Warp and Turbo are up there as my favourite record labels in the world right now.
Amazingly both appear to be springing into activity again in the 09 with great and glorious gusto.
According to the former, it's celebrating its 20th year of activity on the earth with a compilation and number of events. Here's what they're doing and what you can do to help them by visiting Warp20
'Create The Definitive Warp Album. Vote for your favourite ever Warp tracks here. Your top 10 (by different artists) will combine with our top 10 to make a historic album for release this Autumn. Leave personal messages and memories and the best will be printed in the album art. We Are Reasonable People.'
Not only this, but they're throwing a series of parties across the UK during the summer.
Paris, New York, Sheffield, London and Tokyo are the locales. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Sheffield and a party to truly bring home the vibe of the bleep.
The final bit of good news is that the bathroom door (see above) is finally getting fixed. As previously reported, we had to bash it in last October after an unsuspecting guest became trapped inside after which I did the same. That crack in the middle is the damage wrought upon it. So hopefully within a hour we'll be able to defecate and simultaneously lock the door.
First of all is that Tiga's record label, Turbo, has just overhauled it's website. Yep that's right. I told you it was BIG. But it is. Not only is Tiga's second album due very soon (Ciao Tiga is it's name, rave pop is probably gonna be it's game. Although I wouldn't want to stick him in a box), happily they're putting together a compilation of the best bits from the label under the title of Omni Dance. Out on May 25th it looks, how you say, sicker than sick.
For those of who cannot get enough of Tiga's thoughts, there's an amazing interview with him about the new album on there.
This bit is the funniest moment...
Q: Are you happy with what you’ve been able to achieve?
Tiga: Once you realize you have the power to rent a limo anytime you please, you know in your heart that you’re not like other men. To hear 10,000 people chant your name and then have them locked inside the venue until you have had a chance to learn all of theirs. My goal has always been to become the most famous man in the world by the time I am 50. Failing that, I will assume the identity of a respected physician. My album’s success will determine whether the world will ever come to know Dr. Timothy Tiga.
And you can get more of his updates on the twitter he's set up. Dip into this and you'll realise the man is monstrously tapped...
Bugged Out!’s been my favourite club night for a while - the vibe is debauched, the written hype dished out with all the subtlety of a gnarly hammer plus the guests are always uber-hot. Them tales about the ressies getting more or as fucked up as punters are hype too and always get me going, especially when calamity strikes and they throw caution and money to the wind all in the hope of the party being pushed over the edge.
Check out their tales here. The one about original ressie Rob Bright falling off the stage at Sankeys cos he was too pissed, breaking his conk, straightening it in the bogs and goin’ straight back out to the dance floor is class…
On a Thursday eve in December we’d decided to hit up Bugged Out! before it leaves its current home at The End. The now strangely asexual weirdo leftfield visionary Tiga was the big player in question. I love this guy - from his mindaltering bad ass records to the hallucinogenic verbalisations of his press sheets for his label Turbo and hard, acidic deejay sets.
Perhaps the best ting is he could have been a Scissor Sisters-esque mega bucks pop star but instead opted to blaze the crop and produce techno records with so much bottom end they make yer ball sack quake. Recently he’s become even weirder. Take a dip in his pod casts or check his latest work The Worm and Mind Dimension - Slabs of freaky genius which will make you fret.
Venturing to the End was frothy- It’s tucked around a back street in West London and is closing pretty soon. Lo the vibe was heavy for a Thursday night.
Tiga’s set was an exercise in both restraint and being extremely banging. Dropping The Worm, (his second released collaboration with Zombie Nation as ZZT), Duke Dumont’s techtonic rehash of Late of the Pier’s Bathroom Gurgle, plus a slice of Aphex’s Window Licker, the place was lapping it up like a bunch of wonky hounds. He also dropped this as his set closer, a suitably hypnotic aural ambush which knocked my brain into rave town. It’s Cari Lekebusch and the Jesper Dahlback overhaul of Shaded out on Tiga’s own Turbo imprint. Check it…
The evening was full of hi-jinks. Despite the £4.50 price tag surrounding the Kronenburg, we managed to maintain all night. Until the next morning in fact. We were having so much fun we informed a fellow bus passenger, who was unlucky enough to stumble into the aftermath, that the four of us were artists living together in a commune who took it in turns to have our wicked way with the one lady of our group - or ‘Lucy’ as Jeff was dubbed. Sinster and sick…
The fun was so intense that I completely neglected to remember I was due at Ministry of Sound to take part in a DJ masterclass featuring the likes of Danny Rampling, Ray Keith and Jazzy M as tutors on the morro. I woke at 12.30 with the kick off time of 1pm giving me the full on fear. No time for a shower I was forced to sprint across London town and mumble through the ‘masterclass’ wild of eye and stupid of face. I left having learnt a lot about the way Ministry of Sound works, clutching a bottle of their own brand vodka and a copy of Anthems II. Make no bones, the compilation is ace. Yer can make yer own minds up about how worthwhile spending £300 on a day with Mr Rampling would be… Check it here…
