POST BY JUSTIN (He wasn't able to post it from his account for some reason).
My couple of months away from EDM blogging saw 3 artists call off their Montreal appearances, free tickets thrown away, multiple trips to BeachClub and an unfortunate bout of food poisoning, ultimately leading to a 4th and 5th cancellation. Although the end of May/beginning of June was supposed to be rife with international DJs, Andy Moor, Axwell and Ferry Corsten were unable to grace us with their talents. Regardless, we had other events to focus on, like the 100th episode of Tytanium Sessions. On the 1-year anniversary of the 105th edition of Gareth Emery’s podcast, Sean Tyas set camp at Circus Afterhours for the 100th episode of his. Even though none of us are big fans of his weekly show, there was no way we were going to pass up a St-Jean-Baptiste celebration with Raneem, Arnej, Simon Patterson and Sean himself.
Raneem got the show started with a set full of IDs. The live Afterhours.FM broadcast only began one hour into his performance, so he naturally kept most of his own productions for the last 2 hours. He played his popular remix of Emvy’s “Strut,” as well as “Out of Nowhere” and his mashup of CIrez D’s “On Off” and Darude’s “Sandstorm,” which is always a crowd pleaser. After re-listening to his set, it has become clear how much Raneem’s grown this year. Nobody at The Hawt had ever heard of him until Gareth Emery’s February show and our respect for his musical prowess hasn’t stopped gaining since. Here’s the last 2 hours of his set from the night.
Arnej followed our favorite Circus resident with the best 90 minutes of the night. His darker take on Trance was ever so present as he entertained the crowd with tracks by Dakota, Jacob van Hage and a few from Coldharbour Recordings. The highlight of the night came when he played his new 8 Wonders tune, “X.” The song features a somewhat elaborate melody, all the while keeping the bass-heavy dark presence which he holds dear. As if that wasn’t enough, he followed his original with Chris Schweizer’s bootleg mix of “Zombie Nation.” When he turned down the music, only to hear the entire club singing along, it was obvious that he had stolen the show. Here’s “X,” along with his set.
Arnej pres. 8 Wonders – X (Original Mix)
Released on July 18th on Arnej Music
Arnej was followed by the evening’s headliner, Sean Tyas. I’d seen him at Circus before and I recall having had an absolute blast. True to his form, Tyas turned the bass up as high as possible and consequently, no one could quite hear the melody or any other parts of any of the songs he played. I’m not sure what it sounded like in the DJ booth, but we were only able to recognize the tunes we actually knew. Amongst the incomprehension, we were able to make out Funkagenda’s “What The Fuck,” Eric Prydz’s remix of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” and Tyas’ “Banshee.” Only after listening to the recording afterwards was I able to properly appreciate it. And even then, it wasn’t anything special. All together, it was a somewhat disappointing performance by Tyas, as he was easily overshadowed by the impressive squad he invited to play alongside him. Here’s his set from the night.
Simon Patterson was the next to play. He nearly employed the same tactic as Tyas, but cleverly turned down the bass ever so slightly. His set was characterized by unpredictable drops, lengthy breakdowns and lots of his own tracks. I was disappointed to see him neglect his label’s latest release, Nick Callaghan and Will Atkinson’s 2011 remix of his classic, “F16.” In fact, he played Night Vision’s only other 2 releases in Des McMahon’s remix of Wayde Rafnel and Dave Correa’s “Derailed” and Patterson’s own “Latika.” He ended his solo time with “For The Most Part,” his collaboration with Sean Tyas which fit nicely in what was to come. Here’s his entire set from Circus.
In the final moments of the Afterhours.FM live braodcast, Patterson and Tyas played back to back, as in one song after the other. This is when they played their more recognizable tracks, like Dogzilla’s “Without Me” and Tyas’ remixes of Tiësto’s “Suburban Train” and Gareth Emery’s “Sanctuary." Here’s their back to back set.
Thanks to our buddy Samson at montreal-nightclubs.com for the download links. Check his website for all the tracklists from Tytanium Sessions 100.
The holiday weekend continued on Sunday at BeachClub. Pointe-Calumet hosted Sander van Doorn and hundreds of Montrealers eager for a taste of the amazement he displayed at Bal en Blanc. Playground had built a special stage for Armin during his recent visit, but for some reason, Sander was not given the same luxury. Albeit a little crowded, the dancefloor was nonetheless spacious and easily encompassed the horde of day ravers. Here’s what the scene looked like from the DJ booth:
As you can imagine, the area was laden with more than a few over-makeuped, silicone engineered “hotties” grinding their shirtless He-Men and the HGH/steroid abuse problems that came with them, shades of La Folie. I can only speak for myself, but while I’m not a fan of the fake tit, I don’t mind having a few graze my body while I dance. I might be split on the whole Guido culture, but I’m definitely not on Sander van Doorn.
The Dutch producer settled in just as we arrived and opened with the obvious track of summer 2011, Alesso’s remix of “Pressure.” The next hours were spent bobbing and weaving in between genres, going from House to Trance, Electro to the rare Techno track and so on. Sander took the opportunity to drop many tracks from the newest in his Dusk Till Doorn compilation series, which contains lots of new material from Spinnin’s sub-labels. From Wall Recordings, he played Afrojack’s “Doing It RIght” and “Prutataaa,” a collaboration with DJ R3hab, Erick Strong’s “Italian” from Reset Records and Ummet Ozcan’s “Transcend” from Liquid Recordings. However good “Transcend” may be, it was greatly overshadowed by his latest dubbed “Reboot.” The tune reveals a different, more tech-trance side to Ozcan, a variety he’d been lacking for a long time. It’s on the Dusk Till Doorn compilation, but will get a proper release on the 1st of August.
Ummet Ozcan – Reboot (Original Mix)
Released on August 1st on Doorn Records
Since he was so brilliant at Bal en Blanc, his set at BeachClub may have been slightly disappointing to some, considering he also chose to play a variety of genres instead of sticking to the strict Trance makeup his performances used to employ. He ended his show with Eric Prydz’s fantastic remix of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus,” a tune made for live performances currently being played out by loads of DJs, the original mix of “Daddyrock,” even though the Arty remix had just been released, and Sander’s remix of The Killers’ “Spaceman.” He also managed to squeak in his new tune, “Timezone,” which features the vocals of Frederick, but it lacks the power and energy needed for a song to be played live. Regardless, although Sander’s performance paled in comparison to the white party’s, it was a memorable one that displayed his love for all genres of EDM and his willingness to open the minds of the numerous House enthusiasts.
Raneem was on closing duties and since we had missed most of his opening set at Circus on Thursday, we decided to stick around to check out our favorite resident DJ. There’s a few things we learned: first off, looks like Raneem shaves his pits. Just sayin’. Second, Raneem is as popular, maybe even more so, than Sander van Doorn is in Montreal. If you’re a member of the Montreal Trance Scene group on Facebook, you know exactly what I’m talking about. There was a ridiculous amount of praise for him with lots of people saying that he had ousted the Dutchman. Thirdly, his new track, which he happened to premier at the event, is absolutely genius. It’s called “Free Fall,” its just been signed to Leon Bolier’s Streamlined and it might be even better than “Out Of Nowhere.” Here’s a video of Raneem at BeachClub mixing Mark Sherry’s “Phantasmic” into his own “Free Fall.”
Raneem – Free Fall (Original Mix)
Released on ??? on Streamlined
Check out Ramy Bargz’s YouTube channel for nearly all of Raneem’s set from BeachClub.
