T-Bird’s Minimal Finest:

So this week is dedicated to a minimal genius. I am almost embarrassed to not have mentioned him before as he is part of my TOPlist minimal producers and DJ's.

Marek Bois is Niklas Worgt's DJ alias. He is a producer DJ and not unknown on the minimal horizon. His irregular but contagious sound has had many clubbers on their feet for hours.
Marek Bois is the alter ego of Mo’s Ferry’s Dapayk.
His first record under his new guise of Marek Bois, devised to cover his more minimal techno tracks. He’s better known for releasing regularly as Dapayk on his own label Mo´s Ferry productions, as well as for occasional moonlighting jaunts, like the smasher for the Orac label. “You got good ash“ is an exceptionally cool minimal rocker with a slight Chicago note to it, drawing towards evident touchstones the aim is laudable, to strip down music to it´s rhythm essentials. The monster breakdown of the tune is a perfect peak time moment that yanks the track screaming up on the dance floor, and practically guarantees hysteria. His sound is strictly minimal and follows all the rules to producing a lasting minimal ear-worm. He bangs out out one rhythmical groover after next which suit a chilled out night at home as well as a manic night out.

Niklas normally releases his records under Normally releases on Trapez or Rrygular (The Label that represents him right now, great label) two renowned labels with a host of great producers. Below is a musical taster.
Enjoy with Volume!

P.S: I apologize for the unappealing look of the Youtube video. Clearly some idiot thought it would be good to have a weird image covering the song, but its the music that counts in the end. My tip, turn it up and have a little dance rather than looking at it.

Because it’s Wednesday:

So I have read about Nike giving new life to the iconic Trainer 1 first made famous back in 1989 by 2-sport legend Bo Jackson and the always colorful tennis star John McEnroe. The Trainer 1 was a multi-facted training shoe that got the job done across the board whether you were running, lifting weights, shooting hoops, playing baseball or just straight up engaging in almost any physical activity. The shoe is an all-round perfect trainer; works great looks great and is good for your feet.



Still very much desired and admired to this day by sneaker enthusiasts worldwide, Trainer 1 has come back onto the stage 20 years after its birth. Although the shoe has been somewhat updated, it maintains the same look and appeal that collectors and athletes enjoyed the first time round.




The shoe is great on many levels. You really have to try it on and give it a real go. It is lightweight and seriously comfortable, which will make it a great addition to the shoe rotation making for a nice pair of kicks to sport around, or something rugged to really tear it up in the gym with. Be on the lookout come July 1, 2009 when these hit retailers.

T-Birds’ Minimal Finest:

Guten Tag... having spent a fantastic weekend in Berlin, I gave the Bar 25 a visit. Listening to some great German Dj's made me think of another 'Berliner' who has long established himself as a producing genius.



Sebo K has long been a key figure in Berlin's electronic dance music community. Now, thanks to his releases on the Mobilee label, including "Rancho Relaxo", co-produced with Anja Schneider, and "Moved", featuring Prosumer, he's becoming an unstoppable force.

Like so many others, Sebo K began DJing in the early '90s. finding his footing as resident DJ at Alec Empire's Bass Terror, Berlin's first UK breakbeat parties. By the mid '90s he had discovered his love for Chicago house and Detroit techno — a passion that will be evident to anyone that's heard the vintage depths of his 2005 track "Moved"—and at the turn of the decade he began his residency at Berlin's legendary Pogo club. Today, Sebo K is a resident at Berlin's Watergate. He frequently appears at Berlin venues like Weekend, where he shares a regular date with Ewan Pearson.

Sebo K's productions for Mobilee have established him as a frighteningly talented producer and a formidable player in dance music. His collaboration with Anja Schneider, the "Rancho Relaxo"/"Side Leaps" EP, reached no. 9 on Groove's charts, and has gone on to be an enduring staple in the crates of DJs worldwide. With an unparalleled sense of pulse and soul, Sebo K is just beginning to hit his stride.

He frequently plays in London, Fabric, or some smaller venue parties. It is always worth the entrance so get yourselves hooked and enjoy with volume.

Has a Tory MP saved grime?

Could John Whittingdale a Tory MP be the savior of Grime and the wider “Urban” music industry by eradicating the 696 form?

John Whittingdale is the Conservative MP for Maldon and East Chelmsford, president of the Maldon District Chamber of Commerce, he seems like an unlikely candidate, but he may well be the source of common sense the UK urban music sense has been crying out for. But as chair of the House of Commons' cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Committee, he is responsible for a new report that could help free live music from the restriction of excessive bureaucracy and unnecessary police interference.

The committee's "post-legislative scrutiny" of the 2003 Licensing Act began last summer; its findings, quietly made public at 12.01am a few days ago, are encouraging reading for music fans. The committee heard expert witness testimony drawn from everyone from Peter Stringfellow, to the secretary of the Association of Circus Proprietors of Great Britain. Whittingdale's team concluded that live music in the UK is being suffocated by paperwork, with even the smallest of performances encumbered by "draconian" and "absurd" restrictions.

To remedy this, the report recommends that venues with a capacity of less than 200 be exempted from needing a license for live music; it also recommends reintroducing the "two in a bar" exemption, whereby venues of any kind can host one or two musicians playing unamplified music: anytime, anywhere, without having to apply for unnecessary licenses six months in advance, while needing to enclose copies of the musicians' dates of birth, (which in itself can be a task).

One of the huge ramifications of the 2003 Licensing Act was that it reinforced the Metropolitan Police's hard line and some would go as far as saying discriminatory use of "Form 696", a risk assessment form that has become instrumental in shutting down grime and garage nights. Upon hearing evidence on Form 696, Whittingdale's committee were convinced that: "Police authorities are taking an increasingly authoritarian approach, especially the Metropolitan Police … The report concludes that Form 696 goes beyond the Act and its guidance to impose unreasonable conditions on events and recommends that it should be scrapped."

An example of Form 696's use as an instrument of injustice is Project Urban, a major event that had been scheduled to happen at indigO2 on 3 May, this was deemed a "high risk" event by the authorities and cancelled with only weeks to go. The promoters' story bears reading in full – they had booked an all-star cast of performers, headlined by Tinchy Stryder, forked out for tens of thousands of flyers and a cross-media advertising campaign, and were offering to put on £4,500 worth of airport-style security to appease any safety concerns. So why was it cancelled you ask? According to Project Urban's promoters, the only concrete reason for it being a "high risk" event was some missing data from their 696 form: "The only reason the event was 'high risk' was due to an administrative error regarding a missing date of birth for two artists. There was plenty of time to resubmit the form (it requires 14 days' notice), but the venue had already taken the decision upon themselves to cancel, and inform all ticket-holders." By no means is this the only example of the misuse of this form, and consequently hampering the organic growth of the urban music industry. Many artists see the 696 form as a major reason as to why they have failed so scale the heights they had envisioned, which is a fair point given the fact that live performance is the future of industry.

However, following the committee's recommendations that live-music licensing be liberalised without delay, it is now up to the Andy Burnham MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to act. Let us see if he can become as much of a hero to fans of live music as the president of the Maldon District Chamber of Commerce, John Whittingdale.

Wanna Dance?

So I usually do my two post per week ritual. As I am off to Berlin this weekend I had a little look around as to what is going on over there... and don't get me wrong Berlin's offering is never to be dismissed, but for some reason London seems to have some of Minimal's finest Dj's in town this weekend.
So if any of you guys fancy a good night out, there is two places to go.

Tonight:
Boarder Community night at Corsica Studios. Not much else to say.. great music, great soundsystem and a shame to miss.



Saturday Night:
Claude von Stroke, Ekkohaus, Shaun Reeves, Craig Richards at Fabric. Beautiful line-up.



So if anyone goes let me know how it was.

Because it’s Wednesday:

So I am not a Trekki or actually a fan of Sci-Fi (matter of fact i find it quiet boring) but this remake is visually a great example of excellent retro re-branding.



The new Star Trek film goes back to the original series (the Coke classic if you will), distancing itself from the ever more portly original cast and more recent but less distinctive “new generations” of the brand.

With retro branding still a hot trend, the film’s marketing shows an inspiring approach which breaks with the familiar “dig out the old artwork” retro formula we see applied to revamps of confectionery and perfume brands. Rather than exploiting nostalgia for the original with 60’s inspired art direction, it has taken the core visual equities and brought them bang up to date: thus the potentially kitsch Starfleet badge is being used in the manner of a Nike tick, and the easy on the eye cast are presented photographed like Beckham selling aftershave. The conventional retro approach celebrates the past in a slightly tongue in cheek manner, but this campaign doesn’t play for easy laughs, and the result is something sharper and more relevant.

It is also a decent example of a film which aims for broader appeal than the original, devoted fanbase. As satirical website The Onion has it “Trekkies bash new Star Trek film as fun, watchable”.

T-Bird’s Minimal Finest:

This weeks minimalist is Patrice Bäumel. Another German Legend… and I promise I am not trying to show off how great Germany is, but fact is, that most pertinent minimal artist are from there.

So another guy who never fails to impress. Born in Germany and now living in Amsterdam, Patrice is a Dj/Producer for many years now. He is an artist who devotes all of his energy to the dancefloor, with his dynamic sets as well as his trademark climaxing productions. His music is full of emotion, dynamic and contrasts of cold, warm, soft and hard: “If you can feel it, it’s good music!”(Patrice)

This guy love to break the rules, crossing genres, melting opposed elements, but it always works out to become a homogenous fresh sound. He calls his sound “ Mutant Pop”, ecletic, eccentric, mutated pulp of modern dance music. He made his debut in 2005 with the release of Mutant Pop on Trapez Records.
Raised on a mixture of 80’s synth pop like Yello, Depeche Mode or Cabaret Voltaire and all kinds of other weird stuff ranging from Frank Zappa to John Coltrane (his dad being a music journalist helped in the matter), Patrice got into electronic dance music in the early 90’s. Illegal warehouse parties were held all over Germany, and your normal discotheque had to make way for a completely different order of untamed energy. Djing was the logical step and soon he had a residency secured at the BASE, one of East Germany’s hottest clubs at the time. Playing alongside guys like Richie Hawtin, Laurent Garnier or Claude Young he quickly learned the ropes of quality djing – mixing, track selection, crowd control. (ref:PAT)

The production thing really started taking flight after Patrice was chosen Dutch winner of the Red Bull Music Academy 2002. New school electronic dance music has a new household name.

Voila. Have a listen, and enjoy with Volume.

Because it’s Wednesday:

This delay thing is a bank holiday desease I have....
So today its all about Bauhaus.
Having to look and judge FMCG design all day it is quiet nice to go back and have a look at the foundations of today's designworld. Bauhaus! Clean, Slick, minimalist design... just how I like it.

The city of Dessau, in Germany’s countryside, had had their sucess peak in the 1920’s with the Bauhaus school, created by Walter Gropius. In the same city, Gropius also build houses for people like the painters Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. But in the beginning of the 1930’s the school was closed by the Nazis with the excuse of producing decadent art.

Now, for the joy of 9 architects in 10, the school was reopened as a type of boutique hostel, that offers accomodations for one night with accessible prices, collective toilets and also uses the school’s canteen, where the students would sit down and enjoy their meals.

Besides the building created by Gropius, who also taught there, the school had amongst their most recognized students, Marcel Breuer. His famous chairs decorate the dorm rooms and the cafeteria. Another good example are the beds, made by the current principal of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Philipp Oswalt.

T-Bird’s Minimal Finest

Repeat Repeat. is the voodoo electro brainchild of Dave Congreve and Mark Rutherford.
These two guys are a bit funky and it is almost a romantic story of how Repeat Repeat became one, and finally signed to Soma.

Two vinyl addicts, their paths crossed amongst the racks of experimental electronica in a Soho record shop. Their mutual love of off-kilter techno and acid house led them to the studio where they have cranked out some raw and dirty floor busters incuding their debut EP ‘Bounce Your Body To The Box’ on Soma which displayed their talent for producing demented machine-funk.

Dave Congreve needs no introduction, without doubt one of the UK’s finest and most respected DJ’s, he is currently the man in control at Stealth in Nottingham and prior to that the long-standing resident at Drop The Bomb. (ref: somarecords)
So to get you going this week, have a listen to this upbeat track, which never fails to put a smile on my face.

Enjoy with volume!

Tuesday's Tracks

This weeks Tuesday’s is distinctly British with a double dose of Bashy. If you haven’t heard Bashy’s mix-tape yet, you NEED to cop it, he’s been slowly but steadily stepping up levels for a while now, and now he’s ‘doin the damn thing’! Shout out to Bashy, your Hustlin Ard!!!

The first one’s Davinche feat. Clea and Bashy, the tunes ALOT, although there’s something not quite right about the video...

Davinche feat. Clea and Bashy – Riding For Love


The second one’s Bashy on his own, I’m feeling the chorus and the more I hear it the more I like it, plus I like the little dance routine, it’s not something you often see from an artist that came from the grime scene.

Bashy - Who wants to be a millionaire