Tuesday 29 April 2008

Lofi trounce the FYC and future gigs



May 21st sees Zombie Zombie hit Lofi Hifi.

ZZ play Kraut rock style dark psche-disco mayhem, and seem to be making some waves with appearances at Bestival, Shoreditch Crawl and a 13 date tour of the UK and Ireland.

In their biog it reads:"Zombie Zombie is a crazy scientist and musical project based in Paris city, France, lead by two people, professor Etienne Jaumet and Cosmicnewman (from Herman Dune) Using sound and rhythm to explore the feeling of fear growing deep inside you..."

The Album, "A land for renegades" is released in the UK May 5th, and "Driving this road..." is already being described as "a lost Can anthem.”

It was conceived as "the soundtrack to an imaginary road movie about two mercenaries racing against the night, hounded by unseen forces. " The driving rhythms, so Kraut rock in their repetitiveness; the tentative chord changes; the muted synth screams and layered fuzz-siren really do have the feel of a horror movie soundtrack, genuinely teeming with narrative. Things seem to happen in their songs, creatures chase you and jump out in front of you. And meanwhile the sense of fun remains, and it seems so very danceable. The feeling of atmosphere is only enhanced by their commitment to old technology:
“We use hardly anything made after 1980. With computer programs, you can do anything, so you end up playing them. With an old synthesizer, they are so temperamental that they end up playing you.”"
And meanwhile the sense of fun remains, and it seems so very danceable

Zombie Zombie - Driving this Road Until Death Sets you Free (Joakim remix)


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Weds night saw us take our 'rivals' in Exeter, The FYC (of which me and Jamie are also a part, though ssh!)
It turned out to be one of the best nights in ages, possible ever. That good.
EachLofi DJ took on an FYC DJ, in an appropriate pairing and had 15 mins to prove their worth with the audience voting. The pairings saw new-wave take on new-wave, boyfriend take on GF, Happy Hardcore (Lofi) take on Ganster Rap (FYC) and laptop take on laptop (Me "Jawline Frigzell" and Patrick "Pschyo bateman" Dishman)
The pre-battle 'beef' was hilarious, with both sides trading some serious, and at times rather personal insults. The resulting hype set us up for the fervour of the event itself.

The quality of tunes played was amazing, as was the variety of the music played. We had Ollie playing Happy Hardcore and Dean playing classic Disco as me and the boys danced in Balaclavas:
Rich, a Lofi hardcore regular stepping last minute to save the day - he ran home to get his records, turned up with minutes to spare and pulled out a blistering set to avoid forfeiting the round. Rosi, girlfriend to Matt, the guy on the right in the poster, played her first ever DJ set and tore it up at only 10 o clock with a combination of gangster rap and bouncing rude gal stylee in an amazing fur coat flanked by her two (very tall) hype men, the night's hosts Tim and Jim.

The best thing about the night was how absolutely wild the crowd was. It was the first week back of Uni, and people ended up queuing 2 hours to get in, so as a result the place was absolutely going off. By the time I played my set it was spilling onto the stage, and there were friendly faces everywhere you turned. Playing to a crowd that up for it is what makes DJing completely worth it. All those nights playing to a mostly emplty dancefloor suddenly seem worth the graft. Nights like Weds only come around once or twice a year but when they do it's the best feeling imagineable.

And to top it all off (it didn;t really matter) but Lofi Hifi won the competition, and I instigated a spotaneous three cheers for FYC to a packed room (ah bless cheap vodka).

Anyway, I'll post my mix tomorrow when I haven't got to get up in the morning at 10 the next day.