Shane Warne and Fabrice Lig are hardly two names you’d imagine would ever appear in the same sentence. In fact, I’m going to be bold and suggest that this would probably be the first time. One throws down the odd mean ‘flipper’ and ‘wrong-un’ on a cricket pitch, whilst the other has a penchant for throwing down the odd ‘ripper’ and ‘right one’ on a pitch controlled turntable. However, despite this, they do both have one thing in common, which occurred to me last Friday night at Glitch. To achieve what they do in their chosen crafts, and to be up with the best in these crafts, they do make small mistakes, and that making these mistakes isn’t such a bad thing really, considering moments later they can pull out such wonderful and timely gems that plaster beaming smiles across the faces of all in attendance.
Friday night was the second time I’d been to Glitch after only recently cottoning on to the fact that the music played at Glitch is the type of stuff I’m very much in to at the moment. Held once a month at one of Sydney’s longest standing club venues, Club 77, Glitch is the club home of quality, dare I say it, ‘underground’ melodic techno, electro and tech-house in Sydney. And Friday night was no exception.
Being a long weekend, with a smorgasbord of events to choose from, and being one of the worst days of weather Sydney has experienced in a long, long time, I had wondered how many punters would make the effort to battle the elements and head on down to Club 77 to hear one of Europe’s best DJ/producers and some of the crème de la crème of Sydney’s tech/electro DJ fraternity. On arriving around 11.30pm, all concerns were laid to rest, as it was obvious the rain and wind hadn’t deterred an enthusiastic and large gang of party heads wishing to experience an ‘all too rare in Sydney’ DJ set by an international techno DJ.
After spending the first 30 minutes of the night getting through the obligatory meet and greets with mates I finally made it to the sparsely but effectively lit dance floor to see Ken Cloud finish up and pass the baton on to Mark Murphy. Mr Spank Records continued the vibe Racketeer Cloud had established and really started to get the dance floor shaking and the extra sound brought in shuddering. It was an intelligent warm up set by Murphy as he kept the dance floor moving without ever having to resort to big tunes. Racketeer Caldwell continued this intelligent approach with his trademark deep techy sound and brought us smoothly to the guest of honour for the night, Monsieur Fabrice Lig.
Lig’s production sound can be best described as soulful, melodic techno, not always conducive to making a late night dance floor move. However, with a thoroughly warmed up, tanked up and eager posse of punters directly in front of him he rapidly realized that this trademark sound would have to have most of the night off and enjoy the confines of his record box. Playing for 2.5 hours, he treated us all to a wicked and varied set of deep, melodic, but necessarily punchy, techno tunes, which was lapped up passionately by those wiggling their asses on the floor.
Tracks from the Kanzleramt label, the label Lig’s latest album was released on, featured somewhat but this melodic techno sound wasn’t all that was delivered. Aril Brikka’s classic deep tech tune ‘Groove La Chord’ got a great response, as did the wicked aceed-dominated Hardfloor remix of Robert Armani’s ‘Circus Bells’. We even got the original mix of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’, which was programmed marvelously into the set and, for such an over played record, still got an excellent response. Gem after gem were thrown at us and we happily lapped it up, so much so that the few small mistakes Lig made in mixing some of these tunes seemed to be ignored and just accepted as part and parcel of a clever bloke plying his chosen craft. A bit like when a Warne bad ball is hit for six…most of us remain relatively unperturbed, calm with the knowledge of what is likely to be on its way at any moment soon.
The Glitch lads did themselves proud on Friday night. They took a gamble on an international, on a long weekend, and even with some bloody awful weather ready to spoil all their hard work, their night was a resounding success with the best vibe I’ve experienced at a small party in a long time! Like the Mad Racket and Swarm parties, Glitch deserves some respect and some longevity. If Friday night is something they can deliver on a regular basis then I can’t see any reason that they won’t be around for a few years to come. Good stuff!
