Feel My Bicep – A Wasteman Reflection

 
Art & Culture

So it was Saturday night and I had one of those colds. You know those colds. The ones where you feel like you have a persian rug tucked between your ears and you're sniffing more than the employee of the month at an PR agency office Christmas party. There’s only two things that can cure one of those colds, one being plenty of rest with chicken soup and lemsip, the other is getting off your rocker and sweating out in a packed club to some top notch techno. And you’d be hard pressed to find more top notch than the line up for Trouble Vision last Saturday, featuring my two favourite acts at the moment, Midland and Feel My Bicep.

So with that in mind I decided to stop writing mawkish poems and hating myself for watching X-Factor, and fucking go in. When you head to Corsica Studios you are always guaranteed a few things: snaking queues outside, a sweaty dancefloor, a jam packed and effusive smoking area and most importantly, a fucking good time. I have to say my spidey sense was definitely tingling in anticipation as I headed through the door and the night wasn’t ready to disappoint.

The first set I was treated to was disco stalwart Rayko. Having come expecting to pump my fist all night at bass kicks, I was pleasantly suprised to be hear some proper disco and funk getting banged out, and this guy really knew how to bang it out. With a ‘Nu-Disco’ sound that is most definitely on trend at the moment, he played a set full of pumping disco and funk tunes with a bassy house edge to it that kept the crowd moving. Personally I had to temporarily change my dance move from a ‘Bass Kick Fist Pump’ to a ‘Disco Hand Wave’, which was confusing at first but ultimately rewarding.

Next up was the main event, Feel My Bicep, and they don’t come more main eventy than that. The last time I saw them was at Farr Festival and they were so strong they actually created a fucking electrical storm that totally fucked Move D’s set up. What I love about these guys is that they are taking everything that is good about house, techno and disco and put it all together in one set. They’ll be banging out a thumping techno tune then mix it in with some italo disco which sounds funky but also somehow like euphoric house at the same time. This may have all been extremely confusing for my dance moves but it was so fucking banging that I didn’t care. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you should listen to their Essential Mix, simple as.

To finish up was Midland, who wasn’t prepared to let the fucking side down, no sireebob. Having produced one of my favourite tracks of last year in Archive01, I was expecting big things, and y’know what, he only fucking smashed it. You can see why he is collaborating with Bicep because they both work with the same kind of ethos, which is to blend all the best (or at least my favourite) genres of dance expertly together. It kept me really sweating out through to the dying minutes of the night, even though I’d been crying into my lemsip only 5 hours previously.

So it was an absolute cracker, all told. To be fair Trouble Vision are one of my favourite nights to go to and these kinds of nights remind me why, always consistent line ups and reasonably priced. Also, more importantly, I replaced my cold with a healthy comedown instead, which is actually more preferable.


Photo by Hungry Visuals