Departure Lounge 3rd Birthday & Give It Some! 4th Birthday

The innovative Departure Lounge celebrates its birthday at the end of this month, as does the soulful Give It Some! Both nights strive to provide something different to Edinburgh's discerning clubbers, promising Latin-infused beats and a fine selection of funky jazz, with a little hip-hop thrown in for good measure.

Two of the figures behind these well-known clubs are Astroboy (aka Chris Knight - Departure Lounge, Four Corners, Saturday Night Fish Fry) and DJ Red6 (aka Jonny Crawshaw - Give It Some! 100% Dynamite, Livesciences). The Skinny caught up with these respected DJs to find out exactly what they have in store for us this coming month.

Departure Lounge was started by Astroboy, Mark Colquhoun (Mr Zimbabwe), and Cammy Sinclair, to "extend our house parties and create an event where our friends could come get together and have a great time", and this ethos is what has made the club so successful over the past three years. Priding themselves on choosing music and artists from across the globe (including Brazil, Argentina, and Africa, with artists such as Jazzanova, Gotan Project and Orkestra Del Sol), a unique, explosive sound is created, unlike anything other clubs currently offer. With a broad musical spectrum encompassing jazz, afrobeat, breakbeat, funk, house and drum'n'bass, Departure Lounge "feeds the mind and soul as well as the feet." Basically, if you're after good music, you're guaranteed to find it here.

For their 3rd birthday bash on Friday 28th July at The Caves (Niddry Street South, just off the Cowgate) Departure Lounge continues in the same vein as previous celebrations by choosing to promote local talent. In this instance expect outstanding appearances from the Trouble DJs, who have a deserving reputation as great party-starters, with Digital Jones playing live - fusing funk, soul, jazz and broken beats for a highly original energetic sound that's perfect for the dancefloor. Resident DJ Astroboy will round things of with a set of fat delights and bass-heavy surprises, with Cammy and friends completing the bill with spellbinding percussion accompaniment. This is a highly recommended night, with lots of surprises and special guests planned for the next few months, including a collaboration with the Trouble DJs as part of the Smirnoff Underbelly, with Zero dB (Ninja Tunes) and the UK's top afro-Latin band Grupo X due to appear in September.

DJ Red6 launched Give It Some! at the Bongo Club a few years back, after playing funk tunes to the hip-hop crowd at his previous night El Segundo, and discovering that the crowd there responded well and danced more enthusiastically to funk than hip-hop, and Red6 certainly has "a good knack for making people dance, which at the end of the day is what clubs should be about." Give It Some! provides an exciting selection of funk, soul and jazz, and the residents' hip-hop roots ensure there are plenty of recognisable breaks to get your groove on to, with Decoy Roy (Penpushers) adding a relaxed mix of reggae, dub and roots upstairs. This night is about the crowd really giving it some on the dancefloor, and has previously been described as "being like a cheese club except with really good music," which Red6 took as a big compliment. So put your dancing shoes on for their forthcoming 4th birthday night on Saturday 29th July, and get down to the Bongo early, as there's rumoured to be a spectacular 17-piece live Anglo-Brazilian band doing an early show that will run straight into the club night.

With Give It Some! partying the day after the Departure Lounge bash the last weekend in July will be a busy one. Hope to see you there to help blow out the birthday candles.