more analogue. I have never seen so many wires deployed in the name of techno - Octave One have some serious silver boxes. And the noise they make, well it sounds a bit like this:



These boys are so into it, it hurts. Head bounce crew, get your nod on!
















OK - so I may have got a bit carried away with the videos there, but that's the edited highlights, honest. All in all it was three and a half hours of live techno goodness. An hour and a half of Sandwell on digital, nearly two hours of Octave One banging the boxes.

Now granted, DJ Bone did come on after that and played a pretty sweet set of Detroit hard shit. And Ben Pest was playing in a hotboxed basement room where you couldn't actually see your hands for the smoke machine. But well, after that I was ready for cutting about and talking shite rather than getting shamanic on the dancefloor. So not much else of interest to report!


The night left me thinking a few things. First off, Octave One are even more amazing than I previously thought. They absolutely ripped the arse out of it, and looked like they were having more fun than the crowd whilst doing it. Some boys.

Secondly, I reckon I prefer Function as a partner to Regis than either Female or Surgeon (British Murder Boys). He brings this epic soundscape quality which suits Regis angular aggressive shit to a tee. Makes it even more banging by introducing some space between the beats, and giving the whole thing a reverby echoing backdrop which ties the sound together (like a good rug). By way of an example:



And finally, that's the second night I've been to in the last year (the other being Derrick May at the same venue) where I can honestly say I can't think when I've heard better techno in all my years of raving. And it's not throwback shit, it sounds fresh and interesting.

Derrick May was ridiculous when I saw him last autumn - redefined my understanding of the genre, in fact he made me realise it's all about the hi tek soul. But as I say, Sandwell sound better than anything Regis has done in years, and Octave One were so into it, so analogue, so banging, so soulful, it was just a joy to witness.

So there we are - that's what goes down in Leeds of late. What have the rest of you been up to!?