Tinariwen at KOKO

Wednesday 26th October, Tinariwen playing live at KOKO.

One of the best gigs I've been to! KOKO was packed! Tinariwen played for about 1.5hrs, they had such good energy, the crowd loved it! Everyone was dancing and clapping, such a good vibe! It was almost emotional seeing everyone so into it and also such a mixed crowd, everyone loving it! Another super successful Soundcrash event!



If you haven't had the chance to see them yet, don't miss them next time they play London, I think rumour has it they should be back early next year.

Kutmah & Daedelus at KOKO

Last night at KOKO...

I saw Hidden Orchestra for the first time. It was really good, really liked that they had two drummers each bringing his own style into the mix. Wouldn't mind seeing them again!



Then a super nice, but short set from Kutmah. He played for maximum 1 hour, building up his set really nicely. My favorite bit? When he played The Cure! But before long and very abruptly he stopped to give way for Daedelus, with whom he used to play music in LA back in the days. Such a shame, he should have kept playing for maybe another half hour... It was really sweet as well when Deadelus, before starting his set, said how much everyone was missing Kutmah back in LA...



Daedelus' set was pretty impressive! I really enjoyed his music, a bit too noisy at times towards the end of the set for me, but overall really good. The visual side was also pretty cool! There was a wall of moving mirrors behind him that were reflecting the laser lights all over the place! Pretty cool! So funny as well when this girl got on stage and went for him and the security had to remove her. You don't often see that with DJs... or at KOKO... Have to say though, the crowd was really young, some of the people looked like kids...

Then a really nice dark set from Raffertie! Will definitely be seeing him again! And Luke Vibert to close the night. Can't say I particularly enjoyed his music and I did leave at 2am, when he still had 1 more hour to play. Can't say it was bad either though, as I was dancing to what he was playing, but at the same time I thought it was pretty old school and boring. Then again there is something I like about Vibert... not sure what that is, probably not the haircut... but anyway he looks like a nice guy and I like it when he sings the tunes he plays! I would see him again, but he wouldn't be the main reason I would go somewhere.

To have a look at more videos from last night click here.

Harmonic 313 & Kode 9 at KOKO

June 11, Soundcrash at KOKO in Camden.


Managed to get there just for the last 2 hours, so only saw Harmonic 313 and Kode 9. Didn't mind not seeing Alex Nut, as I've seen him a few times. Would have loved to have seen King Midas Sound, his live at Bloc was one of my favorites! And Dorian Concept, would have been a first...

Got there when Harmonic 313 was on. Such an amazing set! He kept switching styles, from bass to dancehall, so effortlessly! Then Kode 9, also really nice set. Played really really well. Such a shame it took me so long to write about this gig and don't remember details... I think the only dissappointng moment, if I remember well, was the track Kode 9 chose to close his set and the night, which now escapes my mind... 

Gonjasufi last night...

...was sick!

I had been waiting for this gig extremely excited since it was announced! I was so happy to be there last night and it was even better than I expected! No idea how long they played for... definitely over an hour... Gonjasufi was there with a full live band; drums, guitar, bass... and this guy who was on stage with them throughout... He first kind of blessed everything on stage; the mics, the pedals, the band, the speakers, then the audience... He then stayed on stage filming, taking photos, dancing around, hanging around and doing random stuff when Gonjasufi and the band were off the stage, which happened a few times. And at the end he came out to thank us for being there and send us home! Anyway, the gig was so good! It was really rock, played some of the classics of course including She's Gone, that I really like! Gonjasufi was amazing with his weird yet beautiful vocals and the band played really well!

Kutmah was supporting and played a really cool set... again he mixed everything he could mix... I think I liked it more than last time I saw him, same venue with Jehst, Kelpe, Lukid etc. Really like his style, I don't think there are many DJs that could do what he does; he just plays whatever he likes no matter how irrelevant the tracks are with each other and it's so good!

Kutmah at Soundcrash

Saturday 16 April... Soundcrash at XOYO...

I get to the venue around 10.30; so happy there is no queue. I go straight in and just about get to see the last two tracks of Ghostpoet. Such a shame, I even thought I was early... They really shouldn't have put Ghostpoet play so early...

Then... Jehst! Pretty cool actually, such energy and the crowd is loving it! Next on the lineup is Anchorsong, I saw him before a few months ago at KOKO. He was on stage with two or three violinists, playing just befoere DJ Krush. This time it's just him; really cool set, but it was more impressive when I saw him with the violinists, at least visually.



Kelpe live set is next, not much to say about it really, as good as always! Kutmah is the other one after Ghostpoet that I really want to see and is absolutely great! He's mixing all sorts of very different tracks and you can see that he's having such a great time! And last is Lukid, really nice quite dark set, I think Lukid is probably my favorite of all. It's a shame that quite a lot of people have already left and it's not even that late really. At some point while he's playing the sound goes down... then it's up again... and then of course towards the end, the security guy asks Lukid to finish his set. It always makes me wonder when this happens at clubs... how can you have the security harrass the performer to finish, surely it would be better to have the soundman signal to the DJ when the time is up, it just looks really bad and unprofessional ... Really great night though, which was expected with the lineup!