WMC 2008

Winter Music Conference has been a hedonistic retreat for electronic music lovers for years representing the pulse of what’s happening on a global scale. For some it’s a chance to represent there skills and strike a deal with a label, for others it a chance to submerge into music that the southeast rarely has a chance to enjoy. Whether you’re carrying the handbag for techno or got the need to feed your house addiction the game was on in Miami. We got a treat hearing NYC legend Francois K, while getting down to his evolving sound that has grown for over 20 years, we ran into none other the Danny Teneglia scoping out the joint. Across the hall Tampa native Three brought the minimal madness at the Hallucination party. Reverse Commuter heated things up but Canuck’s Cobblestone Jazz took the prize early on. This Mathew Johnson lead trio caused quite a stir this WMC with their innovative freestyle, on the fly techno, combined with soothing twisted piano chords and tweaked out ethereal vocals. The biggest bang for your buck was the Remix Hotel. The Beat Port sponsored pool party brought a line of WMC’s biggest and brightest stars, from Hawtin to Zabiela you had to stop dancing just long enough to check out the latest in DJ and production madness. We ran into Richard Devine rocking the noise with the Access Atomizer, and Miami’s unsung hero Stryke was rockin out in the Stanton cabana promoting his latest release the Narrowest of Path’s on Plastic City. That night we ran into UK import Sasha cooking up some info for his latest Involver2 cd. Even the Mac store was on point during WMC, Ewan Pearson dropped a genius set to satisfy any craving, we saw him later opening for minimal meets trance guru Gui Boratto at the Kompakt/Resident Advisor party. Unfortunately the Minus party was a no go at 4am, the venue was at capacity but we did make is down to Felt to get with the local Miami techno clan Dirty Gruv. Ray Nicholes from Detroit was there banging the drum. Some how or another we ended up at the Tommy Boy Records party and Bob Sinclair had people letting there hair down with diva’s singing and drummers drumming. Super star techno cohort Adam Beyer was up to the task as he brought his Drumcode label mate Par Grindvik and friends to BED for a late night cocktail that went into high gear. We even managed to stir up some dirt at Ultra Music Festival. For their 10 year anniversary Ultra brought Underworld back for another awestruck phenom performance. They brought 120% with them and even reworked some classic tunes for us old blokes. If you could still move by the end of the week Sunday School for Degenerates at the Pawnshop was the place to be. We heard Steve Bug lay down the law with some amazing minimal – chord tunes and then Ghostly poster boy Matthew Dear got dark and groovy as the sun went down on the Terrace. Once again Miami has proved the longevity of electronic dance music and it’s power to evolve, innovate, inspire and motivate. As we wind down and wish it could last a little longer we spotted a flyer for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, like a pilgrimage to a holy place we are ready to do it again, more techno, more house, more beats over and over again "till the break of dawn".

Check out photos here: http://flickr.com/photos/jaxlore/

- Dr. Strangelove, MOVEMENT Magazine /JaxLore.com