Sunday 31 December 2017, 7.30pm
Seeing in the new year in style with the irresistible stylings of The Scorpios – who've provided some our favourite moments of 2017 – and a DJ set from Soho's excellent IF Music record store! The Scorpios will be bookending the chimes with two sets, at 11pm and 1am.
Hailing from Central Sudan and now based in London after fleeing the fundamentalist takeover in that region, the Scorpios are a septet that melds Arabic rhythms and guitar chops (and a kind of swooning cyclical ecstasy) with a raw Eastern funk feel, properly dismantling cultural barriers in pursuit of a unifying rhythmic bliss. Heavy bass, synths, horns and percussions drive through traditional Sudanese forms to create a sound that owes as much to Detroit as it do to Khartoum.
DJ and record shop owner Jean-Claude Thompson has come along way since spinning house, hip-hop and techno at raves up and down the London-encircling M25 motorway during the late ’80s. As one half of genre-blending production duo the Amalgamation of Soundz he performed at Glastonbury and hosted a residency at famed nightclub Fabric. Since the duo parted ways a few years into the new millennium, he’s gone on to well-deserved recognition as one of the world’s foremost rare vinyl specialists.
Jean-Claude’s reputation among London’s music connoisseurs was cemented during his stint as manager of the Jazz Lounge; the tiny yet hugely significant top floor of iconic ’90s Soho record store and musical hub Release The Groove. Painstakingly arranging a small selection of titles and joining musical dots with scant regard for genre, Jean-Claude deliberately placed jazz alongside tech-house; folk alongside hip-hop. To the musical adventurer looking for inspiration, the Jazz Lounge became a mecca. It’s no coincidence that regulars included dance music avant-gardists such as Pete Heller, LTJ Bukem, Kenny Dope and Tom Middleton... [more]
