Electric Carnival in Digbeth

Amazing:

• Chase & Status
• Fatboy Slim (the first hour or so)
• Boys Noize
• Tiga opening with 'Shoes' and closing at 6am with the same song Boys Noize ended with last year: the 'My Moon My Man' remix
• 5:30am - a man dancing with TWAT written on his forehead in luminous paint
• Everybody friends, walking up the road back to Moor Street.

Well Done Kele

'Tenderoni' - the debut single from Kele Okereke (usually found fronting Bloc Party) got its first play on Zane Lowe this week, and it's a banger. With the underground-going-overground sound of the opening synth, comparisons to Wiley's 'Rolex' will be inevitable, but this has the uplifting soul of the best of Bloc Party's material (i.e. not the 'oh no! what is happening in this paranoid world in which we live?!' stuff) rather than Wiley's playful aggression.

It sounds pretty ripe for a remix - maybe by someone with an uplifting vibe like A-Track, Boys Noize or Fake Blood (or even someone really amazing like Tony Lamezma) rather than the typical Dubstep house of representatives. Get on that please Kele. Ta. Album is out on June 22nd.

Tenderonibykeleokereke

Eclectricity Festival at the Custard Factory

Last Saturday night bought a good cross-section of the city down for a mind-blowing lineup of DJs and MCs spread over the full site of the Custard Factory. We arrived around midnight and moved quickly through the queue to the main area, catching Chase and Status, an excellent late addition to the lineup and obviously riding high on the critical acclaim aimed at their recently released debut album. For the next few hours we flitted between the drum n bass room, the ridiculously packed bar and the 'luxury heated outdoor tent' (or some collection of words like that) where Annie Mac was pulling out tracks like the incredible Duke Dormont Reconstruction of Mystery Jet's Two Doors Down, which gets away with sounding like a slowed down version of New Born by Muse by being a hauntingly brilliant slice of house.

Unfortunately the 'Mac was also a little quick to turn to crowd-pleasers like a dance remix of Killing in the Name, so the arrival of Simian Mobile Disco's incredibly blonde Jas Shaw was very welcome. His drops were perfect - including a tantalisingly extended mix of Hustler - and, if reports of the disappointing show from Scratch Perverts and the huge queue to get into the 'luxury tent' are to believed, Simian was easily the act of the night. All that was left was for Utah Saints to mop up the remaining couple of hours with a relatively downbeat groove. Moments of the night go to that Mystery Jets remix, the friend of a friend who mistook my hand for that of the girl dancing behind him and gently held it for a small portion of the Simian set, and a hazy walk home through light rain falling on a slumbering Birmingham.