The East London crew have seen big for their 7th anniversary. A line up and a half to fill the gigantic Great Suffolk Street Warehouse and its spectacular arches. For those who ventured down South of the Thames, the high expectation of the most edgy music and heartwarming vibe. As Half Baked always delivers, they didn’t disappoint.
A line up and a half?
See for yourself. Romanian triumvirat RPR Soundsystem all night long in the main room. Margaret Dygas, ToFu Productions in the second room for the harder side of things. Parisians and Concrete residents Cabanne B2B Lowris in the third one. If RPR first retained most of the crowd in the beginning, people started to venture out the two other rooms a couple hours in, Margaret Dygas blasting tunes, alternating rolling bass minimal tracks and groovy techno delights. The German artist kept the crowd going filling up the room to the brim before to leave the decks to Pap Inc under a well deserved ovation.
Pap Inc – the trio made of Seuil, Robin Ordell and Le Loup — some of the hottest producers and selectors on the scene lately and well established Half Baked family members— took the stakes to another level. Record after record the boys didn’t leave a minute for the crowd to rest. Analog sounds, nutty beats and blasting grooves relentlessly dropped on the boiling hot crowd.
[RPR] for President
In the meantime, Cabanne and Lowris had been taking the third room on a cruise that Concrete’s Woodfloor goers would be familiar with. The Frenchies have an evident collusion behind the decks, and offered the audience a consistent blend of bouncy Parisian house and deeper minimal sounds.
Now some of you will ask, what about the first (and main) arch? And if you were at the event, or know people who were, you might have heard about the room being too busy, too hot, with no space to dance etc. Now for those who had the endurance and eagerness to fight past the first half of the crowd and made it to the front half of the room, there was a reward. Call it natural selection, but for those who made it, an absolute treasure was awaiting. A seven-hour set by the standard-bearers of the Romanian underground, RPR Soundsystem, all-night-long steering the crowd across all shades, moods, lights and textures.
The trio composed of Raresh, Petre Inpitrescu and Rhadoo have been reinventing electronic music for the past few years, and together they masterfully demonstrated what the hype is all about. While Minimal music could at times understandably remain estranged to laypersons, there is simply nothing about their music that would be inaccessible or out of reach to anybody, if you even just tolerate electronic music in general.
The subtle and vivid colors of Romanian music
When some try to reduce Minimal music to a gloomy black and white picture, the boys performed a symphony that celebrates the vivid and subtle colors of Romanian music, staying true to their such distinguished and iconic sound. A journey floating on this implacable roll and goofy groove, running like water, nestled in this melody so familiar yet so disruptive. It’s not just about music or the sound, it’s about all the things it triggers in your mind. Colors, textures, even smells. All so natural and organic, composing the prettiest pictures and telling the deepest stories.
And when the closing time came near, the crowd, seduced and hypnotised into this oneiric movement, it came down to mischievous Raresh to send it all to a dream. A few seconds of silence separated the last beat to the first claps. Like if the crowd needed to catch its breath, still wondering what the f*ck had just happened. Probably what cosmonauts feel like after touching down on the ground again, after years spent in the farthest galaxies.
If you haven’t had the chance to check out Half Baked events yet, try their NYE events in their Hackney Wick home of Number 90 with Sonja Moonear, Seuil, Martinez, Robin Ordell, Le Loup and their wickedly talented residents Greg Brockmann, Sam Bangura and Harry McKanna.
