report: scion versions

while i am in tokyo for the next few months, i thought i'd do some write ups on the parties i am going to. god knows, once i return to wales there won't be much to report on... my welcome 'home' party was scion at unit, which has become tokyo's best club since the unfortunate closure of yellow. unit is a nice club - quality sound system, a well sized dancefloor, almost always a good crowd and it is nowhere near rappongi (tokyo's equivalent of hell on earth). when we got there yoshiki - one of the op.disc crew - was warming things up nicely. was very impressed with his set until he dropped the koze remix of 'mango' and then decided to mix out of it way too early. i am not sure whether he should be congratulated for playing that track out, or hated on for cutting it out early... next up was rene, making a rare performance dj'ing. i thought he had pretty much stopped dj'ing these days, and i think that may be the case because literally all the records he played were old. it was very enjoyable, but not mindblowing. what i did like was that he was a real old school mixer - lots of mixes where he let both tracks run for quite some time and make something new in the transition. he finished up with a rhythm & sound record, with pete starting off the scion live set by expertly mixing across. a nice start and a taste of what was to come. rene joined pete and scion went at it. unfortately they only played for an hour (last year at labyrinth it was 2.5 hours!), but what an hour it was. wow. very different from last time i had seen them, more 'clubby' and perhaps a bit less dubby. what i found interesting is that while their productions roughly stick within the basic channel sound, when live they really construct something wholly unique and distinctive. the set had an amazing fluidity and life to it, the sounds constantly morphing and changing, with remarkably little repitition. in this sense, it was very hard to grab hold of, but precisely also what made it so special. definitely one of the best live acts i've seen. to finish off the night, pete jumped behind the decks. while i was a bit worried - his track selection is always spot on but his mixing is sometimes a bit patchy - on friday he was in fine form. my only complaint was that he started slowing things down at 5am, and the party finished surprisingly early at 5.30am. i was wanting more...

so my trip to tokyo started excellently. the only problem was the next night i had a nap at 7pm, only to wake up at 12.30am discovering i had missed the last train, and so i would not be getting to see thomas melchoir play live and dj. disappointing, but scion was definitely worth it. also melchoir was playing at a club which supposedly has a poor sound system, and he is exactly the kind of artist you need a high end system for. annoying i over-slept but i'll deal with it. next weekend i have a double header at unit - tama sumo on friday night, then a chaos party on saturday with fumiya tanaka and audio werner live. should be fun...

*edit* found these videos from the night, care of tokyo cult club.