The Pondering Blonde

BPM Mag: Cocoon Ibiza comes to South Africa

Last year Cocoon celebrated 10 years of wrapping clubbers in its twisted little game of deviant House and Techno at Ibiza’s clubbing powerhouse; Amnesia. Cocoon founder, and by all means; leading mad-hatter Sven Vath, took his kingdom across the monumental decade line in style with an all out wicked-carnival themed summer season on the island. There were traffic jams, all-night queues snaking around the venue- this party is the one ultimate must-do when making a trek to The White Isle. In fact; clubbers to the island notoriously plan their vacation around squeezing in two Monday nights at Cocoon!

The inside spectacle doesn’t disappoint; black sequinned dancers- beautiful girls, boys and girlyboys- on podiums and gyrating against the walls above the main floor, a 10 foot Robocop shooting lasers and pyrotechnics from within the crowd, and way up front; The Ringleader, Sven, in a black fedora casually pounding out the slickest beats from the more-then-massive sound system, to a sea of never-been-this-up-for-it clubbers.

His line-up for the season was as usual, a who’s who of Minimal Techno on Planet Earth: Ricardo Villalobos, Loco Dice, Luciano, Richie Hawtin, Nick Curly, Martin Buttrich, Mathais Kaden, Josh Wink, DJ sneak and Tiefschwartz among them. The legend of Cocoon not only lives on strong in 2010, but the brand and ultimate symbol of nightlife disturbia comes to avenge South Africa for the first time this June, with lady of the label, Dinky, headlining. The tour will bring the freshest house and techno to both Johannesburg and Cape Town and forge new ground in SA’s growing Techno-club culture.

THE LEGEND OF VATH

Sven Vath was an intrinsic part of the house scene’s development in Germany, bringing American disco and jacking Chicago house to the curious ears of Frankfurt, where he first bled his passion and initiated his meteoric rise up the electronic chain. Papa Sven fell into his role as the decidedly demonic ringleader and set about creating his platform, a Cocoon themed web, for he and his young muso friends to launch themselves. The Cocoon night in Ibiza, the original Cocoon club in his hometown and Cocoon Recordings have become a world-wide statement in electronic music hotness!

SVEN ON IBIZA: Cocoon is a feeling, it is club culture, event culture is how I see it, for more than 20 years now I was always into creating platforms or networks where people come together to create something. There is no place like Ibiza and thanks to Cocoon; Ibiza is still very interesting when it comes to music. I think with our line-ups we’ve inspired other promoters and the island to evolve music wise in a very positive way, so I guess it is more than ever the true capital of electronic dance music!

DINKYLAND

Female dj’s of the world unite! Joining the ranks of talented lady dj’s and producers, alongside Magda, Anja Schnider, Ellen Allien and Shinedoe is Dinky- and she’s not as sweet as she sounds! Dinky is her very own powerhouse- an original gadget girl, electronic composer and a leader in the second wave of greats to come out of Chile. Dinky’s early years in club culture were spent raving it up with Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos, who set her on a path of techno-laced music loving.

Dubbed ‘The Techno Princess’, she initially followed a career in contemporary dance to New York City before finding herself dj’ing around the city and landing fingers-first in music production. Dinky is now based in Berlin, dating Matthew Styles- both are signed to Crosstown Rebels and often play together- and churning out inspired artist albums and EP’s for labels like Vakant, Traum and Wagon Repair. Her own productions portray her unique ethereal essence, a delving divergence from her driving dj and live sets; but both fuse her compassion for music with soul. Here’s to ladies that love techno!

ON HOW SHE FOUND ELECTRONIC MUSIC: Modern electronic music came to me when I was only 12 years old. My sister was going out with Dandy Jack [of Perlon fame] and living in Berlin at that time. At a family dinner he gave me a CD and I got instantly hooked on this music. It seemed so futuristic for me, compared to what we had in Chile at that time. Thanks to both him and my sister, I would always receive goodies – music from Kraftwerk, DAF, and house tapes from Doctor Motte. And then later on, things like the early Plastikman CD. I was really lucky!

ON HOW SHE STARTED PRODUCING: I guess it came when I was 21 or 22, and I moved to New York. At that time it was really difficult to DJ because the police were really tough. There were no clubs, there were places shutting down, so if I was going to get into music I really wanted to produce. I asked for some advice from people; for example Dandy Jack convinced me to buy a MPC 2000. So I bought that at a very young age and I started to learn that and sampling; it’s a very basic thing!

Richly Hawtin and He Knows It

Richie Hawtin recently launched his own track-listing application for compatibility with social networking sites, and surprised the hell out of everyone when his twitter and Facebook pages suddenly started to stream updates of his track-dropping antics from his gigs around the world. The application has since come under interesting discussion and scrutiny and sure, it’s an interesting development but I find myself siding with the sceptics on this one!

I’ve checked it out and been witness to constant track-dropping that takes place every time he hits the decks and think its lacking a little personality and artistic flair to be honest! There’s no follow up of after-gig banter that lets followers know where he was, how it was and if the audience went nuts when he played that Nick Curly remix- possibly a really important element to making the whole thing worth all the hype!

And that’s before we have to question his open playlist concept- I’ll bet there’s a legion of dj’s mimicking his playlist like it’s the Christmas they never dreamed of come early! Considering some dj’s I know pride themselves on their collection, digging laboriously to find special remixes and bootlegs, and take immense joy from dropping these gems on an unsuspecting audience and refusing to dish the names to hagglers at the booth; it kind of feels like Richie is showing all his cards and taking away from the magic somewhat…

Richie just mixed the cement for his future as a style icon too with the launch of his clothing label Richly.Hawtin. The partnership with designer Isolde Richly was established in 2008 in Tokyo, inspired by a joint fascination with Japanese culture and design, and sees a range of minimalesque T-shirts on the flog. The design’s are polished and trendy but several reviews have already said, obvious minimal-driven concept aside, that their lacking in Hawtin-personality and ‘have-to-have that’ appeal?

Richly Hawtin Website

I suppose he’s in a position to do these sorts of thing, and is no doubt an underground dance music trendsetter; but there’s building an empire and beating a cash cow- and a very fine line in between! Let’s hope he keeps doing it in understated Richly.Hawtin style and doesn’t follow up with a fragrance in the next few months- then I might just have to hunt him down and beat him myself!

Little Lexi x

The Maximising of Minimal Media Coverage

BPM MAGAZINE 2007
Before its claim to the dancefloor of fame and its reign as “The New Black” in the EDM Industry, minimal was just an ordinary adjective used to describe something in very small amount. An example in a sentence is; “The Dance Music Industry receives minimal coverage in the South African media” or how about; “Minimal respect is given to the South African Club Culture”? The word can even be simplified further; “The open mindedness of the South African media is min.” Wait a minute, I think we could be onto something here…

I discovered an article called “A Techno Minimalist for Anti-Minimalists“, by Nightlife Journalist for The New York Times, Kelefa Sanneh. The article; an intriguing and informative examination of the oddly vacant, highly fascinating genre of Minimal House, spurred and inspired me to take a look into South Africa’s media conglomerates and their support of our Dance Music Industry. Only to find none…

In South Africa, such topics in music and nightlife entertainment are not considered newsworthy, both by the media and society at large. Hell, who are we kidding? The Dance Music Industry isn’t even acknowledged or considered a viable category of entertainment, never mind have dedicated segments in the daily or weekly papers! The thought of our very own super Star publishing an article about, say; international trends affecting the local dance scene, would have the entire Y-generation (as we’re so affectionately dubbed) up in arms of celebration, raving on our car bonnets- glowsticks and all- in the traffic. The rest of the country, however, would be choking on their Ouma rusks at breakfast, and Ouma herself would be having heart palpitations, “Tsk”ing loudly and muttering, “The youth of today… what is this world coming to?”

It is assumed published content like this would suggest the media supports and condones this “unnecessary carousing after dark”, justified by the incessant negative angle in any nightlife news published- on the odd occasion it actually is. So now and then a bouncer makes an unruly patron bite the pavement… Yea, the thought leaves a bad taste in my mouth too, but the 200 people or so who can now party safely inside the club are all the better for it. Incidents like this have stirred up a few headlines and a couple of bereaved mothers and ready cynics rallying about “rebellious youth antics” But in the same vein, the police might kick the shit out of a red handed burglar and protect the whole population… and that’s ok… right? I say; just tell your son to behave, ma’am!

Our media needs to focus on and “define” the positive aspects and elements of The Dance Music Industry and our incredible clubbing culture, so those on the outside, looking in (and frowning in ignorance), can be aided in understanding what this is all about.

Is that too much to ask? Are all our media outlets, with all their “freedom of speech” too politically and crime oriented- and decidedly dark- to pay attention to and focus on something that is positive, empowering, thriving and for Gods sake, inspiring us people? -The people in the most difficult target market to reach; the bracket most numbed by advertising and immune to the sales pitch? It’s because we’re listening to house music you fools! – And since you won’t give us a decent radio station, we’re listening to it on podcasts, mp3 players and CD’s; in our cars, at our work desks, while we study, jog, gym, eat and sleep- You can’t touch us! And you should be spending every waking moment trying to find a way in!

And are you seriously telling me there is not one single house head on the staff of any of these mediums to punt the dance culture? Dude, I know you’re out there… somewhere inside the concrete slabs that form Caxton or the SABC; secretly downloading beats from Limewire, whilst putting on a corporate face and nodding about the proposed OBE education system. – Electronic Dance Music is a billion dollar industry! It’s a mammoth sub culture; a movement that needs to be documented, recorded and reported on! It’s changing our generation from the roots of our souls and redefining what we call “music to our ears”! When is the media going to “coin” onto this and support, market and promote it?

I mean, come on! – Our media can’t even make Pop Idols seem cool, yet it’s America’s number 1 show! The lack of attention and respect towards the music industry in general; from the events, the music, the artists, producers and DJs who make it happen, to the people who grind holes of support and dedication into the dancefloors around the country, whether through moshing or stomping up a storm, harms and insults our amazing talent before they’ve even tried! This disinterest and disdain severely puts South Africa on a back-peddle in terms of cultivating and maintaining our country’s music industry. The media is supposed to be about publishing what is in the public’s interest and what interests the public; you wanna talk about “sustainable development”? Well, it starts right here baby!

I think it’s about time the media jump to our beat. The people’s love of Dance music and clubbing in South Africa is far from minimal and far from minimising anytime soon. We are the people, this is our culture; get involved! The media means that be need to maximise their mindset, supe’ up their support and come dance with us already! We’ll welcome them to our dancefloor with a smile and a simple, “It’s about time you came to the party!”