on saturday august 10th and sunday 11th, circo loco in the arena returns to birmingham with a huge selection of acts playing two events across the rainbow venues, in the street, a garden, and one afterparty, all against the industrial central birmingham back drop and beneath some vast and aged railway arches.
teshno
'in germany, they can't say 'techno,' they say 'teshno'' ~ seth troxler [march 2008]
circo loco in the arena and type festival announce 2013 line-up
prosumer – panorama bar 03 on ostgut ton
unless you’re a fair to middlin discogs bod, i reckon it would be pretty hard to date any given record on this mix. new ones, old ones and curveballs alike are all marbled with a classy detroit/chicago classicism that renders them all similarly aged and authentic sounding, regardless of their native era. it’s that interchangeableness between old and new that means pbar 03 is not a mix by numbers, but instead a timeless and tireless house workout that punches through a whole workshop full of gears. frankly (in the least shirt off, ‘oi-oi’ way possible) it’s banging…
vibrant and dynamic analogue sounds are an overriding aesthetic, with a thumping, four to the floor bolster omnipresent below. and that in itself is great, because far too often (presumably in fear of losing you to the monotony or forgetableness of their tunes) too many jocks tread water in ‘evocative’ downbeat puddles or kick their heels in noodly, a-groovy doodles when recording club mixes. prosumer, though, keeps you engaged by swiftly unravelling a different strain of house dna with each clipped progression. and there are 17 of them in all, so you’d better belt-up…
after the beautifully insular melancholy of steffi’s opener, ‘sadness’, an impulsive lick is immediately set with the free falling vibes of ‘heard’. from that point on, the mix planes with perfect poise, carving out firm groove after firm groove, momentarily resetting before charging off down another rich corridor of sound: instead of big breakdowns, it’s the quick, dj sneak-like mixing style which keeps you propped up throughout. raw beats, warm chords, kicking basslines…. each is just another dash of textured punctuation in the multifarious house conversation which prosumer so efficiently articulates overall.
one minute you’re going “whooo yeah” in ‘the house of god’, then you’re surfing carefree on a rolling rhythm before the next passage has you diving down to lock onto a deep, surging bassline. though decidedly discernible, the stylistic switch ups are also deft, with the tension between tracks resulting in an even more engaging ride. much like the cover suggests, then, a prosumer set offers many different views of the same underlying thing… house music; sweet, sweet house music.