Bugged Out! XX, London
Despite the fickleness of its hipster crowd, Bugged Out! remains a dominant name in clubbing, and this weekend is celebrating 20 years of success. Initially championing Daft Punk and the Chemical Brothers when they were still bubbling under, their styles set the template: artists who used noise and harshness as a path to euphoria at a time when trance was trying to be as beautiful as possible. Electroclash was the club’s perfect milieu, as were DFA and the mid-noughties wave of French electro, and latterly the fluoro-trap of Hudson Mohawke et al. It will all get represented here, with the likes of Erol Alkan, Justin Robertson and Matt Walsh taking on different timespans within the label’s history. Brodinski’s curation of the 1997-2000 breaks-into-electroclash years should be especially seething, while Kölsch will reflect their latter-day disco-dad tendencies, though still with the potential for a spot of youthful raging.
Fire, SW8, Sat
BB
SVN, Manchester
Consistently pushing underground techno for the past few years, not to mention allowing a few better known names to regularly play the sets that might elude them in more commercial clubs, Meandyou are this month departing their usual haunt at Soup Kitchen for an evening of heady atmospherics at Rozafa, better known by day as a Greek restaurant. It’ll play host to special guest SVN, an artist long since operating in the shadowy side of Germany’s electronic scene and leaving his increasingly curious fanbase in the digital dark, a tactic that makes him all the more appealing; on Discogs as well as in the flesh. His recent mix for Meandyou covers raw, distorted electro along with some of the foggiest techno you can hope to hear, while his own records, such as recent release It Takes Time on celebrated label Sex Tags Mania, tend to take things ludicrously deep. With the oft-mooted sound of Berlin almost beyond parody at the moment, SVN presents a great opportunity to delve into the city’s true musical underground. Herron and Juniper are in support.
Rozafa, Sat
JT
Tropical x Bodynod, Bristol
Bristol is showing its teeth with one of the biggest grime lineups anywhere this year, a three-room smasher featuring the brothers who’ve been at centre of the scene from the start: JME and Skepta, along with Plastician, Logan Sama and everyone’s favourite YouTube agony uncle Big Narstie. JME’s brand Tropical started life as a grime-garage mixtape and this warehouse-sized night – part of the In:Motion series – has a similar attitude in terms of blending styles. The original dubstep’n’garage genre-bender Oneman appears as a guest DJ, while Riddim Cottage host Room 2 for a bass-warped house arena, and Authentiq take over the brilliant tunnel space.
Motion Skate Park, Sat
GT
Ten Walls, London
After the success of Gotham in 2013, Ten Walls – AKA Lithuanian producer Matthew Basanov – decided to do the same again, but more. The song Walking With Elephants took Gotham’s octave-jumping burps of rubber sound, sped them up, turned them into a hook, and played it all on jaunty tubas: et voila! – one of 2014’s biggest instrumentals. True, it may stray a little close to Booka Shade’s chord changes for true originality, and the video looks like something the Kent tourist board commissioned after a boozy lunch, but it’s a true crossover smash. He plays live here, with house duo Andhim supporting.
XOYO, EC2, Fri
BB
Moxie, Edinburgh
One of the most recognisable voices to emerge from NTS Radio is DJ Moxie, whose playful blends of house, techno and hip-hop, and infectious enthusiasm on the mic, caught the attention of Radio 1 (it awarded her a slot as part of their 2013 In New DJs We Trust residency series). It’s the way Moxie straddles mainstream radio and her underground tastes that makes her such an exciting prospect; this will be a rare chance to see her in such an intimate setting before she hits the big time.
Sneaky Pete’s, Sun
LM
