Bristol's Electronic Offerings which are Providing Hope for the New Year

Bristol's Electronic Offerings which are Providing Hope for the New Year

Posted on: 10 Jan 2017

It is a well-held truth that when politics shifts to the right and society slips into hateful austerity, dance music is particularly vulnerable. This is due both to its labelling as a luxury and the surrounding culture striking at odds to that which is imposed by the conservative powers that be. The past 12 months have seen swingeing movements in both of these categories, causing both intra and international division - and dance culture has suffered accordingly, with the closure of fabric the latest in a worrying line of club closures in the UK. Luckily Bristol remains an enclave of inclusion, with the glut of quality house and techno continually pouring out a testament to the city’s belief in its power to unite. Here we list the finest upcoming examples.

 

Addison Groove - The Love Inn, 19.01

Addison Groove

Central to the ethos of Bristol residents Team Love is the mantra of ‘work hard, play hard’. The diligent set of party-throwers naturally need a place to unwind after a long day of planning a whole host of bashes, including Love Saves The Day and Love International, which is where their HQ, The Love Inn, comes in. Nothing but the sweetest of sountracks would be good enough for this joint, which is why it is regularly visited by DJs like Addison Groove, who, next Thursday, is dropping in to ply a typically grooving blend of afro, latin, boogie and disco.

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Just Jack - Motion, 04.02

Robert Hood

Local house moguls Just Jack have accrued a deserved reputation for throwing the best parties in Bristol, period, with recent guest selectors including Ricardo Villalobos, Hunee, Marcel Dettmann, Prins Thomas and Legowelt. And the line-up for their 11th birthday bash, without any exaggeration, might just be their best yet. Detroit royalty and Underground Resistance-founder Robert Hood (pictured) headlines, his set sure to feature some of the highlights from his revered house project Floorplan alongside the techno on which he cut his teeth. Expect to hear Midland’s ‘Final Credits’, the undisputed tune of 2016, spun several times throughout the evening, even, most mouth-wateringly, by the man himself who will take over the Marble Factory after a spell from Glaswegian duo Optimo. That the king of the good time, Japanese producer Soichi Terada, is in the lower half of the bill is testament to its absolute quality. An embarrassment of riches.

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Todd Terje - Motion, 10.02

Todd Terje

The brightest of the Northern Lights of the cosmic Nordic house scene, comprised of honchos like Lidstrøm, Prins Thomas and Diskjokke, is Todd Terje, the maverick Norwegian producer, whose debut LP It’s Album Time blew the pants off dance music when it landed back in 2014. A 12-track collection of stellar Scandi-disco, the record thrives on the unabashed fun which Terje had previously evidenced in his DJ sets and re-edit obscura. He comes to Motion as the guest of those-very-in-the-know, Simple Things, where he will play a live set to the hallowed skate park. Even at this early stage, the show is looking like it might well be Bristol’s best booking of 2017.

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Mr Scruff - The Island, 18.02

Mr Scruff

One of the longest-serving artists on Ninja Tune’s roster, which boasts Kelis, Bonobo, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat and Peggy Gou, Mr Scruff has used his squeaky-clean production to stand out from the trip hop contemporaries who stood alongside him as he emerged into the mid-nineties. Since then, he has grown equally renowned for his all-night, genre-straddling DJ sets which he subsequently scattered across the country and the world. Despite his moniker and this roughly-hewn, scatter-gun musical selection, Andy Carthy scrubs up impeccably well in front of the decks, with his constant chopping and changing ensuring that The Island will be suitably wavy when he lands next month.

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An Evening With Âme - Motion, 24.02

Âme

The folks behind An Evening With, another local dance authority, have developed an uncanny knack for booking the world’s best names in house and techno for their doors-til-close residencies, with Joy Orbison, Bicep, Ben Klock and Floating Points among their recent guests. Their latest booking, Âme, sits comfortably among this distinguished company, with the German duo and one half of the Innervisions label (which they share with boon companion Dixon) globally renowned for their techno-driven sets and retro house remixes. 12 inches of their luscious rework of Paul Simon’s ‘Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes’ are amongst the most sought-after vinyls around, and sell for well over £100 on Discogs - a product of the rapturous fervour surrounding them and their all-night-long set at Motion next month.

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Article by:

Sam Mason-Jones

An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.