TECHNO

Although it’s been a fixture of the Glasgow scene for three years now, Cotton Cake has only recently discovered what it wants to be. Launched at the Glasgow School of Art by Mehdi Dadrass and Jamie Young as a night for local bands, and then local DJs on into the night, it was about six months before the pair decided that they wanted to book bigger-name international acts. This led them on a chase around the venues of the city – to the Arches, the Classic Grand, the Glasgow School of Art again, and now the Sub Club – but it also cemented their reputation as one of the most forward-thinking clubs in the west.

‘We’ve jumped about a bit,’ says Dadrass, ‘but that’s because we’ve tried to put the right guest in the right venue, to fit them together in terms of timing and size. Since the start of this year we’ve been bi-monthly in the Sub Club and that’s going very well. We’re happy to have found a place to stay, at last.’ Most people would agree that the Subbie is an ideal location for blending together the mix of established artists and local guests that Cotton Cake still prides itself on presenting. In their lifetime, they’ve brought Claude Von Stroke, Superpitcher, Mr Oizo, Kiki, James Lavelle and Robert Babicz to Glasgow, and have offered their stage to Glasgow’s Union of Knives, Deportivo Street Team and Rustie.

For the third birthday party, though, the Cake boys have gone the big-name route, German techno up-and-comer and sometime Sven Vath acolyte Gabriel Ananda will be their special guest. ‘This is his first time in Glasgow,’ says Dadrass. ‘We both went to see him at Bugged Out in Manchester and he just blew us away; it’s really minimal, dirty techno, which is just perfect for the Sub Club and for Cotton Cake.’