Laundry feat. Josh Wink @ Chinese Laundry, Sydney (17/03/07)

With the abundance of internationals touring with the Future Music Festival train, I was delighted to see that the Chinese Laundry had booked the services of Josh Wink for his first Sydney club set in over five years.

The sound that Wink pumps out is something a little unfamiliar to the Sydney clubbing massive. It’s a fusion of techno, deep progressive, minimal and acid house. My own personal description would be ‘head-caving tech’. Many friends had told me of his inspirational sets overseas, with one in particular telling me he almost cleared a dancefloor in Miami due to his sound being too heavy for the crowd. This gained him instant respect from me, but nonetheless I ventured to the Laundry not quite knowing what to expect from the man from Philadelphia. All I knew is that I was in for a treat.

I didn’t catch Josh at FMF as I wanted to base my opinion to be based purely on an underground club setting. The Cave was a perfect match for his sound and as I rolled in at 12.30, there was a solid crowd building inside. There was enough room for a good dance, yet the buzz in the room when the man stepped up to the decks was nothing short of mind blowing.

With some technical adjustments in the way of adding a Redsound Soundloop Module Loop XL to the setup and using Shure noise-isolation earphones, he started out with some deep chilled out progressive tech and kept it at this solid level for the first half an hour. Come 1am he started to step things a little up with some jackin’ acidy-minimal, and his control behind the decks became evident through the use of his looping tool, and a slight but noticeable changes in the levels. The next two hours from that point on can only be described as a lesson in musicality.

The set progressed into a sound that can’t be defined by genre. Everyone around me just stood with jaws on the ground, blown away by the track selection and the tightness of his mixing. The way he brought in samples and loops throughout his set was just musical heaven. If you had to encapsulate his sound into a few words, it would be ‘driving acidy-minimal tech’, but this still doesn’t do it justice. He mixed entirely off CDs, and when he went into his case and pulled a disc out of a section titled Wink Things, the crowd knew it was in for a treat.

His passion for his chosen profession was evident as he stood before the crowd mixing with his eyes closed, getting totally in tune with the music. Everyone could just feel the emotion being generated in the room. Whether it was long drawn out breakdowns or solid techy prog, there weren’t any mistakes made at any point. His appreciation of the crowd and his down-to-earth attitude won over many hearts and added to the overall experience for punters who requested tracks and showed their love through their mobile phones. He took time out for everyone and for me personally, it really did offer the complete clubbing experience.

Onto some of the tracks pumped out by the man: some of my favourites were Alex Under El Danubio Universal, Audion I Gave You Away, SLG Caffeine and Joris Voorn Year Of The Monkey. At one point everyone in the Cave had their hands over their ears due to the head-caving nature of that track, but I loved this little touch as it showed just what can be done behind the decks. There were some other awesome remixes thrown in that I couldn’t put a name too as well. The crowd built throughout the set and he really engaged the Sydney crowd, evoking their electronic music minds.

He played 30 minutes more than he was scheduled for which was a nice surprise. Big ups to Trent Rackus for allowing him to play on, the stunned look on his face at some of the mixing said it all. His eyes were just fixated on what was being delivered.

As Wink’s set finally came to a close with a clap of the hands, the shake of my head in disbelief pretty much summed it up for me. On the way out he mentioned he’d love to come back and play a 5-6 hour set at the Chinese Laundry one day, so let’s hope the promoters can bring him back out within the next 12 months. Top night all around.