Dance Tunnel Turns Three, London
With its gaggles of youthful models dining on lahmacun and Red Stripe, the main drag in east London’s Dalston can sometimes feel like the prom night of a school attended exclusively by the congenitally hip. Praise be, then, for Dance Tunnel, which forgoes the Urban Outfitters basicness of its fellow basements in favour of excellent, unshowy deep dance. It hosts global leaders such as Ostgut Ton and FWD» alongside always reliable promoters including Way Back Here and Darkroom. For its third birthday, head honcho Dan Beaumont joins two other superb disco selectors. There’s Melbourne producer Francis Inferno Orchestra, whose A New Way of Living LP was gorgeously wind-whipped and lo-fi, and Soundstream, whose re-edits take classic jams and let them ease out on an open road. Avoid the mid-dancefloor slope that can knock your shapes off balance, and don’t miss a snack at Voodoo Ray’s pizza shack upstairs.
Dance Tunnel, E8, Sat
BB
Vitalic, Dublin
With the release of his Poney EP on DJ Hell’s International DeeJay Gigolo label in 2001, Pascal Arbez conquered clubs worldwide, and the name Vitalic soon became synonymous with peak-hours floor-devouring electro. The weight of the two leading tracks – the brooding Poney Part 1 and La Rock 01, with its frenetic splintering textures – was matched by its stacked B-sides: the title track’s throbbing sequel, and the sole-blistering You Prefer Cocaine, a mass of shrieking whorls and infectious vocals. While these tracks were rinsed by the likes of 2ManyDJs, Aphex Twin and Sven Väth, Arbez mysteriously disappeared, later re-emerging with a steady run of productions that veered towards the more punishing end of maximalist dance music. His last album, Rave Age, released in 2012, bulged with antagonistic trance stabs and overwrought arena drops that seemed somewhat remote from the refined chaos of tracks gone by, but still retained his signature driving crescendo. Expect more of the latter here, as he flies in from Dijon for a live show.
Hangar, Sat
SC
Death Star Disco, Sheffield
Apparently, there’s a new Star Wars film out next month and the hype has even bled through to the occasionally po-faced clubbing realm, with Sheffield promoters Lunar staging a full-scale Death Star Disco. Taking place aboard the ubiquitous enemy space station itself (actually an abandoned Woolworths), the event comes complete with “operational planet-destroying laser” and a Cantina bar. Unlike many theme parties, the lineup also delivers, comprising house music force from young Detroit master Kyle Hall and funkier cuts from Berlin’s hip-hop-obsessed Max Graef, all beamed through a Funktion 1 soundsystem. Presumably, Wookie was unavailable.
Moor Theatre Delicatessen, Fri
JT
Planet Mu 20, London
Mike Paradinas’s label reaches a major milestone, and hosts artists from across the roster’s styles. He’s playing live under his own U-Ziq alias, back this year with blissful album XTLP, where he hops from Italo to psychedelic piano house and other nodes of rave’s hive mind; brutal dubsteppers Vex’d also play live, with Kuedo from the duo putting in a DJ shift, too. Ital Tek and Ekoplekz continue the preoccupation with tough dance and tougher consonants, but the big star is RP Boo, who’ll play breakneck juke.
Village Underground, EC2, Sat
BB
Bunker, Bristol
Arty hard! Techno tough lad Powell takes top billing here, but the real draw is Hannah Sawtell, a British visual artist whose awesome high-def screen installations have been exhibited at galleries in New York, London and Beijing. She’s also made music with Factory Floor, and at Bunker she’ll play rhythmic digital noise from her iPhone and laptop live, using an app she made to produce the accompanying visuals. If that sounds more head-scratcher than hedonist, watch out: as the ex-label manager of Carl Craig’s Planet E, her techno credentials are impeccable. Silver Waves and Wanda Group support.
The Island, Sat
CJ
