TI N T H E PA R K
DANCE BASE
tinthepark.com
Packed some glow sticks?
David Pollock rounds up the best of this year’s Slam Tent offerings at Strathallan S
T in the Park might have a shiny new location but, as ever, the Slam Tent T in is hosted and programmed by Glasgow house and techno duo Slam, also is ho the people behind The Arches’ (RIP, for the moment) highly-regarded the residency Pressure. They’ll be kicking things off on Friday evening res alongside Sub Club regular Telford, with an international alliance of alo house DJs and producers to follow. The Bristolian Eats Everything, ho German duo Ame, Berghain regular Ben Klock and a Drumcode Ge coalition featuring the Swedish label’s boss Adam Beyer and his Italian co labelmate Joseph Capriati close the evening off with a b2b set. la On Saturday, Annie Mac, Radio 1’s ambassador for all things bass, will be one of the key fi gures to take to the decks. For the fi rst time, w Radio 1 will be broadcasting sets from this weekend in their Essential R Mix slot, so hopefully this might mean we hear Glasgow’s golden boy Jackmaster going b2b with his old mate Joy Orbison or even Chicago house icon Lil Louis again afterwards. Also on Saturday, Berlin’s architect-turned-techno DJ Rødhåd makes his T debut (see interview, below). Finally, an eclectic Sunday sees the dense techno fl avour of Surgeon joined by frequent Lady Gaga collaborator Lady Starlight. Also listen out for Maya Jane Coles, the young auteur who fuses dubstep, garage and more typical house styles.
BUILDING BEATS
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Berlin’s Rødhåd makes his T in the Park debut this year. Ray Philp caught up with him ahead of the festival
S omeone once said that writing about music was like dancing about architecture and where techno is concerned, this analogy has some currency. Great techno sets are dei ned by a sense of structure, the outlines of which rise up and fall down in l owing contours and, sometimes, sharp spikes. It’s tempting to consider Rødhåd’s style as a product of his former profession – he was working at an architecture i rm until last year – and it’s a comparison he’s acknowledged in the past, though these days the process is more intuitive. ‘The good thing about a DJ is that he needs to read the crowd,’ he says. ‘So I just react on what energy level is possible and try to bring my own view on the music and sound to the people. That’s the secret.’
As Rødhåd’s proi le has grown in his native Berlin through residencies in Golden Gate and Zementgarten in the mid-to-late noughties, he has spent more time closing parties than opening them, and these days his typical schedule includes regular slots at Berghain and his own party and label, Dystopian, as well as a glut of festival bookings. The Dystopian sound mingles with familiar tropes of the genre: science i ction, industrial landscapes, melancholy sounds and greyscale artwork. It is, however, an authentic rel ection of the label’s mindset. But, he tells me: ‘we are not
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only interested in making music for the dancel oor; [we make it] with all atmospheres we love, like melancholy, darker grooves and so on. But, we also want to be open minded; not always doing techno music.’
Rødhåd’s T in the Park debut this summer underscores a meteoric rise for someone who still seems genuinely surprised at the idea of being a full-time DJ and producer. ‘To be honest,’ he says, ‘I still need some time to realise the changes in my life. To be independent and live from what you love is satisfying.’ His present proi le as an artist is thanks to his music, which blends the machinistic grooves of modern Berlin techno with a high-spec minimalism; ‘Newspeak’, a track from one of his earliest EPs, the George Orwell-referencing 1984, feels like an earnest nod to Robert Hood. That he’s now jostling for space with Detroit legends of that calibre on festival l yers is apt when you consider the stratospheric climes his music inhabits: only Rødhåd himself still seems to be adjusting to the altitude.
Rødhåd plays the Slam Tent at T in the Park on Sat 11 Jul.