Live at Incubate - Motor City Drum Ensemble and others

Live Report of Incubate Sunday - Motor City Drum Ensemble, Julio Bashmore, Space Dimension Controller

In the category what is good for me might not be good for them, the time slot of XLR8R’s residency at Tilburg’s Incubate festival might be good for me  as it makes sure I can actually attend and get home, however a house party from 16:00 until 22:00 in a city that is not known for its lively dance community is not something a lot of people are anxious about attending. Apparently. Despite having a couple of amazing DJs (Rem Koolhaus, Space Dimension Controller, Motor City Drum Ensemble, Julio Bashmore, and Jackmaster, in that order) the venue remained at a steady twenty-five percent of its capacity. Which means that A) the atmosphere wasn’t particularly joyous, and B) a lot of people missed a couple of great sets.

Space Dimension Controller has the unenviable task of starting at 17:30, which by all accounts is the point where many start cooking dinner. For about twenty or so people he starts with what seems as a bit of a lark, for throwing in a couple of Eighties tunes is always a great idea, but not many DJs would be throwing in Phil Collins' ‘In The Air Tonight’. However, it doesn’t take long for him to start grooving it up in a set that surprises me in the sense that he has always seemed so very instrumental to me, as in not using vocals a lot. And I like my vocals. But the middle part of his ninety minute set was quite excellent, a standard he maintained until he went hip-hop the last twenty or so minutes.

Motor City Drum Ensemble is steadily becoming more and more of a player in the DJ scene. I saw him play at Merleyn in Nijmegen, and since he has also played in Amsterdam and released a critically acclaimed installment of the DJ-Kicks series. His set has a bit of Jazz and African influences, with some spoken word bits thrown in there. However the emphasis lies on house music. Some vintage house finds its way onto the turntables, but also some modern aces like Storm Queen’s ‘Look Right Through’, which is an ace track on all accounts. He hits the right balance between keeping it danceable and not making it a straight-up set by only using old bangers and straight beats. He is on stage for about an hour, and it might just have been the quickest hour you’ve ever seen. His track selection and his mixing is such high quality you are constantly wondering what he is going to gently slide into next. It is a bit surprising he doesn’t pull his own song ‘L.O.V.E.’ out of the bag (it is one of the highlights on his DJ Kicks album), but I will happily listen to him spin some records any time he is playing near me.

Julio Bashmore is next, and he too gets about an hour to strut his stuff. If I had expected a little bit of hip-hop in any set, it would’ve been this one, but instead he goes down the track Motor City Drum Ensemble had paved for him, which means some nice disco and house tunes there. Some with some vintage vocals even, and a nice remix of Classixx's track ‘Into the Valley’. The last ten minutes Bashmore suddenly goes techno with a record that has those kind of spoken vocals from hell on it, which seems like a rather abrupt departure of what he has been playing the previous fifty minutes. Not to say that whenever you shift from what you are doing you are in the wrong, but this shift was perhaps a bit too sudden and a bit too much towards something we hadn’t heard for the entire evening before that (nor would we elect to chose it).

In terms of music, the evening was very good. Those three DJs played good sets, and the one by Motor City Drum Ensemble was just excellent and so cohesive. The atmosphere inside the venue was not that great, because it simply lacked the crowd. Now I’m dancing no matter what, but there wasn’t a real party vibe going on. The atmosphere outside, I mean, when it was dry I loved hearing people plunking away at those piano’s. That they brought that idea to The Netherlands, that was a smart move right there. But it was pouring about the whole day through, so kind of unfortunate. However, I’ve heard the festival was a success, and that is good to hear. That this particular event (due to the time schedule, the Sunday, the weather, being the last day, being in a city not known for dance, etc) wasn’t rapturous belies the fact that there was outstanding music being played, and hopefully next year more people will realize they are missing some outstanding young DJs playing fab sets. So hopefully the organization behind this doesn’t get deterred, for if it is about quality music, sure they delivered, and quality is what it is all about.