Scotland Clubbing Highlights – October 2013

Winter is once again upon us. OK, autumn technically, but this is Scotland and here winter reigns (and rains) for most of the year. Good job then that there will be plenty of comforting heat, and aural stimulation, to be found amid the sweating throngs on the nation’s dancefloors in the coming months. October sees birthday celebrations in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, more ghetto goodness for those who had the pleasure of catching DJ Funk last month and the return of a particularly prescient house night first conceived 20 years ago.     

We begin in Edinburgh with the first of two tasty looking resident nights planned for this month which celebrate particular sounds and their lasting influence. Few electronic styles can be said to be more enduring than acid. A key sonic element in one of the most pivotal scenes in early electronic music culture, acid has continued to captivate, taking on different forms and capturing the imagination of emerging generations of ravers the world over. Unseen this month devotes itself to an exploration of that exhilarating, twisted bass goodness synonymous with the iconic Roland TB-303 machine. With their Acid Timelines event, residents Nomad and Neil Templar promise to journey through the form’s illustrious history, with appropriate nods in the direction of those modern producers redefining the sound today (Studio 24, Fri 4 Oct, free before 11pm, £5 after).

As regular readers will have noticed, Substance is a club night much revered in these pages and their upcoming 7^th birthday bash has been one we have been looking forward to for quite some time. Originally planned as a live show by Moderat, the acclaimed collaboration between Modeselektor and Sascha Ring AKA Apparat, the night has had to be re-jigged in light of Ring’s recent motorcycle crash in Berlin. Thankfully, the frontman of the genre-melding supergroup is in recovery and the night has been rescheduled for February. Equally pleasing is the news that Substance’s birthday will go ahead, now with Modeselektor at the helm, hosting a night which will see an evening gig from Anstam as well as a live performance from the German duo themselves. The gig will be followed by an afterparty, with Substance in collaboration with 50 Weapons, delivering sets from PHON.O, Benjamin Damage and resident Gavin Richardson (The Picture House, Thu 10 Oct, £17.50 + BF).

Fri 11 Oct sees another birthday in the city with Kapital celebrating six years in the game with a set from Dominik Eulberg. The German producer’s work has been released on leading tech house labels such as Cocoon and Kompakt, while Kapital’s residents Barry O’Connell and Brad Charters consider his last Edinburgh set to be among the finest they have ever witnessed – hence the invite back for their anniversary night (The Caves, Fri 11 Oct, £10).   

The following weekend, 511 plays host to Truth. Residents Gareth Sommerville and Colin Cook, who later established long-running Edinburgh night Ultragroove, first unveiled Truth in 1993 and the party was the first in the city to dedicate itself to airing the seminal house records that emerged from Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Detroit and Miami during that era. Having held what was originally planned as a one-off anniversary event in March, the duo have heeded the positive response of those in attendance and decided to take to the turntables again. You’re likely to hear them drop classics from genre-defining labels such as Strictly Rhythm, Cajual and Nervous Records. With the recent explosion of piano house revivalism, this night will take you back through the roots of a sound that continues to set trends decades after its initial creation (Sat 19 Oct, £5).

Moving on to Glasgow, it’s set to be a busy month for La Cheetah, with several promising nights lined up, beginning with the visit of Detroit booty bass hero DJ Assault. Firing out ghetto funk records since the mid nineties, Craig De Sean Adams has released on celebrated labels such as Mo Wax, Databass and Electrofunk Records, which he established in partnership with Mr De. In his DJ sets, Assault is fond of mixing up his own tracks, and those of other ghetto producers, with more straight up techno and electro from his home town of Detroit. So expect to hear classics played at ludicrous tempos and, of course, a healthy dose of sleazy lyrics and turntable trickery (Fri 4 Oct, £7). The next night sees the club mark its 4^th birthday with a visit from legendary Chicago-based producer and DJ, Ron Trent. With the release on Warehouse Records of the immensely popular Altered States in 1990, Trent set in motion a career that would see him develop a deep and soulful blend of house and techno, releasing records on some the most esteemed labels around. A well-known audiophile, Trent rarely performs nowadays, so this 5 hour set, for which the club’s sound system will be tweaked for optimum impact, seems a fitting celebration of La Cheetah’s fourth year at the centre of Glasgow’s clubbing scene (Fri 11 Oct, £10 adv).

Sticking with the sounds of the windy city for the moment, Sub Club this month welcomes long time friend and party pro Derrick Carter to the Jamaica Street basement as part of the 20^th anniversary of the Glasgay! Festival. With over two decades worth of music to his name, and with a DJing reputation almost unsurpassed in house music, Carter is a master of getting rooms moving. Able to shift effortlessly between styles, the veteran blends raw, jacking house, elements of techno and more melodic, jazz-informed tracks, into sets that more often than not see dancefloors overcome with a carnival atmosphere. Even the most committed of chin-strokers will find it hard to resist breaking into fits of frenzied dancing when Carter is on top form. With four hours to do his thing, this should be quite the party (Sun 13 Oct, £9 adv). The following weekend, Strange Paradise sees two dons of the Glasgow disco scene team up for a one off special event. David Barbarossa and Billy Woods each have a reputation as being among the finest selectors in the city so we reckon this night is bargain of the month (Nice N Sleazy, Sat 19 Oct, £4).

We wrap things up by pointing you in the direction of Saint Judes. On Sat 26 Oct,  Flash Mob teams up with London-based label Night Slugs to bring founder, Bok Bok, to the city. Alex Sushon’s work combines elements of house, techno and hip hop with the urgency and dark vibes characteristic of UK styles such as grime and dubstep. He is joined by fellow Londoner Philip Gamble AKA Girl Unit. Gamble made his presence known with the release of Wut on Night Slugs in 2010, crafting a sound dominated by high-pitched synth runs and peppered with rapid snare rolls and reverb-heavy hand claps. With a string of strong releases on the label, Girl Unit is an ideal accompaniment to Sushon to showcase the Night Slugs sound in its purest form (Sat 26 Oct, £10).

That’s your lot for this month. Rest assured, should you choose to hit each and every one of the events listed above, we fully expect you to have that red-eyed, vacant zombie look down pretty well in time for Halloween on the 31^st.