Sweetchilli feat. Ripperton @ Civic Theatre, Sydney (02/02/08)
As Sweetchilli continues to lay down a heavy imprint on the Civic Theatre, Friday nights are all but taken over by the longstanding Sydney promoters. This week the special guest is Swiss DJ/producer Ripperton, real name Raphael Ripperton, billed to lay down a solid 3-hour set at the newly refurbished venue. Having already wowed crowds at the Rainbow Serpent Festival in Victoria and Lost Baggage in Sydney, this gig was his second show. Ripperton is one half of Border Community act Lazy Fat People, and is himself about to unleash a swath of solo productions on labels such as Connaisseur Recordings, Matthew Jonson’s Wagon Repair and Carl Craig’s Planet E. His releases have been described as ‘modern and airy minimal techno’, ‘neu trance’ or even ‘neu prog’ and after hearing what he had to offer I must say I totally agree. Also playing on the night were Sweetchilli residents Daniel Crocetti and Carlos Zarate.
After getting lucky and finding a park just outside the venue, we made our way inside and got comfortable. At around midnight the venue was still surprisingly empty but the crowd was slowly building with a majority of them relaxing the newly refurbished comfy booths and the remainder warming up the dance floor. At the decks Daniel Crocetti was pumping out some solid tech house tunes and warming the crowd up nicely as usual. Ripperton stepped up to the decks a bit after 12:30am. He kicked off the set with some super deep minimal sounds and slowly built up the intensity until boiling point over the next three hours.
Listeners used to denser sounding genres may have found the start sluggish, but he was laying down some solid minimal techno. Each tune was mastered to perfection and individual elements were standing out ever so clearly on the absolutely thumping Klipsch sound system. The tough groove driven bass lines were also being felt by anyone on the dance floor after the installation of bass bins built into the sunken floor and each heavily effected drop brought a smile to the face of totally up for it crowd. As the tunes continued he laid down a wide variety of sounds spanning deep, melodic tech, glitchy electro goodness and dark melodic progressive tunes. Seeing as I haven’t got a clue about the names of any tunes played on the night, all I will say is that the second half of the set absolutely blew the place away and even the ladies in our crew who didn’t dig the minimal sounds at the start of the set really got into it in the last two hours.
After the set finished we decided to make our way home but there is no doubt that all in attendance had an immensely enjoyable evening filled with good tunes, amazing sound in a friendly atmosphere. The venue has really developed a great underground feel now, featuring white leather booths and wall panelling and brand spanking new lighting throughout.
As usual Sweetchilli continues to provide Sydney electronic music lovers a regular night where they are delivered some of the freshest sounds from around the world, right to our doorstep. If this night sounds like something you would enjoy make sure to show your support in coming months where a number of killer guests are yet to make their mark on the Civic, full details at www.sweetchilli.com.au.
