Scotland, in particular Glasgow, is a lush breeding ground for nurturing and pushing techno talent to top of the crop. Rough round the edges, but warm to the core would be a good description for the Glasgow pack, as they're notoriously some of the friendliest folk you could lay down a bit of banter with and man, they know how to party. Mikaela, who's dragging us further into the murky depths of punishing techno with ONYX at Space, has clearly taken a liking to the Scottish techno flavour with Harvey McKay having been in on more than one occasion, and last night she upped the ante with three Scotsmen on duty, Slam (a.k.a Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle) and Gary Beck.
For the multi-nation crowd that showed, they got a stellar live session with Slam before Beck made contact with the booth alongside the duo in a b2b stormer, and to see it off, it was fellow Brit, Perc, who crash landed another heavy ONYX rendezvous.
If you missed it, we're about to make you feel like you were there feeling the full force of stormy techno with our top tracks of the night. You've got three weeks left to check this bad boy out for yourselves, and with the likes of Juan Atkins, Fritz Kalkbrenner, Mark Houle, Bart Skills, Harvey McKay, Josh Wink and Monika Kruse on the upcoming line-ups, you'd be an absolute lunatic to miss out.
Jack Master / 'Bang The Box' (Slam Remix) / Played by Slam
This membrane nuzzler was released just this month and if Slam were after a crowd reaction, they got one – a big one. It's actually an old '90s record of Richie Hawtin with Jack Master being a pseudo-name that he used to record fun classic Chicago-inspired tracks that were made for his DJ sets. Good to see it earning itself some more shelf life and Hawtin also approves.
Marco Bailey / 'Wildfires' (Nikola Gala Remix) / Played by Slam
Marco Bailey has landed on Ibiza soil good and proper in 2016 with his own trailblazing residency at Vista Club (Privilege) every Sunday. Slam gave this 2015 release from Bailey's own longstanding label, MB Elektronics, an opportunity to get the whistles flowing and they succeeded.
Gary Beck / Barefoot Sunday (Floorplan Remix) / b2b with Gary Beck and Slam
Barefoot Sunday is a day I'd like to be part of, Mr. Beck. This is a meaty track, released via his own BEK Audio imprint in May this year, and the crowd may have been capable of munching through their rubber soles and fast tracking themselves to Sunday.
Johannes Heil / 'By Night' (Part Three) / b2b with Gary Beck and Slam
What a beauty this techno beast is – stick some red lipstick on it and you've got yourself a good night to get home to. Tasty, delicious, mouth-watering stuff from Heil and it's a track that stands out from the pack with elongated ease.
Matt Whitehead / 'A Is For Acid' (Perc Redux) / Played by Perc
It's all in the name with this one – techno meets acid and they get along superbly. This track was blasted not long after Perc took over from the dynamo b2b session, and as with any following artist's intentions to close a night, his mission was to maintain the pace. Instant reactions drawn from what is a grizzly, monster of a record.
WORDS | Aimee Lawrence PHOTOGRAPHY | ONYX
