Über Motion present Sascha Dive @ Sound Control, Friday 28th January 2011

Über Disco and Untold Motion recently converged, giving life to a single Über Motion offspring with the aim of bringing variations of tech and house into this city’s walls. Two heads are better than one, as some wise-cracker once uttered.

Both have made the Sound Control basement their new home since its doors opened just over a year ago; a Stimming show proving a success for Über Disco, while Untold Motion roped in Martinez and then Maya Jane Coles to mix’n’beatmatch. This one’s over three floors, though, with the Mind On Fire crew’s forward-thinking musical melange as the filling in a tech house sandwich.

It’s Untold Motion founder Enlukaa who begins tonight in the loft room, creaking the wooden floorboards into life with some chugging melodic deep house. Although the early punters are few, a striking lightshow set-up wraps the tune-warper in waves, lasers and shifting lines to supplement sampled vocal clips and piano chords in the between-beat atmosphere.

Lawrence takes the reins for hollow-sounding percussion interspersed with minimal clicks and shuffles, but there's more to explore as the Belgian double act FCL shift into first gear downstairs in the basement. They treat the growing crowd to a selection of throbbing basslines and Balearic-esque chord holds, while loitering on the fringes of funky house through layering some enchanting vocal tracks. Certainly one gent in particular is appreciative, throwing shapes and gurns in equal measure; blissfully unaware of the occasional volume blips interrupting mixing fluidity.

Leaving behind the Ninja Tuna t-shirt wearing FCL, it is a minor coincidence to briefly tune into the Mind On Fire frequency during a spin of Mr Scruff’s ‘Get A Move On’, en route upstairs. Lawrence’s set ends on a paradoxical switch from steadier, andante beats with ambient backing to more disjointed, intrusive inter-beat melodies before Sascha Dive’s turn to be entombed within the shadowy prisms of the visual show.

He immediately picks up the bass whomps and adds intensity through shakes, heavy-hitting vocal sample grinds and that quickening roll you hear when a coin reaches the final coils of a spiral wishing well charity box. Indeed, Sascha Dive has made a habit of partaking in the hard to pinpoint – a recent remix of Matthew Dear’s ‘Little People (Black City)’ attests to that – with inhuman yelps permeating sliced and diced house.

Words & Images: Ian Pennington