June Week 1 Clubbing Listings: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen

It’s the first club listings of the year! Granted, I’ve started 6 months into the year, but I was very tired.

Traversable Wormhole touches down in Edinburgh for his Scottish exclusive at Unseen (Studio 24, 11pm-3am, £8) on 1 June for some industrial darkness at the second and widely-talked about Unseen event, with support from Neil Templar. Over at Henry’s Cellar Bar on the same evening, ETC explore electronica with a chopped buffet of jungle, techno, dubstep, house, metal for their Grindhouse theme (11pm-3am, £5) with the Edinburgh Tekno Cartel and special guest Jeff23.



Unseen goes head to head in scheduling with Jackhammer so punters might feel torn between these two – if the bass-laden techno of Edinburgh legend Neil Landstrumm supported by Hans Bouffmyhre is more your style, head to the Caves (10.30pm-3am, £7). But what’s this? Another Jackhammer, the very next evening? Hold on to your hats, because I can’t think of a much better option than starting with Unseen and then continuing on Saturday 2 June with the fabulous Silent Servant and his metallic-tinged techno at The Third Door (10.30pm-3am, £10).



Saturday continues with acid house and techno from Musika, and their special guest, Hot Creations’ Denney (Liquid Rooms, 2 June, 10.30pm-3am, free before 11.15pm, £6-10 after). The gig is Musika’s warm-up event before taking to the stage at Exit Fest in Serbia (and much more reasonably priced for those of us trapped on this godforsaken isle unable to make the jet-set Euro-trip). Speaking of Hot Creations, label boss, Richy Ahmed spins at Sneaky Pete’s just down the road on the same evening with tech-house flavours with We Own (11pm-3am, £5), and a quick visit back to Third Door for Do it Again on 3 June with techno, house and electro for this Sunday social with Kenny McAlpine and Steven Wanless (11pm-3am, £5).

There’s even more competition for your attention over in Glasgow at Chambre 69 with Zeroten and Palace presents: 50 Weapons label showcase with live performances from Shed, Addison Groove and Phon.O (Friday, 1 June, 11pm-3am, £12) with more edgy techno than you can shake a stick at. Still contemplating the new Shed release; I’m undecided about the level of white noise that pervades the album but I’m eager to hear about his live shows, so comments please! Over in Paisley on the same night, Blink returns to Club69 with special guest Andy Martin on his first stop of his Creepy Finger Records showcase European tour – tech-house grooves (11pm-3am, £6). If that’s not quite your pace, ramp things up at La Cheetah with Banjax with crazy guest Shitmat guaranteed to explore the extremes of what humans can sonically manage; rave, jungle, gabba and total mash-up with support from Dave Shades (11pm-3am, £10 / £8 before midnight). Keep to La Cheetah on 2 June to check out new night Synesthetic, with first guest Mobilee’s Dan Curtin for minimal tech beats and Detroit stylings (11pm-3am, £8). Supported by Scott Rowan and Stuart Reedie. 

At Aberdeen's Motown Rooftop at the Beach Esplanade, Minival is celebrating the festival's fourth birthday - injecting frivolity amongst the beats with Matt Tolfrey (Friday 1 June, 11pm-3am, £8). The night continues over at Snafu from even more stripped techno and jacking house beats from Matt. 

Vinyl and Digital reviews: Traversable Wormhole

Artist: Traversable Wormhole 

Title: ‘Traversable Wormhole Vol 01-05’ 

Label: CLR

This review isn’t here to lay any fresh critique – everything that can be said about the Traversable Wormhole series, first released in 2009 and re-released in 2010, has already been stated, and in positive volumes across the techno community. What it does review is the full-length digital album of Volumes 1-5, collected together with two remixes and two DJ mixes - just in case you were worried that it wouldn’t fill three hours.

First; the new material. ‘The Originals’ is a 68 minute mix by Adam X aka TW which, funnily enough, is a seamless mix of the original five releases – it just needs some serious mood lighting and steely-faced dancers and the scene will be completely set! An industrial, clanking and dark mix, yet it sounds quite low-key – the kick drum punches to the stomach are subtle and there’s a sense of poignancy hearing it as one winding journey.

There’s not much room to pause as another 71 mins of TW make their announcements courtesy of Chris Liebing, this time sewing together ‘The Remixes’. Featuring re-takes by the likes of Peter Van Hoesen, Function and Sleeparchive, it keeps a relatively similar flavour with a tweaked batch of material. Disappointingly, there isn’t a chance on this release to hear all the remixes as individual pieces and truly explore them, instead the mix acts as a tantalising teaser for the upcoming Remixes collection, also starring Monoloc, Tommy Four Seven, Brian Sanhaji, Surgeon, Marcel Dettman, Terence Fixmer, and James Ruskin.*

What you do get at the end of this LP is a toe dip, with two remixes from Chris Liebing and Kevin Gorman. Liebing takes ‘Where 2D Meets 3D’; the original track instantly transported me back to a powerful Adam X gig after the G8 marches – it encapsulates the sound of riled protest vibes with deep influences and the sounds of metal doors being kicked and slammed. Therapeutic bowel-shaking techno with slick production! The remix seems to dull down the ferocity but builds it back up in a minimal style with clean-sounding bass kicks for those who like their edges a little rounded. The original ‘Relativistic Time Dilation’ goes heavy on the reverb and decay, and is delightful for inspiring visions of uprising robots - you can taste the metal twang. Part of me gets the feeling that Adam X sought to align his sound with the Berlin dominance of techno, and as part of that shed some of the rougher elements of his style and sometimes ‘lairier’ feeling - perhaps reflecting a very real passage of time and growth for Adam. But enough wistful ponderings and on to Kevin Gorman’s remix; he goes deeper and lashes on a minimal restraint, inducing a shuffly texture to the beats, and what I like to call ‘velcro techno’ – the sound of fabric tears, or perhaps that is the sound of time splitting in a ‘Relatavistic’ manner.

This digital album version will be great for digital DJs, but vinyl enthusiasts will need to work that little bit harder for the full collection! Nevertheless, if you didn’t get your hands on the underground phenomenon of last year, this is an excellent catch-up and taste of what’s to come.


*Something to note however is that it’s not clear whether ‘The Remixes’ mix involves the aforementioned artists or remixes by Chris Liebing and Adam X.


Release Date: December 6th 2010