East West Connections

In the grand tradition of our jet-setting Irish politicians, we will be heading off to exotic locales next weekend to celebrate the festival of St Patrick - patron saint of not only Ireland but also Nigeria (true), engineers (also true) and over-compressed kick drums (erm).

On Saturday the 17th, Greg will be joining the good people of Waterford for a Re:Publik party in Crystal. Two rooms of music with Yousef holding down one, Greg the other and a whole host of local deejays also representing. Should be a biggie.

The following night, Sunday the 18th, Shane will be heading west to Limerick for a late night session in Baker's Place. First time back in this venue for many years and the first of a series of parties there, so very much looking forward to it.

Go Deep, Friday 24th February

Towards the end of each month a little excitement starts to build in the studio. Sometimes the previous weeks have been spent deep in the music machines. Sometimes we've been traveling. Sometimes, if the weather has been good, we've been sitting on our arses, watching the world go by. The last week of the month, though, is always special. The new tracks that have accumulated since the last Go Deep party are added to any classics that have sprung to mind. Early in the week we might hear word from friends around the country that are planning a trip south. If it's a big night - the birthday party in November or around Christmas - it can get a bit crazy. If it's a regular month - say February - it's more relaxed. But regardless of the time of year or what we've been up to for the previous few weeks, Go Deep is always our highlight of the month.

It helps that we've been playing this music here in Cork across a generation - for today's Go Deep regulars in the Pavilion, for their older brothers and sisters before them,  even for some of their parents, aunts and uncles before them again. That's a deep well to draw on and, if tapped in to, can be more satisfying than any other place we've played over the years.

So, as it's the last week of the month, we're in a Go Deep state of mind. We'll be in the Pavilion on Friday night. Get down!

The Magic Carpet (Fish Go Deep Remix) - Latecomer

This track was originally released on the fabulously named Trendy Mullet label back in 2010. It's a dreamy, jazzily percussive groove that slides and glides it's way under your skin. We played it a lot on our radio show at the time. It was a suprise to discover that Latecomer is a young Russian producer, not some seasoned house veteran. Check out the original mix below...

When head Mullet, Matt, recently asked us to pick a track from his label's back catalogue to remix, The Magic Carpet immediately sprung to mind. After a couple of false starts, the Juno 106 started working it's deep bass magic, that slurping hi-hat groove started swinging and we were off. As neither Greg nor myself are trained musicians, we find Melodyne Editor invaluble for figuring out chord sequences, rearranging them and extracting fragments of sound. It's an amazing piece of software that has developed into something far beyond it's original auto-tuning use. If you've thirty minutes to spare, there's a great interview with it's inventor, Peter Neubäcker, here.

Aside from the Juno and Melodyne, the other star of this particular remix was Urs Heckmann's beautiful new Diva soft synth. There are plenty of purely virtual machines that give their real world counterparts a run for their money but, for me, a Moog or a classic Roland is always going to sound better. Diva comes closer than any soft synth I've used to matching that sound. It has a deep, rich and, most importantly, musical tone that makes you want to play. It does put a serious strain on a computer's CPU but, for such a high quality return, I reckon that's an acceptable trade-off. We were using a beta version of Diva during this remix and didn't delve too deeply into it then but it's since become a staple in our plug-in folder.

Anyway, that was all a roundabout way of saying that the remix is now available and you should definitely buy at least one copy here.

Go Deep @ The Pavilion, 27.1.2012

It's party time at The Pavilion next Friday night for the first Go Deep outing of 2012. We have so much great new music to play that we're starting a bit earlier than usual - 10PM - to fit it all in. Can't wait. To sweeten the deal further, you can win some passes in the competition running over on our Facebook page...

Commencing countdown, engines on....

Only ten more sleeps until our biggest blowout of the year - the Go Deep Birthday Party (TM) - and we hope you're as excited as we are. We've already begun the annual trawl through the record shelves, looking for just the right mix of classics from two-and-a-bit decades of house music. Despite what a few jaded thirty/forty-somethings may yearn for, the birthday party isn't intended as a mix-perfect recreation of June 1992 - y'know when they still made good house/techno/yokes. We like to think of it more as a celebration of the entire span and enduring appeal of house music in Cork. And everyone who enjoys the music is welcome, from the twenty year old who's recently discovered house to grizzled veterans like us who, frankly, should know better! Can't wait.