Entwistle: A search for intimacy (introduction)

In the past year of so I've been taking my first few steps into electronic music territory as a DJ. This comprised mostly of research into various styles that appeal to me, listening to a truckload of DJ mixes (something I was only doing haphazardly before) and from that attempting to distill a style that suited me. In the next few months, I'll try and share a few insights into what I've been doing and what I'm up to moving forward with this project. After all, writing is still my strongpoint and I'm probably going to get more serious about the DJ thing if I commit to a few blogs. So, please see to it that I keep to my commitment.

Like any starting DJ, my first experiences at the turntables have come from playing small living room parties, basement clubs and the odd small festival.  I've always been fond of small venues, whether for concerts or club nights. I know EDM is booming in the States with its rock hard brostep and techno sounds, but I can't connect with that at all. Then there's the big sweeping melodic techno/progressive house thing, which a lot of people in my immediate surroundings are in to. Now I do have a softspot for some of that stuff, but it's only really effective in big rooms. In my opinion, it's the panoramic quality of these great Guy J or Apparat tracks that makes them so wonderful, but it just won't come out on small soundsystems. The Big  Room appeal is there, and some of it works great on headphones for instance, but it won't get people dancing at a party. 

So, the operative word is 'intimacy', and it's the exact opposite of what a lot of people would consider a trend in 2012/2013. In the Netherlands, we've opened our biggest dedicated concert venue to date (the Ziggo Dome, cap. 17.000) opened last year. Skrillex got comfortable on his superstar-pedestal, and around him every noticeable popstar started looking for a wobble and the perfect drop. Intimacy is the antithesis of everything that is going down in commercial electronic music right now. It's gone missing in most commercial music output, replaced by awe-inspiring loudness and subsonic rumble. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm not going to a club to get blown away. Simply put, I want to feel something, I want the sweaty physicality of the dance floor. So that's what I'm looking for. 

Next week, I'll share some of the main pointers towards intimacy I've found over the last year. For now, I'll just give you a quick example of what I'm talking about. 

One of the first tracks I really came to enjoy playing way back in 2011 (those were my baby steps) was a track from globetrotting producer Matias Aguayo, Minimal. It's basically a 127 bpm samba track fused to these new wave guitar chords and then there's Aguayo's voice, in total deadpan mode, singing about his distaste for minimal (techno) music. He sings that 'these clubbers don't dance' and the 'music got no groove' and 'no balls'. Instead, he wants to dance to a more nocturnal, profound, sensual rhythm. I couldn't have said it better. On a whole, it's a curveball on any dancefloor. It's a devil to mix and Dutch audiences move far too stiff to do the track justice, but it's just pure joy playing this track. 

The return of Most Unpleasant Men

On a cold friday evening I find myself suddenly on a train to Gouda. My destination is a return to the stage by one of my Dutch indie favorites: Most Unpleasant Men. Without a doubt one of the talented, most accomplished groups in the Netherlands. Their first studio effort Nothing Moves Slower was a play on both British and Scandinavian traditions, both dreamy and feisty, yet with a significant influence from Dutch literature and performance art ("kleinkunst") traditions. It was an ambitious collection of music by an obviously very accomplished bunch of musicians, that hadn't come to full fruition yet, and lacked production value. Most Unpleasant Men remained the domain of the underground, despite the amazing liveshow these true professionals brought to the stage.

I've enjoyed their record a lot in the past years and they were one of the key bands in the string of events I produced between 2008 and 2011. They instilled in me the passion for music that put the foundation under my activities in those years, and still motivates me to be part of (the) music (scene) in some way. You can imagine my excitement upon hearing they were releasing a second studio album proper, following the collection of scraps they've released in the past year or so. With a revised line-up and a new musical direction (more synths and beats and less Scandinavian indiefolksoul), I was more than keen to travel to Gouda to get an early peek at their new work-in-progress liveshow.

I was fortunate enough to receive a promotional copy of the album well in advance of the show, so had a good idea of what to expect. Most of my expectations were met (darker atmosphere, few songs from their back-catalogue, lots of added gear), but I was surprised by the vigour they presented on stage. This didn't look like a band that was mere minutes into its first try-out; they were well prepared for this show. The newbees in the band (drummer Nicky Hustinx, bassist Nana Effah-Bekoe and jack-of-all-trades Jacob van de Water) seem to fit in comfortably, while frontman Joram Tornij has certainly picked up some attitude from his artpunk side-projects. He seems more of a commanding presence than before, less the contempalting troubadour and more of a frontman befitting their brand new postpunk/synthpop vibes.

Unfortunately for Most Unpleasant Men, they missed out on Noorderslag somehow, but there is not a shred of doubt it would've been one of the standout performances last saturday.

Most Unpleasant Men are doing a small clubtour in support of their second eponymous album, and I invite you all to check them out. The album is still on the 3voor12 Luisterpaal Check them out after the jump and watch the teaser for their Tivoli performance this thursday (tix still available!) below:


17 januari Tivoli Utrecht (album release)
8 februari Rotown De Unie Rotterdam
26 februari Paradiso Amsterdam
27 februari Luxor Live Arnhem