Select*Elect nailed a Saturday night vibe with Frivolous and Echonomist

Staurday night vibe with an energetic audience…

Words: Natasha Stokes

In just a handful of parties, underground house and techno crew Select*Elect has developed a rep for quality lineups with past trumps including H.O.S.H and Catz and Dogz. So it’s no surprise that even on this chilly, rainy April weekend, the London based Euro outfit of house music lovers has managed to hustle a cool Saturday night crew into its ‘secret warehouse location’.

Berlin-based DJ Frivolous was the headline pull for a live set that at minimum involves keyboards and vox, but with Select*Elect’s jazzy disco influenced music policy, we had a feeling the rest of the lineup would be worth the drizzly trek too. It turns out the location is the Hoxton Basement, and while it’s possibly the rain that’s kept the venue from totally packing out, there’s really just the right amount of people to allow a good mix of dancing and wandering, with a small brick-lined room for the bar and a reprieve from the volume if you needed it. The system was clear and deep with plenty of room for bass without letting it echo or distort.

First on the headliner roster is Echonomist who opens his set to an energetic audience, delivering driving house dosed with uplifiting lines. When Frivolous steps to the tables, it’s to the cheers of a nicely toasted crowd, and he fades out Echonomist’s last track before diving into rolling house with almost tribal, jazzy percussion. His ‘DIY-electronic’ tag comes from his predilection to customising his own instruments and one here tonight is his mainstay red telephone, a dual-action headphone and mic. He’s kicked the tempo up, dishing out big, bouncy tech-house cut with exuberant keys and plenty of filtered vocals sung by the man himself. Frivolous, who is signed to techno/house label Cadenza, is an entertainer as much as DJ, his cheeky 4/4 getting him going almost as the hands-in-the-air punters.

And the crowd, a positively lovely bunch of twenty- and thirtysomethings, up for it, conscious of their own space and yours, and in contrast to some nights in the ever trendier tech-house scene, just nice. If you’ve been noticing the lack of ladies at many techno nights ’round town – they’ve been saving it for Select*Elect, which boasts a healthy ratio of Y chromosome holders to their counterpart. This is the seventh party from the Select*Elect crew and it’s nailed a Saturday night vibe as curated as its music policy.

Select*Elect resident – Spielkamerad

Select*Elect have already started planning for the next event on 23 June where they will be collaborating with New York record label, ReSolute to plan a big line up with hot names on the bill.

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