Circoloco in Sydney

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  • It's impossible to replicate the original Circoloco experience anywhere outside DC-10 in Ibiza, but the brand's twice-yearly party in Australia at least manages to deliver a taste of the legendary party. Of course the weather will not be as oppressively warm, there will be no flight path directly overhead, and the crowd-crush on the terrace will be prevented by more stringent licensing laws than those that operate on the white isle, but you can still catch a hip, knowledgeable dance floor losing itself in hedonistic abandon. Musically, it's hard to imagine a more appropriate selection of headliners for this event than Prins Thomas, The Martinez Brothers and Dixon. The warm-up acts were strong, too, with Brohn in the Courtyard and the CO-OP boys in the Lost Disco chapel laying down warm, rolling disco and house grooves, respectively. The Martinez Brothers tore it up in the main courtyard, delivering their '90s-inspired take on modern tech house, complete with loops and samples from that past era. During their two-hour set the party peaked, as they ramped up the BPMs and bounced up and down behind the decks, revving the dancers into a frenzy. If their approach is a bit unsubtle, there's no doubting its popular appeal. Meanwhile, in the chapel, Thomas was constructing a more intriguing and delicate mix, ranging from disco to slow techno and with more than a few unclassifiable oddities. Happy to seduce the dance floor slowly without any obvious pyrotechnics, he showed why he is the most talented DJ to come out of Norway's nu-disco scene: tight mixing, unexpected transitions and unbeatable programming. When he dropped a New Order classic at the end, it was the most natural way to summarise what he'd built over the previous two hours. When Dixon took over from The Martinez Brothers, I wondered how he would shift gears without losing his audience. He maintained his love for pushing new music (apparently 80% of the tracks were unreleased), and his trademark melodic undertones were ever-present. Not only that, he managed to maintain energy while cranking down the BPMs. Still, there was a kind of flatness that came from the set's main-room pitch—it was a strong three hours, but not earth-shattering precisely because it was so big. Those very minor gripes aside, there was more than enough goodness going around to uphold Circoloco's reputation.
RA