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by Don Crispy
New Year's Wrap
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| Ritchie Hawtin |
New Year's Eve is a time for tradition:
this year sees some new traditions taking hold in Tokyo clubland,
as others give way to the inevitable.
For superclub AgeHa, 2003 was a good one. With plenty to celebrate
amid the steady throngs who made the trek to out-of-the-way
Kiba, Tokyo's largest club follows up on last year's
opening party with another visit by New York house icon Danny
Tenaglia. Be Yourself marked the first visit to Japan by Tenaglia
in years, and judging by the ecstatic welcome he was afforded
this year's event looks to be mobbed. While the Brooklyn-born
Tenaglia's resume defies condensation, let's
just say that the name-dropping begins decades ago with the
Paradise Garage and stretches through residencies at Twilo
and New York's hottest current club, ARC…
Shibuya's 2-year-old Womb, meanwhile, has also had
a good year, pulling crowds despite AgeHa's opening.
Womb knows a good thing, and has sensibly rebooked a pair
of the world's most respected techno DJ/producers who
made last New Year's one to remember. Every summer
on the Spanish party isle of Ibiza, Germany's Sven
Vath and Canada's Richie Hawtin team up for one of
the island's biggest parties: Cocoon Club. These parties
have become the stuff of legend, and last year Womb invited
the pair to host a special New Year's edition of Cocoon
Club.
A hardened veteran of the European techno scene, Vath helped
launch the techno boom in the early '90s with a series
of sophisticated albums that pushed available technologies
of the time to the limit. Hawtin, meanwhile, is no slouch
himself, expanding the boundaries of Detroit techno with demanding
albums and a DJ technique that seamlessly blends computers
and turntables…
Turning to the psychedelic trance scene, Solstice Music had
to suspend their traditional summer solstice party this year,
but are returning with another edition of their massive New
Year's blowouts. This year's countdown event,
New Maps of Hyperspace, slated for the enormous Tokyo Bay
NK Hall, welcomes a number of artists at the forefront of
psychedelic trance, many of them familiar faces from previous
Solstice events.
Father figure Raja Ram, who helped bring the psy-trance experience
back to Europe from its Goa roots, will be on hand with his
project, Shpongle. The group, which premiered at the Solstice
Music Festival 2001, also includes Simon Posford, who as Hallucinogen
has delivered some of trance's most faultless recordings.
This time, Shpongle are joined by jazz guitarist Pete Callard,
opera singer Abigail Gorton and Japanese drummer Nogera, for
an "Orchestral Concert" that looks to be one
of the year-end's most unusual performances…
Liquid Room gets the final nod with The Last Dance, a two-night
event that marks the end of an era. While this magazine is
not at liberty to say why, suffice it to say that the name
of the party pretty much says it all and that Shinjuku will
be a much quieter place next year.
Last Dance features a trio of leading domestic jocks who have
graced Liquid Room's turntables since its '94 opening,
including Fumiya Tanaka, a leader of the Japanese hard techno
scene for a decade now. Matching Tanaka's tendencies
toward hard techno but with a more playful edge is Takkyu
Ishino, also of ele-pop unit Denki Groove, who in recent years
has also made a name as organizer of the summertime WIRE parties,
among Japan's largest. Rounding out the trio is Eye,
best known as leader of noisemeisters the Boredoms, and one
of Japan's most unpredictable DJs.
Cocoon Club@Womb, 12/31, 9pm,
¥6,500 (adv), ¥7,500 (door). Tel: 5459-3939
Be Yourself@AgeHa/Studio Coast, 12/31, 9pm, ¥7,350 (adv),
¥8,500 (door). Tel: 5784-7053
New Maps of Hyperspace@Tokyo Bay NK Hall, 12/31, 9pm, ¥10,000
(adv), ¥12,000 (door). Info: Zexceed 5772-2059
The Last Dance@Liquid Room, 12/31, 8pm, ¥7,000; 1/1,
11pm, ¥3,000. Tel: 3200-6831
credit: Womb
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