Thursday, September 5, 2013

The Steezoid Broadcasts #7 - Glitch Hop

This is a mix I did to raise focus on the often overseen genre of glitch hop, combining the traditions of hip hop music with rap and breakbeats, with hardcore electro and dub step sounds between 100 and 110-ish BPM. Some of the best in this discipline is german Kairo Kingdom and Danish/Norwegian Pegboard Nerds, so this also meant as an homage to them. Hope you enjoy it :)



Tracklist is in the Soundcloud link, just click the title.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Creamfields 2013: Bangers and Mash

The GoLive Party Crew, 10 people strong this time, went to Creamfields in Daresbury, right between Liverpool and Manchester. We started out with a bit of club hopping in Liverpool, benefitting from the immense competition on drinks in the central area. It was great fun a a good warmup to the things to come on the fields of Cream the following two days.

Creamfields is hosted by the legendary Liverpool/Ibiza nightclub Cream, and is located on a hill top in the middle of nowhere. The area was large and spacious, with a capacity of 60.000 ravers each day, boasting a wide range of scenes, tents and various entertainment. The majestic South/Main Stage, another large outdoor North Stage and then 5-6 large tents hosted by the likes of Steve Angello, Super You & Me (Laidback Luke), Pete Tong, Annie Mac, Skream & Benga, Richie Hawtin, Mix Mag, Cream, Anjunabeats and Sebastian Ingrosso. Throughout the area, there was plenty of nasty british food, the usual huge queues for the bars and carnival rides for the thrill seekers. The crowd was multinational as you would expect for one of the largest dance festivals in the world, with all the worlds flags swaying all over the place, but still dominated by the scouse "bloke-steppers", muscular and tank top clad along with their often obese, heavily war-painted and puffy haired girlfriends. Not the most beautiful people in the world, I'm sorry to say, but quite the spectacle.

Day 1 started out with Israeli bass-monger Borgore. He pretty much ripped the north stage apart with insane dubstep, trap and electro around 2 PM, but no, it was not, as you might expect, to early for that heavy bass - great start to the festival and we where ready to rave on. We followed up with more electro from Danish talent The Frederik, whom I regularly meet in my local supermarket in Copenhagen. Frederik did very well and the Danish party crew was really proud of his performance and appearance on the second largest stage, the same stage as The Prodigy would take over later that same day. 

Afterwards, we went towards the south stage to get ready for Knife Party. On the way down their, I caught a bit of the Swedish house duo Qulinez and Brooklyn trap superstar Baauer (no introduction needed). At the massive south stage, Nicky Romero was "warming up" for Knife Party. Nicky is always good, but after all the bass just before, he seemed a bit "light" for our mood, as we where standing by to go mental. Knife Party took the main stage, the crowd went nuts, mosh pits, head banging, seizures and bass faces all around us. Gotta say, Rob Swire, is just razor sharp as always, always completely flawless. There was a small hick up with the gear, but apparently not his fault. Many of the GoLivers described this show afterwards, as the best experience and craziest  party of the whole weekend.

We left the south stage to go back to the north stage and be ready for The Prodigy, playing their only UK show this summer. For me personally, it was a big experience, as I hadn't seen them before. The UK crowd gave them a suitable welcome and the live show was off with an immense energy. Big experience for me, but after an hour or so, we decided to go check out some of the other acts. We then went for some of the tents, saw a little of Alvin Risk, 20 minutes of Benny Benassi and Andy C and Steve Angello closing his tent with a long set mixed completely without the use of those annoying headphones.  After 12 hours of dancing around, we had to call it quits and headed back to the hotel. Some of the others in our party, staying and saw Skream and Benga supported by Sgt. Pokes, who recently invited some of us back stage at an outdoor festival in Copenhagen, super nice guy, likes Cognac.

Day 2 started out with Deniz Koyu playing nicely in the Ingrosso tent, followed by the difficult choice between Tommy Trash and Porter Robinson. I opted for Porter, as I've seem Tommy quite a few times, latest in Prague for Magnetic Festival in May. It was probably the best choice of the month, as the young American absolutely killed the North Stage with what i perceived as the best show of the whole festival. It was his last stop on his European Tour and he refused to play the usual Beatport top 10 with the exception of some insane edits of Knife Party's LRAD and Martin Garrix Animals that just blew my mind. He played electro house, dubstep, trap, hardcore/hard style and all kinds of weird unheard but excellent stuff. That kid is a huge talent!

After that epic set, we went to catch Chuckie, one of my personal favorites, but nothing could compare with Porters set and everything from that point on was bound to disappoint, and so did Chuckie. He probably played well as he usually does, but it just couldn't match the sovereign Porter Robinson, so we went outside the tent to rest our tired feet. As we rested on the grass, Feed Me was taking the North Stage and played while we took a breather. I got restless and went to catch the last half or so, as his friends took the stage to celebrate his birthday, dressed up as pirates.

We went to check out some drum n bass with DJ Friction, but had to eject as the sound was awful, but no harm done, as Modestep played a DJ set a bit later in the same tent. Also a bit of a surprise for me, as I didn't know what to expect, but from the first second, they got us all into bass heaven and the crew went bananas. We had to leave though, as Ingrosso and Alesso started their back 2 back set in the tent next to Modestep. These two swedes lifted us higher and higher with their huge build ups, private bootleg edits, mash ups and epic big room bangers. As Sub Focus played after Modestep, at the same time as the swedes, we sneaked of to catch Sub Focus for half an own. Brilliant dubstep and drum n bass, but eventually we went back to see Ingrosso and his protege finish their set. What  a brilliant closing to the festival.

In closing, I gotta say that we had a lot of fun, lots of great music and top artists, but Creamfields left me with the sense of "ok, been there done that". I probably won't come back again, but I'm glad I tried it. It surely is no match to the mighty UMF in sunny Miami. Next summer I will probably go for Tomorrowland or EDC Las Vegas or something like that instead.