Crate Digging: Animal Farm's Darren Quail and Charles Turtle
The DJ/promotion outfit share their favourite club tracks
Quail: Mike Huckaby ‘Flashbacks from the M1’ (SYNTH) [from The Versatility EP] is a remastered classic from 1997 and simple Detroit techno at its best. It’s got a kick, a hi-hat, a clap and a synth hook that would deepen the shallowest of souls, it’s just the perfect club track for me.
Keeping it deep, WAX ‘20002 B’ (WAX) is a fantastic production from one of the multiple aliases of Shed. The guy can do no wrong for me and this track typifies what I love about his sound: the uplifting pads, the soft piano stabs, a Basic Channel-esque dubbed baseline and crunchy, jacking percussion.
Finally, a true pioneer of the acid techno scene of Chicago. With its distorted kick drum, sharp percussion and organ riff, DJ Hyperactive ‘Wide Open’ (Missile) recently caught the attention of Len Faki, who released his own edit. I managed to catch this guy at Berghain this year and he was probably one of the best DJ sets I heard.
Turtle: Suburban Knight ‘Midnight Sunshine’ (UR) is one of the reasons I got into electronic dance music, having been heavily into grunge all my younger days. Like a lot of UR tracks it’s not DJ friendly and it throws things off by a third of a beat at the start of the track but that doesn’t stop me from playing it.
Ben Klock ‘Subzero’ (Ostgut-Ton) marks the resurgence of modern techno for me. It tears dancefloors to pieces with its cold, solid kick, crisp hi-hats and overall frosty reverb. You know you’re in the right place when you play this and everyone responds with a fist in the air.
Animal Farm’s Eighth Birthday with special guest Ben Klock is at the Sub Club, Glasgow, Thu 27 Dec.