When I was small little mite, I wanted to live in the magical land of Wales. There were castles, real dragons and the streets were paved with candy. Now I’ve grown up (kinda) and I’ve been initiated into the mysteries of progressive house and breaks and stuff. I still want to live in Wales, but now it’s all about Chris Healings and Mike Truman AKA the ‘progressive-cinematic-soundscape-breaks’ duo Hybrid. Since their 1999 debut with Wide Angle, they’ve been worshipped for creating awesome strings-draped movie themes, and fusing them with the kind of beats that assault our hearts and minds. Take Finished Symphony for example. Utter classic. When I discovered that the boys would be in Australia cranking some DJ sets for the We Love Sounds festival, I was beside myself. What could be better? Oh no wait… How about a 4-hour set at my most favourite club ever Chinese Laundry? Awesome!
As midnight approaches, the main room at Laundry is packed and pumped. Jono Fernandez has us seeing dragons, and that’s before Chris Healings steps up to the decks. No Mike Truman tonight, just Chris, the self-professed purveyor of dirty techno and nasty house. Oh this was going to be good! And pow! It begins. A genre-drifting set of prog house, tech house, atmospheric soundscapes, breaks, trance, out-there bleeps and loads of familiar favourites, old, new and even some funked out hip-hop beats (is ‘prog hop’ a genre yet?). And on the dancefloor we’re patched in and lapping up Chris’ every drop, shift and progressive moodswing.
He starts us out gently with some lush prog house and breaks. New tracks like Thomas Schwartz’ Jupiter Calling, old stuff like Gus Gus David and a massive build into a mix of Maurinho Da Silva’s New Year’s Day, with the bangingest bassline ever. He teases us out into the land of tech for a while, and then suddenly we collide with the Hybrid trademark wall-of-strings and a heart-grabbing sample from the Fifth Element soundtrack. We’re lulled by the sheer beauty, so it’s a rush for us to be slammed straight into some seriously downright dirty beats. Chris Healings is driving us headlong to oblivion, and we’re all going to follow the pied-piper willingly, wherever he leads us.
As the hours hammer by, Chris eases off the pace and gets playful. He smashes out the ‘prog hop’ track, toys with a driving rendition of Nathan Fake’s Outhouse and hands out CD copies of the Hybrid My Friend Electric set (which you can grab from Hybridized.org). Then we’re floating back to earth, level by level through Clubbed to Death and the City Zen Remix of It’s a Fine Day, and suddenly it’s all over. It’s 4am already. The room is still packed and we cheer our arses off!
If you have the chance to catch Hybrid at We Love Sounds, you’ll be in for some serious goodness so get to it. When their new mix album Soundsystem 01 is released next month, grab it. And come hang with me in Wales: if that’s where Hybrid were cryogenically techno-formed, the streets have got be paved with candy!
kone says...
it was a fantastic night to be sure, his set the following day in canberra was also much filled with duuurty goodness for the feet, and at the afterparty at academy, he made my potentially fun weekend into one of the most memorable to date