| New release and remixes: |
[Jan. 28th, 2010|01:27 pm] |
We've been hard at work on the buttons with remixes for Posthuman, Mint and a new Echaskech track due for release on the Balkan Vinyl coloured series.
Check out the Balkan site for further information on this excellent series which includes tracks from Plaid, Cursor Minor, Digitonal, Mark Archer, B12, EgeBamYase and Luke Vibert/Richard Wigglesworth to name but a few!
Click here for Balkan Vinyl site
Release dates, purchase info and a sneak preview of our remixes can be found here:
Echaskech Remixes by Echaskech
Enjoy! |
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| Echaskech Live at Electrovision 23rd January... |
[Jan. 17th, 2010|11:47 am] |
Helping to kick-start the new year, Electrovision is back with a brand new set of audio-visual treats on Saturday the 23rd of January. The line-up of multimedia artists will bring live video and audio into synch across three projection screens. Come prepared for groundbreaking performances by Echaskech, Max Hattler, MOTORSAW and decolage.tv.
The Roxy Bar and Screen
128-132 Borough High Street
London SE1 1LB
(Next to Sainsbury's)
8:00pm - 1:00am
Saturday, 23rd January 2010
£4 at the door
Electrovision website
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| Echaskech Presents.....LJ Kruzer Live.. |
[Jan. 14th, 2010|08:44 pm] |
Get yer 2010 selves down to Concrete on Sat 16th for our final 'echaskech presents' for a while before the venue closes for a refurb!
This time we have a rare show from LJ Kruzer with DJ support from Kone-R and our good selves - entry is free so no excuses please
LJ Kruzer is Stephen Fiske, a resident of London, England, and producer of melodic electronic music, using the piano as a common theme, with an increasing focus on ambience and synthesizer drones resulting in a splendidly nice listen!
His new album Manhood and Electronics is available here
Concrete, The Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London, SE1 8XX 8pm - 1am, 16th Jan |
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| The Storm before The Calm EP now released.... |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|10:25 am] |
Our EP 'The Storm before The Calm' is out now on Just Music as a digital release.
The EP features a reworked version of The Storm plus a completely new version of The Calm - originals of both tracks can be found on our album 'Shatterproof'.
The tracks are accompanied by some quality remixes of The Storm from some of our favourite producers: Posthuman, Kraddy, Max Cooper and Trenchman. Each mix taking a completely new and original angle..from techno to crunking hip hop to dubstep...check em out!
The EP is accompanied by an excellent video comprised of 5,600 individual images, directed and shot by mikocoffey.com and edited by our very own Mach V:
You can buy the EP at most digital outlets including:
iTunes
Just Music Store
Bleep
7Digital
There is also a promo mix for you that features excerpts from some of the tracks alongside some exclusive bootleggy type action:
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| Free download of early hours tech shenanigans for your ears: |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|04:24 pm] |
Our friends at Null & Void are hosting our latest 60 minute mix that goes deep into late night, big dark room, massive sound system territory.
It includes an exclusive preview of Max Coopers remix for our up and coming EP 'The Storm before The Calm'
Tracklisting is:
1. Checkpoint Charlie - Bigger Than Jesus (Max Cooper Remix)
2. Modeselektor - Dancing Box
3. Every Now and Then - Ralph Falcon
4. Trauma - Andre Winter
5. Umek - You Might Hear Nothing
6. Temperamental - Mikas (Manuel de la Mare Remix)
7. One 2.3 Four - Martin Solveig (Popof Remix)
8. Letter To No One - Yousef (Fergie Remix)
9. London - Adem Beyer
10. On Off - Cirus D
11. My Technique - Autistic (Alex Di Stefano Remix)
12. Echaskech - The Storm (Max Cooper Remix)
13. Harmonisch Serie - Max Cooper
Enjoy!
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 16th, 2009|01:57 pm] |
If you are here looking for the free download of Echaskech at Festinho please head to the blog below....or click here.
So, we come to the end of our summer festival season and what better a way to finish things off than by heading to Bestival on the Isle of Wight.
Compared to the previous festivals we have attended this year, this is definitely the most manic and intense...but in the best way possible. This place is about as full on as it gets with 40,000 people packed into a reasonably confined space and a bewildering array of things to do and see.
If the madness and eccentricity of Brits in fancy dress (Space Oddity being this years theme) isn't enough there's also polka dancing, a steam punk spectacular (meh?), a 19th Century style Belgian mirrored Spielgel tent, a place serving Christmas dinner, an insect circus, a naked sauna, the Afterburner, a 'Most People in their Pants' record attempt....and that's before we even mention that Kraftwerk are headlining.
This year the event is blessed with superb weather which more than makes up for last years Biblical downpours and further enhances the party atmosphere that permeates the entire site throughout the weekend.
Musically, there is a never ending choice of wonders and plentiful opportunities to check out acts from across the spectrum.
There follows a short list of just some of the highlights we enjoyed across the weekend - in no particular order:
First up is a band that this writer went to see on a whim based on their name being really rather dreadful.
'The Big Pink' turn out to be purveyors of wonderful moody shoegaze synth pop - a kind of mixture of all the Creation Records back catalogue in one - and, from what I see on the web it looks like My Bloody Valentine producer Alan Moulder had a hand in the production of 'Velvet':
On a completely different tip the Trojan Sound System get the vote for having the best MC's of the weekend - top quality toasting and freestyling over classic ska and reggae make for an excellent Sunday afternoon boogie with the Toots and the Maytals classic 'Pressure Drop' bringing many a smile to the dancefloor:
Having attempted to check out Swedish act 'The Field' on two occasions and failing for various reasons, it's with a degree of excitement that 'third time lucky' proves correct as the band walk on stage in The Big Top on the Sunday. Incorporating a drummer and bass player into their peculiar brand of deep minimal indie techno really pays dividends as main man Alex Willner folds the two into the mix, adding a superb new rolling and building dimension to each track with sublime effect.
Bat for Lashes' Natasha Khan has us chaps a bit weak at the knees with her Saturday night Bjorky, Kate Bush like fantasy world. She creates a weird and wonderful musical place that we thoroughly enjoyed being a part of...
As for Saturday headliners Kraftwerk - well you can't really go wrong there although they did appear to lose quite a bit of the crowd due to some fairly lengthy waits for costume changes and swapping themselves for robots which were, incidentally, much more animated than the real life band themselves.
Apparantly Chris Martin wrote an extremely lengthy letter by hand to Kraftwerk front man Ralf Hutter praising them as legends and begging them to let him use a riff from 'Computer Love' on a Coldplay track. Hutter responded in typical style with a one word reply stating 'Ja'.
We love these much sampled electronic pioneers although it's with amusement that we see some of them sporting large beer bellies as they waddle off stage in their Tron costumes.
The final throwdown at Bestival goes to Carl Cox who blew the roof off the The Big Top with his Sunday night old skool rave set mostly played off a gleaming Mac, meaning all those old tracks were full phat digital and sounding superb.
Kicking off with Friends of Matthews 'Out There', you know the next two hours are going to rock big time with many a goosebump inducing classic (Joey Beltram - Energy Flash!) and the mid set back to back of 'Out of Space' and 'Everybody in the Place' by The Prodigy absolutely destroying the place.
Yes - Bestival you are immense and an excellent way to round off this summer of festivals.
Until the next time....
Click here for Echaskech site. |
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| Free Echaskech Live at Festinho Download... |
[Sep. 10th, 2009|04:46 pm] |
Hello there! We are Echaskech and we've been lucky enough to head to a fair few festivals this Summer. We've been punters at some and played at others and we thought it might be nice to share some of these experiences with you dear reader.
This time you find us at Festinho and just as we thought our festival fun couldn't get any better following The Big Chill, Festinho comes along and slaps us in the face with an absolute beauty of an event.
This is greatly helped by a lucky bump for us to support Saturday headliner Jon Hopkins on the main stage - but more of this, and a free download from that set, later.
So, how does one cook up such a splendid festival and what are the required ingredients??
First into the pot must go a liberal dose of goodwill - in this case it's all about street kids in Brazil as much of the money this festival makes goes towards the ABC Trust.
Don't forget to mix in more than a pinch of legendary and saintly volunteers to help glue it all together and keep costs low in order to maximise charitable monies:
Click here for ABC Trust Charity Information
Next - get yourself an uber venue deep in the Suffolk countryside and make it look the nuts (see video at the end of this piece!)
Now stir in a diverse selection of quality acts to tempt the crowd - some Cuban Brothers here, a dash of Carnival Collective there, a bit of The Egg on top, some Crazy P around the sides and then some Music from The Penguin Cafe as a garnish.
It might be worth going for something high class and a touch experimental as a Saturday headliner dish - it must exude rare pungent basslines from another dimension, scrunching stench filled beats that rattle the senses and an otherwordly energy to really make your nostrils flare. That Jon Hopkins should be able to deliver this and then some...
Don't forget to order in some much bigger stages than last year and definitely get some kind of festival guru to programme one of them - Pete Lawrence from The Big Chill should fit the bill nicely. It's most likely he'll bring his own magical ingredients to the party - hopefully some attractive and excellent female vocalists like Kirsty Hawkshaw and Sabira Jade....he might even invite some truly awesome bands such as Mawkin:Causley and The Shadow Orchestra..
Do remember to order up a nice smattering of anglo-latin vibes by booking artists like The Fontana's and Heather McClell...it's important to give your event a little bit of a Brazilian touch:
Click here for Heather McClell myspace
Click here for The Fontanas myspace
Right, now you've got your main ingredients it's probably best to make sure your festival has some nice extra side dishes...
Knock up a Gingerbread House in the woods for some proper partying mayhem.
Make sure you pick up a large and eclectic bag of DJ's for this Gingerbread party pit - Daft Pink, Mixmaster Morris, AGT Rave Cru - those kind of guys please.
Get yourself some acrobats to perform in the woods too. And make sure you add a little bit of a Cockney Knees Up in that vicinity as well - a Cockney Knees Up is essential to any festival so please ensure it has a presence in your dish..
Oh,and make the most of the local barns - put some masseurs in one and get a load of excellent electronica acts to play in another (Minke, Dialog, The Beaufort Scale and Input Junkie will definitely deliver that extra spice required...).
Buy the excellent 'Field Studies' by Input Junkie here
Check out The Beaufort Scale myspace here
Check out some lounging Minke Music here
It's also crucial that people dress in something strange so bung a bit of fancy dress in there.....pyjamas and nightwear should do the trick.
Finally make sure you are extremely well organised in the overall presentation and running of your tasty repast. Stir everything together.....and hey presto! An uber festival!
So, yes - it really was an excellent weekend with fantastic performances from all the artists we saw and a truly great atmosphere all round - many congratulations to the organisers and big ups must go to the lovely volunteers for helping make it such a top notch affair..
As for us - well, our lucky bump to the main stage was apparently due to The Egg being unable to make the Saturday and being moved to Friday. Thanks for being so busy Egg Men!
Nervous setting up:
A huge merci must also go to the organisers for trusting us not to balls up on such a big stage, and a massive thanks to all the lovely stage manager types (Kirsty and Craig especially!) and sound engineers for running such a tight and friendly ship.
We hope we delivered a reasonable set for all those who came to see us. We certainly enjoyed ourselves!
Thanks to Andy F for the following vid from the early part of our set. The track is 'The Calm (After the Storm)' - to be released as part of The Storm EP later this year:
Echaskech Festinho Set List (originals available on albums 'Shatterproof' and 'Skechbook' unless otherwise stated):
On Your Mind
She Likes Colour
Future Sex
The Calm (After the Storm) - out on The Storm EP later this year
Cause and Effect
Frequency Apogee
Brief Moment - unreleased
Gothic Monks - our remix of an original track by Dialog >
The Storm - out on The Storm EP next year
Here's a recording of Gothic Monks by Dialog > (Echaskech Mix) which we played live at Festinho.... for you to listen to.
(Please note this was recorded by our friend Dave Dodd who stood in the middle of the audience with a giant hairy mic and recording gear - having to put up with people shouting 'nice muff' at him. Cheers for that Dave. This recording is not straight off the desk so the quality reflects that - we hope it brings a bit of the atmos back though!!)
Click here to download track from Soundcloud
The original of this is available on the Dialog > album 'Run Silent, Run Deep' along with our remix - all available on iTunes and direct from Dialog. Shatterproof and Skechbook are available on Just Music..CD and digital....
The Gothic Monks remix has also had some plays on the'Solarstone/Deepblue' radio show - synced across various international stations from Brazil to Russia - lovely jubbly!
Click here to purchase the excellent Run Silent Run Deep direct from Dialog > - get the Echaskech mix free!
Click here to visit the Just Music store for Echaskech albums
Click here to buy Shatterproof from iTunes
Click here for Dialog > album via iTunes
Festinho - you were excellent and we can't wait for the next one.
We leave you with a lovely video from this years festival. Enjoy!
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| Big Chill Festival Review |
[Aug. 12th, 2009|02:08 pm] |
Hello again! We are Echaskech and you'll find us at a number of different festivals across the summer...we'll be playing at some, punters at others and we thought it might be nice to share some of these festivals with you, dear reader.
This time you find us at The Big Chill - as punters, mainly, although Mach V is in attendance as an excellent compere of the main stage on Saturday.
Regrettably we are not performing as a band although it is with great delight that we see our new album 'Shatterproof' for sale in the Big Chill shop.
Click here for Echaskech Shatterproof info
So, with the blatant plug out of the way, how do you go about describing a festival like The Big Chill?
Is it designed for middle aged ex-clubbers to mong about in a field to? Is it all about lying comatose whilst listening to the sound of stereo dolphin clicks mixed in with ambient sea turtle call synth washes? What about looking at weird art in a deer park? Is there any opportunity to shake your booty to a thunderous sound system big time???!!
It doesn't really matter how you describe an event as long as it delivers, right?
And, in this case, the Big Chill not only delivers by the truck load, it gives you a whole extra dose of goodness just for good measure.
But where to start on this three day extravaganza of music, art, film, poetry, comedy, fancy dress and good times? And what is it that makes it just so excellent??
We could describe how we were greeted by a record breaking 4,000 zombies on the Thursday...
We could mention the far from chilled Chris Cunningham audio visual set on the Friday night. A terrifying genius:
Maybe we should also touch on the excellent booking of Octave One who threw down classic frugsome Detroit sounds in the club tent later that evening:
Could the greatness of this festival be down to the triple header booking on the Saturday night of Lamb, Spiritualized and Orbital?
Lamb have weaved in new darker elements of sound and rhythm to their tracks and deliver a suitably large, intense performance.
Spiritualized follow with their excellent moody feedback drenched sound...covering off classics from Lazer Guided Melodies which particularly please us old shoegazer types.
But the big mention here must go to Orbital who absolutely smash it with solid reworkings of tracks from across twenty years of releases. Belfast, Chime, Halcyon, Lush, Dr Who...they are all here sending shivers down our collective spines with Madonna and Belinda Carlisle samples thrown in for added cheesy value.
Their new pieces of kit would make any synth nerd weak at the knees and it's this combination of quality hardware gear and sublimely simple melodies that prompts a friend to say post gig: 'The best live dance act just got better'. We couldn't agree more:
BUT - if this wasn't enough there is even more for our greedy lugholes with Sunday serving up a feast of reggae and world music for the, now, nicely sun tanned masses.
Max Romeo is one such highlight on the Open Air stage..at the perfectly booked time of 5pm.
Now, there is always a worry that these old reggae dudes might have gone a bit 'Lee Perry' but this is not the case here as it soon becomes clear that we are in the presence of a truly superb on point voice. Combine this with a precisely tight UK band providing the highest quality dub backing imaginable and the results are truly excellent.
Amadou and Mariam continue the Sunday world music charge taking us to the happiest of places with their hip wiggling afro beats from Mali:
Later, David Byrnes weird choice of a contemporary dance accompaniment for every track has us in fits of giggles. He also has to battle for attention with fireworks and the burning of the giant pyre to the right of the stage prompting a request to 'look that way, listen this'......and we certainly do as he drops Road to Nowhere and Once in a Lifetime.
All in, it is difficult to describe what makes this festival so excellent without going into great detail - we haven't even touched on the plentiful quirky art installations and many other stages and acts that graced Eastnor Park this year. Neither have we described the view from our campsite as the best we've seen at any festival....nor have we praised the truly excellent food...
Actually - who cares about what makes it so good. Will we be going next year is the real question?
Definitely is the answer.
Click here for Big Chill info |
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| Glade Festival Review |
[Jul. 23rd, 2009|04:31 pm] |
Hi, we are Echaskech and we felt it might be nice to review some of the festivals we are heading to over the summer. You'll find us playing at some, attending others as punters, maybe even stumbling across some by chance but mostly we'll be enjoying that great British tradition of summer festival partying and bringing a little piece of it back for you, dear reader.
This time you find us performing at Glade - a festival located within Matterley Bowl, an apparently natural amphitheatre close to Winchester and a new venue for this spin off from the Glastonbury Glade stage.
The majority of the festival is situated in the bowl itself - the steep sides not only hemming the 14,000 strong crowd in but more importantly the music itself which allows a late license and volume levels suitable for this kind of affair.
A decade ago we partied here at 'Homelands' where Underworld headlined as they also do at Glade. Hmmm. We try not to think too hard about it being a decade but tip our hats reverently to Underworld for the long haul reign as an excellent live electronic act - more of which later.
Glade is a very different beast to our previous festival foray (Blissfields) as it mostly pays homage to the culture of late night partying to the finest electronic dance music around. Kick drums and bass lines whump out of every available corner of the site with punchy crystal clear Funktion One sound systems thumping beats into the lugholes of the dancing hoards.
The festival is distinctly non-commercial with zero sponsor branding and a music policy that sits firmly on the right side of underground. Fantastic - we intend to get involved with as much of it as possible.
We arrive early Saturday afternoon and are greeted by a torrential downpour which renders the site a mudfest for the rest of the day. Such a situation calls for immediate repairing to one of the many tented stages this festival has to offer. We decide to jump in at the deep end by heading into the Overkill tent to see a man who has chosen to name himself after a particularly unpleasant virus that causes a person to hemorrhage their guts out of various body holes. Nice.
Ebola delivers a set of brutal genre splicing crunked up monsters culminating in a gabba track that leaves us feeling like Thor his very self is banging hammer in hand on our eardrums at a rate of 200 beats per minute. Marvellous stuff.
See below for Ebola's innovative use of a rowing machine to create wobbly basslines :
Following this aural assault we move on in search of a warmer sound and find ourselves at the outdoor Origin stage where PsyTrance pumps out of a huge soundsystem to a large muddy booted crowd.
Yes, yes - we are the first to admit that trance of any sort has a bit of an image problem but when delivered correctly the relentless driving acidic basslines, vibrating kick drums and overall high class production can create an excellent atmosphere - arguably the best at the festival in the case of this stage.
We get lured in for much longer than expected as the DJ (Tristan) unleashes a spew of endlessly building arpeggiating melodies...
Click here for Tristan myspace
It's at night that a festival of this kind really comes to life and organisers at Glade have laid on many a late night treat for us. The most spectacular is undoubtedly the Afterburner installation from Arcadia, the centre piece of which is a towering DJ booth made out of old jet engine components. Surrounding this are flame spurting Victorian lamp posts, smoking twisted metal trees and, around its perimeter, an inwardly facing sound system all of which create a 360 degree Mad Max - esque post industrial party space.
This is a truly excellent creation that needs to be seen to be believed.
Click here to see Arcadia pictures
Later we see Squarepusher who headlines the Glade stage - his deliciously demented jazz licked beats sounding like the soundtrack of a 1970's Japanese cop show themed Nintendo game. The crowd lap it up and we all bop about enthusiastically to his incredible high speed bass guitar playing. Excellent.
Following this madness we head to the Vapour tent to see Moderat who, after a nervy start with a couple of sound drop outs,proceed to pummel the soundsystem into submission with extraordinarily produced heavy beats and soaring epic melodies. The undoubted hours spent in the studio pouring over sound design results in an extra dimension of beefy warmth to each track which most producers can only dream of. Couple this with the excellent Pfadfinderei produced visuals and you have a truly brilliant audio visual package that knocks our little socks off. Vocalist Apparat doesn't sing quite as much during this particular gig and it's a shame they
leave 'Rusty Nails' off the set list. Despite this, though, we still leave fully satisfied.
The rest of our night is spent frugging to the deep Detroit techno sounds of Carl Craig and Juan Atkins. Both drop the expected classic tracks (Model 500's The Chase from 1989 being a particular favourite) alongside that unique sound so particular to this brand of techno: sub bass dancing around crisp kick and snare drums, skipping hi hat programming with long periods of meditative beats building slowly into subtle twinkling off kilter melodies and the trusty old Detroit string chords. It's been a long time since we've heard this stuff played out and it packs us off to bed very happy indeed.
By the time we awake on Sunday we don't have too much time to check out some of the early acts as there is a degree of fannying about required to get our kit over to the Inspiral stage for the 3.30 set time. It appears very little has changed at the festival since the night before...many of the tents are packed by lunchtime..heavy dubstep rains down on the busy Boomtown tent and the trancers are out in force and bouncing about already. Thankfully the rain has abated, the ground dries up and the rest of the day remains nice, dry and warm - excellent!
The Inspiral stage is extremely well run with the guys in charge making it really easy for us to set up and get going (thanks Dominic, Ali and Jodie!). We play some tracks off our new album which we've not played out before which seem to go down well and overall we are very pleased with the performance which seems
to just flow from our fingers today. We even managed to blow the wadding out off some of the speakers with our bass during 'On Your Mind' which obviously pleases us greatly:
Our set list:
Shatterproof
Nothing Left to Say (Remix of a Digitonal track)
Cause and Effect
Frequency Apogee
On Your Mind
She Likes Colour
Future Sex
Reduction
Out There Still
Click here to pre-order our new album Shatterproof
Our set up from the back of the Inspiral Stage:
Prior to our playing we catch a couple of acts on this stage that are worth mentioning - Halogen and Iambic...both sets were highly enjoyable so do check out the links below to find out more:
Click here for Halogen blog, lots of interesting music and electronic gizmology type stuff
Click here for Iambic myspace
With our kit locked away and our work done we are able to enjoy the rest of the evening and commence by flitting between Ital Tek and Starkey - two producers with very different styles on the dubstep/grime tip. Starkey throws down beefy basslines with a US R&B vibe whereas Ital Tek takes a much deeper melodic approach to the dubstep genre with nice bass progressions and synth pads accompanying cracking stepping beats. Splendid.
Click here for Starkey myspace
Click here for Ital Tek myspace
We head off to the Glade stage nice and early for a front line spot at Underworld and catch a firing Darren Price warm up set where he sneaks in the Mr Fingers classic 'Can You Feel It' - still sounding awesome over two decades on. Set done he walks up on stage and flicks one of the faders on the Underworld mixing desk leaving us waiting quite some time listening to a repeated vocodered voice before he emerges again with Karl Hyde and Rick Smith.
The band have positioned their screens and mixing desk to face the audience so we get a good view of their knob twiddling and fader prodding. We can see at least four separate sequencer instances in use, two giant mixing desks and a whole host of other jiggery pokery designed to help them jam out the tracks rather than follow a rigid path. Needless to say they coax an amazing sound out of this kit, working the substantial sound system with an absolute beasting of stadium techno as well as some new quite housey, poppy yet sublime material which we haven't heard before. Hyde whips out a guitar during 'King of Snake' and proceeds to wah wah over the top of the track. By rights this shouldn't work but of course it sounds great and simply adds a further dimension to the bouncing piano riff. The melancholic three note refrain of the beautiful 'Jumbo' offers us a brief respite before the immense set closing 'Moaner' which leaves us wondering if we will ever tire of the erratic lyrics of Karl Hyde and thumping intense sound of this band. Probably never is the answer to that.
Thanks to Natalia Data for the above pic of Underworld at Glade. She also played at the festival but we sadly missed her set on the Friday due to our later than planned arrival..a great shame as we love her stuff. Check out the video below of her set at our night at Concrete, South Bank:
Following Underworld there is STILL more to go with a storming drum and bass set from Andy C, more Arcadia action and some late night dancing in the Inspiral area to a wobbly and quite dubby set from Eat Static.
Finally we collapse into our tents exhausted yet extremely happy and can confirm that this was a truly excellent and well organised festival - we hardly touched on the vast line up and have no doubt that we missed some fantastic acts although everything we did see left us inspired and wistful for more. Nice one Glade!
We leave you with a video below of the messy scenes around the perimeter of the festival that we took from the kit transportation van at around 5pm on Sunday.
Next up : The Big Chill
Click here for Echaskech site
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| Echaskech: Blissfields Festival Review |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|05:31 pm] |
Welcome to our first post on this here blog.
We are Echaskech, an audio visual act comprising Dom Hoare, Andy Gillham and Mach V. We tend to visit a lot of festivals so we thought it might be nice to share some of the events we are heading to over the summer with you, dear reader.
You'll find us playing at some, attending others as punters, maybe even stumbling across some by chance but mostly we'll be enjoying that great British tradition of summer festival partying.
First up on the Echaskech live calendar this summer is Blissfields from which we have just returned (3rd - 4th July). This small to medium sized festival has been running for a number of years on a farm in Hampshire owned by the Bliss family - a rather fortunate surname given the circumstances.
Greeting us as we draw up to the event on the Saturday is a sign that says 'GAY DOG' in a P.T. Barnum font. Is this some kind of alarmingly inappropriate circus act? Alas no, it turns out to be kennels for happy canines and has nothing to do with the festival. We couldn't help but feel mildly disappointed, as well as relieved, that we wouldn't be getting to see some hopelessly exploited bulldog in a tutu.
Once on site the fantastic weather and atmosphere more than make up for the lack of gay dogs and we commence bowling about, swigging beer and checking out bands.
The crowd appears to be a pretty decent mixture of festival tribes. There's a good smattering of families, some proper young facepainted types, babies with giant ear defenders, middle aged men with logo T-shirts, a hen party and much of the usual fancy dress. There's also a lot of vicious sunburn which prompts us to slip slop slap like the sensible folk we are.
Many of the acts are local to the area which is great for discovering new music. We see a band called The Ramblings who leap about in a bonkers fashion and thump out rocky blues to an appreciative crowd.
The Ramblings myspace
We also catch the cracking DJ Chix who belts out hip hop and big beat classics bringing smiles to many faces particularly as it's mostly played off vinyl which pleases the old skoolers amongst us. (ie. us).
DJ Chix site
Over on the main stage we see Imperial Leisure who have the crowd bouncing to their ska infused madness - lead singer Denis climbs on anything available, hypes the audience and wows the ladies.
Later that evening I bump into Denis and for some reason he grabs me and starts dancing furiously. He throws me about, I get on his shoulders, he jumps up and down, I get off and jump up and down too, we bump chests, bounce about some more and he then attempts to leap into my arms. Not expecting this I drop him on the ground. Sorry Denis - I ruined what must have been a fantastic looking dance routine.
After Imperial Leisure we head off to play our own set, testing out the sub capabilities of the speaker system with our new tracks and manage to pull a dancing crowd as we close with our remix of Jon Hopkins' '100'.
Sadly we are not joined by our VJ Mach V as a mix up on the tech specs leaves us projector-less. His interpretative dancing more than makes up for the lack of visuals thankfully.
Free of duties we start partying properly with Subgiant helping proceedings on the main stage. We hadn't come across these guys before but their set of phat beats, live drummer and a hefty dose of scratching had us dancing approvingly. Thumbs up to Subgiant - go see them if you can!
Subgiant site
Closing on the outdoor stage were the Super Furry Animals and as the prerequisite chinese lanterns float up into the sky, we ponder why we don't have cool first names like Gruff. He asks us to look at the moon and howl, he holds up signs that say 'Applause', and 'Whoa'. And mostly we obey despite 'Whoa' being a strange word to show to people.
Our night time antics find us at the 'Bubble Bar'. It's a double decker London bus with a jacuzzi on the top deck, cocktails in the bar and a host of DJ's spinning crowd pleasers into the night. Yes. We like this bus. It's much more fun than the No. 38 to Clapton.
We also catch a bit of Beans on Toast who is so obsessed with girls, drugs and swearing that he sings gruff voiced songs about them all to a country and western backing. He draws a large crowd who are thoroughly entertained and sing-a-long to each catchy chorus. Nice one Beans.
Beans on Toast myspace
Blissfields also caters nicely for the late night party crowd with a proper old rave in the 'Hidden Hedge' which continued into the wee hours. It was dark, there were lazers, chugging beats, much dancing and Orbital's 'Chime' got a massive cheer from the glow stick waving crowd.
All in - a smashing festival which left us travelling home on Sunday bleary eyed and very happy indeed. And we didn't even have a go on the infamous tractor rides.
Next up we head to The Glade....
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echablog's journal