OK, 2007, Let’s See What You Got!

NEW YEAR’S DAY -- I started my new year with Alien vs. The Cat at Shinjuku Face (used to be Liquid Room, but neither name makes any damn sense). It’s my first time at this place, possibly one of my last.

I’m not the Shinjuku clubbin’ type for starters, but I ended up hiking up those 6 flights of stairs twice last night only to arrive in a swarming jungle of people all playing the kind of games that people do in Shinjuku. The significance of making a New Year’s Day climb up all those steps just to reach a shrine of debauchery was not wasted on me. Only a fool would do it twice. No wait, that’s Mount Fuji.

We’re not here to talk about that. Club M’s dancefloor is even more vicious. Only the music made it tolerable. Being knocked over by falling gals three times in a night is a new record for me. (They just don’t wear sensible shoes, these chicks!)

At first I thought that I was just being caught up in the moment when Ari Linker (Alien Project) and Avi Algranati (Space Cat) started their set just after the countdown to 2007. There was champagne, after all. What several hundred people and I were being treated to is going to be one of the dominating sounds of 2007.

We all loved the first Alien vs. The Cat album because of the distinctive Alien Project and Space Cat signatures in each track. “Space Jam” (July 2004) was a benchmark contribution to our music’s ongoing collaborative renaissance. In the year that we needed it most, Ari and Avi called us back to the dancefloor, and a string of collaborative projects have followed.

The word “versus” in a project name sort of implies that the artists are collaborating as kind of a one-, or maybe a two-time thing. Digital music studios on notebook PCs are responsible for most of the track titles with “vs.” we’re seeing these days, followed by the ease of files transfers on the Internet, and then down to the small handful of collaborations actually done in a studio setting.

And in the past couple of years, Ari and Avi have been working together so much, on the road, in the studio, over the Net, they have arrived at a true balance of their talents. Where “Space Jam” really played out as the Alien Project sound “versus” the Space Cat sound, their just-released second album “Hear The Noise” (Spun Records) and the incredible live set I heard last night are the beginning of a brand new sound. It should be Alien “and” The Cat, not “vs.” (Maybe they can do this with the newly launched H2O record label. More on that later.)

A third Alien & The Cat album – hey how about that? – is also on the way and should be in DJ sets here in time for the cherry blossom parties in late March. Happy Birthday to Avi, who turned 36 on New Year’s Eve. Watching these two geniuses work together is a luxury you should not miss this year.

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I retreated from Shinjuku much later in the morning than I wanted to, but after a quiet coffee I was coaxed into checking out a progressive party at the venerable Cube326. The gig was the debut event for a very nice friend and she got a decent size turnout, hopefully enough to pay the bills. The dancefloor was full, everybody moving, sometimes cheering, girls shaking themselves around, guys grinning ear to ear. Supposedly the live act playing when I left is one of the best in progressive.

It’s a fact that you can draw more people to a club with progressive, or house, or drum and bass. D-Nox and Beckers tracks are even knocking over our psytrance crowd. A little bit of this at the party is a fun change of rhythm. I simply can’t understand how people can keep dancing to this lame mind-numbing crap for longer than 45 minutes in an environment like this.

Progressive is great music for the car, or maybe a brisk walk. But after 45 minutes you have heard everything that you are going to hear – the next 45 minutes is the same series of useless tedious buildups that usually go nowhere of interest and the same combinations of boring basslines. It’s so boring that progressive DJ’s get antsy and start adding in mistimed kicks and other distractions which inexplicably drives the crowd wild. Seriously, I just don’t get it.

The hard trance being played on Cube’s 4th Floor was equally devoid of any sense of life or “story” in the dark acid being overpumped to another surprising crowd. Same thing, only faster and soul-sucking dark.

What the hell, the ordeal gave me perspective. It reminded me of what I love about psychedelic trance.

I wish you all the best possible tidings in 2007. We’re now within six years of the 2012 Winter Solstice and things could get a little weird from here on. Remember why we dance and keep it psychedelic! Cheers!