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Saturday January 19th it was time for the 12th edition of Vancouver BC’s famed Sequential Circus series of events. Sequential Circus is always hosted at Vancouver’s Open Studios. Open Studios offers a wonderful alternative to the otherwise more commercial club scene. The venue has an underground appeal and can be found in the middle of an industrial neighborhood, as opposed to the Granville strip in downtown Vancouver. The advatage is that only well informed people who LOVE music know how to find the venue. It often host electronic (dance) music events, including many techno knights from the Subversive crew.
Sequential Circus is not an average event. The style is mostly dance music, but as opposed to DJs playing and mixing tracks, the music is created live on stage using a plethora of hardware synths, macs, Ableton controllers, drum machines, effects and samplers.
The line up included Computer Controlled, Legsss, Andrew Van Hassel, Self Evident, Xornot Sound System and Entorwellian.
As your reporter is from Seattle, I traveled together with Computer Controlled. The set-up was quick and easy and the soundcheck proved promising for the rest of the night.
After some sushi dinner, we came back for Entorwellian who would open the night. His music was very ambient.. quite musical, less big on beats, but bigger on soundscapes. At times, his music was very intense, and you could see that he was really enjoying it. The perfect opener for a night like this!
The next act didn’t bring their laptop, but a complete heavy duty music production PC. Along with other gear like a midi clarinet and a real saxophone. The two guys played a mix of reasonably funky house and tech house. Very enjoyable!
Next act Andrew Van Hassel brought a rather big collection of analog synth goodness, korg controllers, a mac.. and most important THE BEATS. Andrew stepped up the tempo and made his synths work like a horse. The room loosened up completely! Andrew ended his set with tracks that sounded like stuff from Ceefax Acid or Squarepusher. A good introduction for Computer Controlled.
Computer Controlled aka Larry Kleinke aka 50% of Area 303 took it away with a straight acid set without compromise. His beats were quite heavy, extremely danceable and the room exploded. True acid is a rarity nowadays, but Kleinke surely knows how to bring it!
Last up was Self Evident. Using the popular Octatrack sampler, Korg Microsampler and a Roland SP series sampler, he created a live mix of very progressive beats.. Digweed & Sasha sound but a bit slower and with more broken beats. The reverb and effects he was using were sounding crystal clear and it was hard to imagine he was doing this all live – BUT HE WAS!
Then we decided to call it a night because there was another day in Vancouver ahead of us before leaving for Seattle again, but the night was very impressive and all artists surely delivered!
Thank you Vancouver!
Connect:
http://sequentialcircus.ca
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