Svreca!

We have had a very good week or so of music here in Tokyo... Last weekend, natural/electronic.system. made sure the first MNML SSGS club party in Tokyo was a massive success. The following night, INNEN + AUSSEN gave an impressively diverse selection and created a fantastic vibe at our Sound Garden party. It continued on Monday with NES delivering a quality 3 hour session at Dommune. Then on Thursday it was Svreca's turn... His set at Dommune was very impressive. He started with Prurient and never looked back, delivering a very diverse and exciting 90 minutes of experimental techno. Well proper. This left me with very high hopes for his club set last night, which he more than exceeded... Over 3 hours Svreca crafted one of the most impressive sets of techno I have seen in years. What struck me the most is that he has something which PC and I have been feeling is really lacking from much of the techno music we listen to today: daring. Svreca's selection and approach to DJing was seriously ballsy. His selections, his mixing, his willing to test and push the dancefloor was courageous in a way that we rarely see these days. He started with a dead dancefloor, got things moving with some quality deep house grooves, then when he felt it starting to move in the wrong direction, he spent about 15 minutes resetting the dancefloor. After that he delivered an incredibly diverse, exciting set of techno - he was never afraid to change the BPMs (which he did repeatedly), drop non 4/4 tracks, and break things up. It was, quite simply, one of the most inspiring sets I have heard in a long time. Massive respect to Svreca.

Semantica has built a very strong reputation in recent years for its high quality output of techno, electro, IDM and related sounds, but the label owner Svreca has not received too much attention yet. I thoroughly expect this to change. This guy is a hidden gem. Part of the reason perhaps not many people know about him is that unlike most other artists, he has almost no mixes online. His only podcast was for  Clubbing Spain, and even though it is almost 2 years old, the mix still sounds very fresh and current. I strongly recommend checking it. The good news is that there should be a new mix appearing from Svreca in the coming months, I will let you guess where that will be appearing...

You may have noticed that things have been a bit quiet here at MNML SSGS. The major reason is simply that PC and I have been incredibly busy, and we have had much less time and headspace for the blog. For me, at least, a secondary reason is that certainly with techno I have been really struggling to find music that excites me. Yes, there is plenty of good techno around, but for me too much of it is too safe, too conformist, too conservative. I crave for more daring, for more courage! For me techno should be opposed to conformity and complacency, but this is too often what it becomes... The music and experiences I have had over the last week - especially Svreca's two performances - have really given me some fresh inspiration that I thoroughly needed. Thanks to Antonio, Valerio, Andy, Jenus, Enrique and everybody else who contributed to a really fantastic week of music in Tokyo. My cup is full!

   svreca - process part 297 by modyfier

*EDIT* Svreca has just released this fantastic new mix up for Modyfier. I strongly recommend checking it!