Radio Soulwax @ The Warehouse Project
02/05/08
IT'S amazing that Soulwax are still so highly esteemed amongst the world's dancefloors.
For the first night of the May bank holiday weekender in a car park cum club under Piccadilly Station, the punters pile in for a stellar sell out line-up.
As opposed to the Boddingtons' Brewery, which played home to the first set of Warehouse Project events, tonight is more intimate and evidently, more playful.
Soulwax play as centrepiece for the night's agenda with the live show and a DJ set - under the pseudonym, 2 Many DJs.
The two brothers, David and Stephen Dewaele, have managed to dominate young hipster clubbing since the release of the mash-up compilation, As Heard On Radio Soulwax Pt. 2, which toasted to impatience and variety in equal measures, playing hundred of records over short spaces of time, from Detroit Techno to Heavy Metal.
However after almost a decade of peddling this philosophy and inspiring legions of imitators, they've become, at least behind the decks, a parody of themselves.
The main body of their work, Soulwax however, despite all it's obvious flaws (touring of the same record for four years could be one of them) still holds up.
The reasoning for this is quite geeky; their use of analogue equipment (crude knobs and buttons rather than computers with complex memory storage) means that they are forced to recreate each beep and squeak live on stage.
Reinvent
This results in no show being the same and has forced the group to constantly reinvent themselves, the sound and their songs.
Some of their shows spend their entirety flirting with techno plates which, although attract the enthusiast, can marginalise the less discerning. Tonight, in this hedonistic hideaway, they provide the polar opposite.
Opening with, Part Of The Weekend Never Dies they leave room for absent sound, likewise with E Talking, which follows - sneaking in some à la mode baseline warbles.
The funky-house melodies are easy on the crowd's ears and immediately attract droves to the dancefloor who might have been put-off by Brodinski - the previous DJ's - heavier, more macho-sound.
The noise builds up throughout the set and becomes increasingly more claustrophobic towards the end. The latest addition to their live show, cover versions (or tracks that they've produced), are an easy crowd pleaser - notably, Daft Punk, Justice and Klaxons keep the feet stomping.
Soulwax are easily likeable, however they seem to be continually restricting their own potential by refusing to produce new material, and as soon as they sound the Klaxons, it's realisable that they have flogged the horse as far as it can go.
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Reviewed: Tue, 06 May, 2008
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