An experimental non-profit collective connected by music and driven by raw passion. This weblog promotes musicians through Internet optimization and digital manipulation and offer their music to you as FREE downloadable DJ mixes and Singles from the Planet's best bedroom DJs and Producers.
Ben Katana and Bryan Burger, two of the finest 1st generation Kuala Lumpur DJ’s have both left a serious dent on the psyche’s of Malaysia’s dance music generation.
Both DJ’s have held court at the legendary club, Movement, in the heart of Kuala Lumpur - playing screamingly hard techno to bleary-eyed punters clinging to the walls only to get pounded flat into the concrete. And it’s pretty safe to say that these two, have pretty much kept it real: right up till now.
Ben Katana - one of the earliest proponents of electro-clash in Malaysia, played Tiga’s ‘I Wear My Sunglasses at Night’ to a virgin crowd during Regenerate 02 back in the early ’00s, ushering a new age of electro-house and trashy dressing to an otherwise techno-bred scene.
Bryan Burger, headmaster of the Royale DJ Academy, and boss of Excessive Records, introduced German-influenced techno and minimalism to the melting pot. Now, with the Hawtin-esque Ray Soo, continue to inform the scene with their flagship nights, Hotel Scandalos.
And it is our great pleasure, that FoundationKL presents to you a solid back to back mix with two of our favorite DJs.
Show some respect:
Ben Katana VS Bryan Burger - Live @ Twisted (21st August 2007)
Welcome to Oneshots, where the FKL team take you on a global journey into the diverse sounds of the planetary foundation. DJs featured here play or have played a pivotal role in their various countries as cultural markers.
Claudy Philius; promoter, artist manager,and one of the originators of the Montreal warehouse music scenes has been there. But for a moment, he was here in KL; answering plenty of questions about Deep House.
It turned out, in order to understand the ‘deep’ bit - he brought me through some history…
He was there when house slowly fled outwards from Chicago and eventually dominated every gay club in North America back in the 1980s right up to the early 1990s. When DJs Francois Kevorkian, Frankie Knuckles, Tony Humphries, Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzales Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan, Tee Scoot, and Ron Hardy would hold captivated sessions on the radio and club interiors.
The progression of house eventually led itself into Detroit and emerged back out as the cybotronesque Techno sound pushed by Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saundersen. Claudy was also there. In fact, a whole bunch of people were there.
And it was this original community of punters that saw how their comforting, soulful sounds of their sexualities, culture, language, and uniqueness slowly encroached the commercial arena. They then had enough.
They went deeper underground.
The term ‘deep’ in Deep House doesn’t constitute solely the emotional state of the sub-genre, or a technical state like ‘progressive’. Instead, its an identifier that marks itself as the original-as-Chicago warehouse sound, untarnished by pop-desperate generations, and preserves the ideologies from the original movement. As an emotional marker, ‘deep’ also represents a soulfulness of spiritual proportions, inspired by the African-American gospel energies, and a certain ‘fierceness’ stemming from gay pride and diva extravagance.
Here’s an interesting experimental documentary that explores the Deep House culture:
Deep House : Chapter 1
Deep House : Chapter 2
I’m sure that doesn’t cover half of the thoughts behind ‘deep’, but I think its best to demonstrate:
Claudy also represents Tony Desypris, and has very kindly provided us his mix for us to feature on our 1st Oneshots here on FKL.
This excellent mix brings the listener through a sensual trip blending between the Chicago divine and the sultry and sophisticated. A real beautiful mix for chill and optimistic listening.
According to Claudy, Tony’s a real old-schooler and has very very few publicity pictures of himself. But Claudy has very kindly provided us a club flyer featuring him at a recent gig (thats a picture of his son):
[ed: Claudy and Tony have popped back just to add some additional pointers. The correction of the Chicago DJ’s on the 3rd paragraph. Additionally, note that the 1st 20 minutes of the mix is attributed to DJ B’ugo]
[ed2: Claudy and Tony have come back yet again to confirm that the set is ALL Tony’s - there is no DJ B’ugo in this set - please move along ]
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