Night Clubs - Friday 2nd December - Regis at Pure Techno at Rhythm Room By Michelle Dee

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Friday night in the icy rain I flagged down a cab to town. My preferred late night spot tonight was Rhythm Room on Baker Street for a heady night of uplifting beats. Someone once enquired, What is this rude, lewd, lascivious junk called techno? What, indeed. One way of describing it is like a sonic sunburst in your subconscious.

Music made up of lots of layers of sounds then speeded up drum beats (up to 128bpm and beyond) are added which produces, if done with style and class, a totally new soundscape.

Within this soundscape a deejay can focus on one part of a track usually on vinyl: some say this dance revolution has saved the life of the humble black plastic, and take the listener in new directions. By using the vast array of slide switches and dials on the mixing desk in front of him he can loop sections to produce a repetitive vibe then distort the tempo. Also, bring in new sections from the same track on a different deck, gradually bringing in new layers; new sounds.

Switching from one deck output to the other by use of a dominant sliding switch between the two record decks also can create a supercharged stereo effect that can surprise, entice and excite. You could also have two deejays at a time working on two separate decks resulting in simultaneous sound manipulation. The important thing about this genre of music is creating seamless segues; that is to say tracks, that blend in to each other with no audible join. This is achieved in simple terms by matching the beats of one section of track to another by use of a pitch adjuster on the decks.

The way I have described this thing called Techno is from a very basic stand point. Within the genre there are many sub-genres. With new and different expressions of dance music being created every day, it is hard to keep at the cutting edge of the beats explosion. The deejays that purvey the genre spend many hours listening and re-listening to thousands of records. Very often a renowned deejay will have started out with a basic set of Technics (a type of deck) set up in their bedroom/ make shift studio, if they're lucky.

Then they spend hour upon hour practicing mixes; splicing tracks together, seeking out new innovative ways to mix and sample; and, building up a collection of records. Through talking with some of the highly skilled deejays on other Pure Techno nights I have learned that this process is on going and that you never stop collecting or learning about the music itself and its effect on a crowd.

Regis, tonight's headliner, was a name I hadn't heard before, but I was fortunate to catch a few words with him before he jetted off to Slovakia the next morning. He explained to me some of the techniques commonly used to capture and keep the crowds attention. Imagine you have a crowd in front of you, all eager to dance, ready to hang on your every beat if you just let them. Within a crowd he will focus on one or two people watching how they react to the different sounds/rhythms: all the while trying to capture their imagination. This point is all about making a connection to build a rapport between you and the people.

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