FESTIVAL THE WEE CHILL People’s Palace & Winter Gardens, Glasgow, Sat 21 May
Now into its ninth year, Glasgow’s enduring all-day clubber’s festival the Wee Chill is back again – but this time all-new and different. It’s now left its spiritual home at the Queen’s Park Glasshouse and will move this month to the much larger and frankly stunning People’s Palace & Winter Gardens complex for a date which will see the usual capacity of 1500 expand by a whole thousand. ‘We’ve sold out the Glasshouse twice a year for the last
three years,’ says promoter Brian Traynor, ‘and we decided that the next step towards getting bigger guests in was upping the ante in terms of the amount of tickets we sell.’ They’ve certainly done a good job with this one. Over three club stages curated by Glasgow nights Subculture & Sensu, Supermax and Optimo, the big-name guests will be Derrick Carter & Mark Farina back to back, Guy Gerber, Moodymann, Greg Wilson, Matius Aguayo and Hudson Mohawke, alongside a bunch of local guests like Domenic & Junior back to back, Billy Woods, Jackmaster and Thunder Disco Club, and a live band stage. ‘We’ll be sad to leave the Glasshouse behind,’ says Traynor,
‘because it’s worked out so well for eight years. But at the same time, doing this offers us so many opportunities to progress the festival, to try out something new and different, and of course we’re still going to have that same unique atmosphere the Wee Chill has always had, with a party going on amidst the plants.’ For regular Wee Chillers, it’s a new spin on a much-loved day out: in a broader sense, it’s further proof that Glasgow is a great town for city festivals, from one of the events that launched the scene. (David Pollock)
Clubs Mark Farina
Artificial Intelligence
HOUSE LUVELY Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Sat 7 May DRUM & BASS SPLIT Cabaret Voltaire, Tue 24 May
We’ve had a stint of big club nights closing over the last year or so and now Luvely have announced their retirement. ‘There’s no point keeping going just for the sake of keeping going, it’s better to leave a good memory in people’s minds,’ explains promoter (and owner) Davie Draeger. Split has been rocking the Cab’s Tuesday night, based around a sound that encompasses drum & bass, dubstep, electro, breaks and techno. Now for their eighth birthday they have Artificial Intelligence guesting, and even with this drum & bass duo manning the decks it’s still free entry.
Luvely was founded by the late George Patterson in 1996, who decided to ‘A lot of the midweek clubs always seem to be really good parties, there’s more
import some of London’s club culture north to create a ‘colourful’, ‘happy’ night with an uplifting high energy soundtrack of tough house music. ‘We want people to see something they’ve never seen before,’ adds Draeger, ‘which goes hand- in-hand with the themed nights – we want people to experience it as a different night every time they come to Luvely.’
Pioneering special effects on the Edinburgh club scene and for this 15th
birthday they promise pyrotechnics, CO2, a retrospective playlist and your last chance to nab one of their exclusive birthday mix CDs. ‘I think it’s really George Patterson’s legacy, it was a great loss when he died,
we certainly felt a responsibility to keep to the same standards he’d already created for the club. I still feel a bit like a caretaker for the club on George’s behalf and that responsibility that it goes out on a high.’
Don’t worry if you can’t make this date, the birthday party is the start of a long farewell, before the final curtain falls in July. And Draeger has one final statement: ‘on behalf of myself and the crew I want to thank everybody for all the support for Luvely over the years – it’s been very much appreciated.’ (Henry Northmore)
of a party vibe,’ laughs Glenn Herweijer (who alongside Zula Warner aka Gambit makes up AI) and he’s right: clubbers who commit to partying on a Tuesday usually commit big. Herweijer started out DJing alonside Marcus Intalex at University. ‘I had a few
house releases out under a different alias that did quite well, then I came back to London and got back into the drum & bass scene. Knowing Marcus he put our first release out on Soul:r and everything kicked off from there.’ Leading to releases on Liquid V, Exit Records and Movement, remixes for the likes of Kelis and Fat Freddy’s Drop, before releasing their debut album Stand Alone last year. ‘When you’re releasing singles you’re just thinking how it will work as a 12”, but with an album you have a lot more freedom, rather than just going for a big hitter, you have a lot more space.’ The end product mixes liquid funk with dark broken beats. ‘It’s a very cinematic
sound, it takes a lot of elements of different styles from the techy side of drum & bass and the more jump up side, so it’s always good for the dancefloor.’ (Henry Northmore)
28 Apr–26 May 2011 THE LIST 41