Club Club pres. ITM Members BBQ feat. Nic Fanciulli @ Chinese Laundry, Sydney (22/03/08)
After already kick starting my Easter break with relatively Minimal Fuss on Thursday night, I was certainly looking forward to catching a DJ that I had heard many a rave review about: Nic Fanciulli. I’d seen him play a set with James Zabiela at the We love Sounds festival that I personally wasn’t a big fan of, but I had been told that his solo talents was a different beast altogether to his One+One project.
I arrived at laundry at 8.30 to catch Nic doing an intimate warmup set in the courtyard, as well as to grab a few sausage sizzles and free drinks courtesy of the ITM Members BBQ that was going down. Techno grooves filtered throughout the garden, and represented the perfect background music for people wanting to have a drink and chat. I saw quite a lot of headnodding going through the courtyard, which is always a good way to gauge a crowd’s reaction to the music. I had also heard that this was only going to be a prelude for his 4-hour set in the Cave later that night, so I was very excited at the prospect of that after hearing his tease of a warm up set that only lasted for one all too brief hour.
I ventured downstairs at 11 or so to check out who was warming up in the Cave. Club Junque was playing some beautiful melodic techno which I really enjoyed. A track he played was one of my personal favourites, the Trentemoller remix of Djuma Sound System. The cave was absolutely packed by 12 with everyone in there keen to hear a quality set. The previous DJ had played a great warm up set and everyone in the place was now pumped to hear Fanciulli.
He started the set off relatively downtempo, with the sounds being close to minimal. As the set progressed the intensity slowly built as well. I can honestly say I don’t think I have ever before heard a set that was built and crafted as brilliantly as this. It would just take place so slowly, but then after half an hour you could feel the tempo had gone up a notch. It was continually building with many build ups and drops that would occur every 10 minutes or so, and a big round of applause would usually follow.
Around 2am a siren filled the room, signaling yet another increase in the tempo. Nic had really settled into his groove now, and the set just flowed so perfectly, heading deeper and deeper into the groove. I headed over to the Laundry for a few minutes to see what was happening in there, and it was very busy indeed. I struggled to move through the crowd, and in fact I couldn’t remember a time when I’d seen the Laundry this packed. I headed back into the Cave, and struggled to make my way through everyone was packed in there like sardines. The techno was becoming increasingly heavy, delicate clicks and bleeps were now being replaced with harder colder sounds.
Nic Fanciulli’s set had exceeded all my expectations as I said before it was brilliantly crafted. He took the crowd on a deep journey, you might even say down a rabbit hole with it being Easter and all. At around 3am when I walked out of the club, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something very special back inside, as I was going to miss the climax of this 4 hour set. But when you’ve got an hour and a half trip home ahead of you, I guess sacrifices have to be made. All in all, a top night and Fanciulli certainly delivered, on both counts: earlier on at the ITM Members BBQ, and later on when he smashed the Cave.
dankobiaka says...
I love a good Minimal Fuss pun.