April swings to a close with yet another complete corker of a showcase in Ancoats. One of the most influential and diverse djing duos in dance music enter the club on the Friday and the following day sees a continuation of Saturday’s mandate of soul-drenched house and techno. It’s another weekend of superlative grooves and shuffling beats; Sankeys continues to be the benchmark for Mancunian hedonism and 2012 is shaping up to be the club’s biggest year to date.
First up on the Friday is a Belgian import which puts beer, chocolate and films concerning the escapades of notable Irish actors and midgets in the shade: 2manydjs. Since redefining the art of djing at the start of the century, the Dewaele brothers have now gone onto conquer the globe, adding an undeniable ethic of genre bending to what was previously a pretty staid environment in main rooms of clubs across the planet. Beyond eclectic, they showcased that electronic dance music could be fun, and also left it to one side briefly in the name of combining the audacious with the unthinkable.
The next step was conquering the world with their huge Soulwax band project, gifting a savvy remix policy to the great and good of the music world (check their current wig out of Arcade Fire’s ‘Sprawl’ as a case in point) and headlining festivals and discotheques the length and breadth of the planet. Each Sankeys soiree they have been at the controls for has been etched indelibly in history, this looks set to be equally as evocative in the Ancoats electronic canon.
And if Friday is all about one artist, Saturday instead gloriously holds its arms out smugly with a mighty ensemble. Top of the bill is UK house hero Danny Daze, a man whose undeniable sex driven funk has been at the forefront of a glut of the most reputable DJs sets for a hot minute. Residing from Miami, his combination of pulsating synth lines and effervescent Detroit influenced techno has been pone of the revelations of the past few years. London badman and Hot Creations stalwart Alexis Raphael goes toe to toe with him in the basement.
Treehouse get hold of Spektrum and in the process invite the live legend Henrik Schwarz on board for his sumptuous drawn out soul. The Innervisions leviathan remains one of the most potent draws in modern electronica, effortlessly combining raw soul and emotion with the machine ethic to create a beguiling template that is equal parts organic and electronic, a true paradox of sound. The rest of the bill combines the talents of prolific producer Vakula, a huge Ukrainian talent whose Detroit and Chicago techno and house-influenced sounds are winning him many fans, along with Willow, Us & Them and Sankeys’ own Jozef K. Jozef has just been added to the bill at this September’s Dimensions festival in Croatia.
