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Archive for February, 2009

Speaking in Screenings

02.09.09

Excuse the dormancy on the long-running sQuare productions blog. Once our official festival debut is announced, you can be sure the updates will be more fast more furious.

There are two “sneak peeks” of the film that we can let you in on, however. Each on different sides of the world.

The first will be Thursday, April 2nd in Mannheim, Germany as part of the 15th anniversary of Time Warp, a festival which continues to support techno in a very real way. For their seminars, last year they featured a panel on distribution featuring SiC friend Jon Berry of Kompakt.

This year, they have already confirmed the following to DJ: Sven Väth, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, DJ Koze, Loco Dice, Luciano, Magda and more, while Laurent Garnier, Anthony Rother, Joris Voorn, SIS and others play live. Wow.

The second comes from Communikey’s CMKY Festival in Boulder, CO. Communikey is a cooperative of like-minded individuals who also had the opportunity to book Modeselektor back on their first visit to the USA. Since, as you well know, they’ve gone on to open for Radiohead in Japan and, most recently, packed the Bowery Ballroom in New York City.

An early adopter of Speaking in Code, Communikey will screen the movie and have guest DJ sets from some interested individuals, including Bryan Kasenic from Bunker and Beyond Booking in NYC and me, David Day.

The film will screen twice on Friday, April 17th, at 4:30pm and 7:00pm. It will take place on the Colorado University campus in the Film Studies Theatre.

Either way, it will be seen by more than just the sQuare productions family and we’re very excited to share the project with two groups who, like us, have come together to promote the music we love.

Music-wise, the techno community is rapidly expanding worldwide at a considerable clip. Between new blogs like mnml ssgs, Little White Earbuds and, here in Boston, Soulclap.us, there is no shortage of DJ sets and thoughtful words on the music we know and love. Palms Out Sounds, one of the first and most influencial MP3 blogs, recently called Make It New “Boston’s premiere Techno party” and posted DJ sets from Baltimoroder and DJ Volvox.

On the surface, entities like Beatport and Resident Advisor have done nothing but expand. The former relaunched its site just last week.

These days, techno fans don’t need to swap the hot tracks and new mp3s ad much as share entire DJ sets from some of their favorite artists. Here are a few that have caught our ear.

Eli Verveine - Carebear

This mix has become legend. Entirely 5 years old, it still captivates with its subtlety and sensuality. I have seen its effect in person. Playing it in my office one day, an indie-oriented intern emailed me about what was “that mix that sounds what Postal Service would sound like if he was DJing.”

Pan Pot - Sunday Night Sleaze

Pan Pot has mastered the idea of minimal breakdowns, filled with fuzz and tension and fright-house technique. They blew through Boston a few years back, and this mix brings me back to that night of Black Magic.

Matthew Dear - Body Language Vol. 7

Dear is best known as Audion, the remix king who makes any track his own with a stuttering techno funk and wicked clean style. As I said in a “Top 10 of 2008″ blog post on the Weekly Dig website:

Quite obviously, there were many kinds of DJ sets, mix CDs and MediaFire-enabled 8-hour workouts to choose from. But for me, the fact that Matthew Dear, the golden boy of American techno, a wanna-be rockstar and the limitless producer called Audion went to the techno elite for his mix showed that all ears turned to the techno being made by some of my favorite producers. Dear includes DJ Koze and Sascha Dive *twice*, both of whom make luscious, understated tunes. He also translates the name of the mix series into sound, incorporating “body” and “language” to great effect. Ultimately, this is one of the few long mixes I did not delete off my over-taxed hard drive, and, really, this whole list is what I didn’t delete.

And finally, our friend Tim Haslett passed away in 2008, but his memory remains with us, and with thousands of people, in a very real way. We received a mix tape of one of his HardWired radio shows from 1992. A techno stalwart for life, his early radio shows represent some very hard tracks, but his voice and knowledge makes them easy to digest.