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.
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...
Pre-order our new album ‘Shatterproof’ to arrive on launch day (August 10th). The CD is a beautiful gatefold festooned with pretty artwork…and we can guarantee the sound quality will be better than a download. Here is the link!
Well, yes it has been rather quiet round these parts, and I apologise for that. We have been rather busy at home getting new floors put in and I’ve been on the festival trail with Echaskech (blissfields) and the Disco Shed (Cornbury and Latitude). However, last Wednesday I was given free reign at the Big Chill Bar and so I recorded it for you, dear listener. The file’s in two parts as my AV500 stops recording when it gets to 3 hours. Next up on the ever busy agenda is The Big Chill Festival (Aug 6-9), then on to Bloom Festival (Aug 14-16) with Echaskech, then the missus and I are off to Green Man (as punters - yay! Aug 21-23), then I think we’ve got a spare weekend before we’re off to Festinho (Sept 4-6) then hopefully rejoining the Disco Shed at The Thames Festival (Sept 12-13).
I do have other news, but lets get this out the way first.
Here’s the first part of my DJ set from The Big Chill Bar, 29th July 2007. This part is the first 3 hours, starts out with some hip hop and reggae, slides into some party funk and ends up in the electronica and (dare I say it) erm, housey side of things. The vinyl decks were a bit unwell so they seem a bit quiet comapared to the CD tracks, but hey, whatchagonnadoabartit?
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...
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.
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.
Here it is... the first single off our new album 'Shatterproof' and its a blast....
This tongue-in-cheek retro-futuristic electro hip grinder may not be typical of the rest of the album but it was about time that we paid homage to some of our early electro influences such as Newcleus, Aux 88, Egyptian Lover and Davy DMX. So we have, and its a big fat slinky bass rocking ditty about the oh so serious subject of, well, having sex with robots.
Here is a brand spanking new Echaskech remix, and its free to everyone to download as a top quality 320k mp3 of solid Echaskech nourishment.
The Dallas Guild are an outstanding new addition to the scene. Bridging an unlikely prog/pop highway of Pink Floyd’s 70s soundscape psychedelia and ELO’s punchy synth drenched pop songs. Their new album, produced to a sublime level is ”Hello Darkness" will be further teased with "The Dallas Guild EP" later in the year.
