Field Day Night at Motion Club, Bristol (Picture: Michael Inglis)
Field Day Night
Motion Club, November 12
By John Jeffreys
I arrived just in time to see Jon Hopkins start his set, in what can only be described as a partly subdued atmosphere in a largely empty room. I personally found it a bit underwhelming to find him on so early in the night.
It is hard for me to accurately describe what Jon Hopkins does without frothing at the mouth with rabid excitement; he is in every sense of the overused word genius. He has collaborated with such varied artists as Brain Eno, David Lynch, Coldplay, David Byrne and King Creosote, which is a damn impressive list with more variations in style then you can shake a fist at.
So he had his set up of three k-os pads, each one of them manipulating different parts of each track, one was used for manipulating rhythm creating scatty time signatures that he quite frequently bounced around on, while the other pads he was using to control bass frequencies and melody, cutting in elements of classical strings and deep almost murky bass together.
It is really hard to describe the atmospherics his music can create as the bass, at times, is used to generate a sonic G forceso intence I could feel my soul being dragged down into the mud. It is so good that I can feel my face being mashed up as he drags on more frequencies, causing me to have flash visions that almost tricked me into thinking I was flying.
Now I know that probably sounds a bit ridiculous and like the thoughts of someone who is completely off his head, but this is what i was generally feeling. The longer he was going on the more crushingly intense he got, building what felt like huge blocks and letting us freefall or at least giving me the feeling of free falling, leaving us with a face-melting intensity.
Mr Jon Hopkins, I salute you sir. Because the main room was delayed by 30 minutes, Hudson Mohawk was already in full swing by the time I tried to get into a decent spot in the room – but felt a little claustrophobic. His set did sound pretty good – doing a similar type of beat matching to Jon Hopkins when he was in full flow, like they were both born from the same warped beats.
Up next in the main room was Washed Out, who really struggled to really get the crowd going. This was largely to do with the stage being set so far back from the crowd barrier. This can really affect the atmosphere, making such huge barriers before you get any reaction, everything feels delayed. You can tell that they were getting frustrated with the flat feeling in the room.
Washed Out’s sound is a bit reminiscent of 90s Jamiroquai and LCD Soundsystem, referencing a very Nineties feel in their disco beats. It was the ultimate in white man funk but really lacked the depth to really carry off the energy, no matter how hard they were trying it just seemed to fizzle out.
Next up on bill was Erol Alkan, a producer renowned for his work with London indie scenesters like Bloc Party – mixing in indie house grooves, over lapping beats with an effortless sense of cool. He stands almost free handedly breaking into his own set of remixes, which kept the dance floor building. Drawing in elements of original house music and bringing big drops into drone like stops, it almost feels like the audience is being taken on a roller-coaster ride.
He managed to keep energy levels high, occasionally dipping the tempo for people to regain breath before dropping in the bif beats and meshing it up big style againts our faces. It almost makes me feel like as if i am stuck on a bouncy castle, its just great big fun, he may not be as technically flashy as Jon Hopkin’s earlier set, but he was pretty damn fun.