Sud Electronic Xmas Party
Friday 2nd December 2005
Jawani's, 54 Commercial Street, London, E1

Quickly becoming a popular destination for the minimal crowd. Jawani's Indian restaurant once again accommodates the Sud Electronic crew. The intimacy of the surroundings, sparse decor, considered lighting and above average sound system all help. But it's all about the tunes, tunes that you might not otherwise hear in a London club unless you're a Fabric regular.

Whilst I can fill space talking about the likes of Portable (reliable as ever, but I've seen him way too many times this year), Marco Shuttle (inconsistent but uptempo and energetic) or Fail HDJ (shite). I'd rather focus on Lawrence, who managed to deliver one of the best laptop performances I've heard this year.

Sound seemed restrictive and condensed throughout the night. But when Peter Kersten fired up his sequencer, it felt like we were viewing everything in letterbox format. Sonics focussed on tonal melodies, purist sub-bass and subtle details that were swamped by fierce dynamics. This was a more epic, refined rendition of minimal.

The night was supported by digital artist Timon Botez; projecting pixellated text, colours and abstract shapes. Powered by PureData off reflective surfaces, this proved to be fitting visual metaphors. Check out his work at http://www.botezco.com.

Um.....No.

Errr....Yes! Sutekh is just showing off here. This mix, where he splices together 27 tracks from the back catalogue, proves how insanely great the label is. Surprisingly, it's not all introspective minimalia that conquers. Portable's body-rigged loops, Kit Clayton's sheared dub and Murcof's sweeping majesticness gives the mix a unique spatial awareness not present in any of the other mixes in this posting.

Doesn't bode well; the generic sleeve design, track titles and the fact that Deadbeat bored me to tears during one Sonar performance have made me resist this with ease. But how wrong could I have been? Concise, compact; filled with catchy hooks, considered melodies and bass in search of propulsion. Acute details, sweeping resonance.

Tidy, smart selection of tunes in this mix. Just a bit too calculated and controlled for my liking, despite highlighting the lineage between old school Detroit techno (Robert Hood, Jeff Mills, Kenny Larkin) and the new minimal movement (Alex Under, Sleeparchive, Matthew Dear).

There are movements during this micro-tonal extravaganza that are so fucking wholesome that I badly want to damage some sound systems playing this out. Nudging this genre of music ever-so-slightly towards the dancefloor.

The first ten or so pieces sound like typical Raster-Noton fare, as if Carsten himself was present in the room whilst Ikeda was made to adhere to house rules. But it's during 'Helixplex' that some form or rhythmic voodoo takes over and the ear-clipping glitch makes way for bandwidth-consuming sub-bass, granular glides and, wait for it, melody.

If you've ever glided across the Arctic, watched the glaciers melt and wished you had an accompanying soundtrack...your wait is now over. Unless Oliver Hacke decides to knock something out before the year is out, this will settle as my record of 2005.