A night with.......Sebo K

As a concept I like ‘a night with.. . .’ one DJ all night long. The idea that the artist takes you on a 8 hour musical journey, an daunting concept but a vision that works. Previous showcases have included Michael Mayer, Tobi Neumann, Magda and Tiefschwarze. Magda has stated it was the best party in Europe and while the notion stands it has yet to be proved wrong, which brings me to the present ‘A night with……Sebo K.’

Usually held at venues like The Victorian Basement on Great Eastern Street, this month ‘a night with’ re-locates to Basing House.

Basing House was voted 2011’s best London venue and this was to be my first visit at this reputable setting.

We arrive to be jolted into the main queue; apparently there is no separate queue for the guest list. What is the point of being on the guestlist if it is not to skip the queue at least?! After what seemed an unnecessary period of waiting we finally enter London’s No1 venue, and proceed down the stairs into a very busy atmosphere. I admit the hustle and bustle of the venue took me by surprise and unfortunately was extremely disappointing as it is usually quite relaxed and chic event. Also one thing that ‘a night with….’ usually boasts is a crowd that are there for one shared reason, to see the specified DJ, this one, however was quite the opposite. It seemed definitely an audience that were not familiar with either the concept of the ‘night’ or even the DJ itself. Basing house with the Basing crew! A shame really.

The man from Mobilee is known for incorporating tech house and vintage dance music and to be quite frank delivered an impeccable set. Throughout the night all genres of electronic music were visited. Starting off with Chicago house then into the more European tech/minimal sounds and then coming down into the more funky grooves. There was a element of Kenny Larkins remix of Kevin Saunderson/Inner city's new release, 'Future' and around the 5am mark the majority of the Basing crew had been filtered out leaving the true fans to join together for one big party.

The last hour, as expected was brilliant, featuring Tom Trago 'Use me again' and finally ending with Chic 'I want your love' a fantastic way to end a fantastic 8 hours. Well done Sebo K. I would happily do it all over again and can't wait for the next ‘A night with……M.A.N.D.Y.’ One thing though, let’s stay underground. It’s a great party with a great concept that doesn’t need to be ruined by oblivious individuals.

Down Under Review

As a Soul fan, I moved to London in 2004 new to the underground scene of electronic music but soon found a space in my heart ready to receive and accept this new genre of music. I found that being introduced to the harmonious dance tracks produced by Valantino Kanzyani was a nice way to ease into the more techno rhythms one hears on a night out. 8 years on however, and fully immersed in the electronic music scene, I was drawn to The Hub Studios next to Hackney Wick station for the ‘Down Under’ party with the prestigious Valentine Kanzyani as guest, alongside PRASLEA from a:rpr:ia . Merry after a few Christmas cocktails we reached our ‘secret warehouse location’ and after being warned by an acquaintance that we won’t need the cloakroom, continued to put out jackets in anyway and headed to the bar to continue our Christmas festivities. Cold doesn’t even begin to describe it; freezing would be a more accurate description! However our notion that the more we drank, the warmer we would become, seemed effective and we persisted with this method of retaining warmth throughout the night.

The Hub Studios seems to be the new ‘it’ venue where various parties such as Day Moon and Muak have been held. It is an intimate space that was ideal for this occasion, the only thing I can fault is the temperature (pre-drinks) and perhaps the location, as it could be much further to travel than your usual warehouse venue.

Made up of regulars to small knit parties the crowd where a pleasure to be with and gave the event more of a party vibe than the intensity of a warehouse rave. Kanzyani played a fairly non-substantial set that unfortunately didn’t really live up to the expectation. However, he was shortly followed by a back to back set from PRASLEA and Kanzyani that saw us through the rest of the night and this more than made up for it. There was distant inclusion of the melodious track ‘Flying’ from Kanzyani’s label ‘Jesus Loved You’, coupled with the familiar minimal undertones from PRASLEA which was delightful and gave a feeling of sentiment to the occasion, like hearing the voice of an old friend.

On the whole Down Under delivered a fun party to kick off the Christmas festivities and it more than fulfilled us on a night out. I am looking forward to the next one.