2Klub - Music

Music

2Klub specialises in bringing you the latest cutting-edge hard dance music from the U.K.'s most talented, imaginative and innovative DJs.

We'll play new tracks, the hottest Hard Dance and the most uplifiting NU-NRG.

Music Policy

The music policy at 2Klub's events is to build the atmosphere on the Main Floor through cutting-edge UK/Euro Hard Dance Music and NU NRG.

We deliberately say "cutting-edge" above to emphasise the fact that we don't play tunes which have been well played for months elsewhere. Any club can do that.

We look for DJs who have access to, or are creating, new sounds.

Our aim is to provide clubbers with an uplifting musical experience, different from anything in most other clubs.

Find out more about our music policy on our page of info for DJs who want to play for us.

Meet the DJs Come to 2Klub events, or meet them here! You can find out all about our resident DJs, and some of our favourite ones in the DJ pages. You can even leave messages for our residents (or your mates) in the guestbook.

2Klub Mixes Wanna know more about our music? Hear mixes from 2Klub nights at our mixes page where you can find free MP3 and Real Audio mixes from 2Klub DJs.

Are you a DJ? We are interested in up & coming talent here at *2Klub! Check out the DJ info page* and if you have what it takes then send us a demo.

From The Parents' Guide to The Music Maze an article in The Sunday Times 1st. June 2003.

Authors: Tony Barrell, Mel Bradman, Matt Munday & Scott Athorne

HARD HOUSE	Mindlessly repetitive dance music that uses a four-to-the-floor HOUSE rhythm but lacks any of the melody, funk or lyrical content found in ordinary house music. As a result, hard house hasn't made much of an impact on the British top 40 - though this may also be because its devotees tend to spend their spare cash on recreational drugs to help them endure the music's monotony. Nevertheless, hard house remains popular among club DJs such as Radio 1's Judge Jules.
	(Can't really argue with that can we! Jonathan)
HOUSE	Characterised by a 'four to the floor' drumbeat (boom, boom, boom, boom), and some musical train-spotters say there should be between 124 and 135 of those booms a minute. The Oxford English Dictionary defines house as a 'style of pop music, typically using drum machines and synthesized bass lines with sparse repetitive vocals and a fast beat'. It is one of the most fertile dance genres of modern times, and its fragmentation into various subgenres is one of the reasons for its survival (see DEEP HOUSE, HARD HOUSE and PROGRESSIVE HOUSE). (TELL YOUR KIDS: House began in the 1980s at Chicago warehouse parties, and at a club actually called the Warehouse (hence the name 'house'), when DJs beefed up soul and disco records with drum machines.)
	(What they don't say is that even if you tell your kids this, you'll find your kids are significantly unimpressed! Jonathan)
GARAGE	An update of disco, retaining the soulful, mostly female vocals, but constructing orchestral dance grooves with drum machines and computers, not musicians. Still going strong, it is now often known as 'soulful house' to avoid confusion with UK GARAGE. TELL YOUR KIDS: Garage takes its name from the New York club Paradise Garage, whose DJ Larry Levan developed the sound in the 1970s and 80s after the demise of disco. The first two garage 'tunes' were Off the Wall by Paul Scott, and You Don't Know, by Serious Intention
	(Errrr.... don't bother - see above. J.)

UK GARAGE	Takes the complex drum patterns of DRUM'N'BASS but slows them down to the tempo of HOUSE, around 124-135bpm (see BPM), and adds thunderous reggae bass lines. The music can stand alone as raw instrumentals - when it is sometimes known as '8-bar' - or provide a backing for rappers and singers. You can hear UK garage on FM pirate radio stations in most big English cities. Several UK-garage vocalists have become fully fledged pop stars - including Ms Dynamite, Craig David and So Solid Crew. Once successful, many switch to making R&B or HIP HOP, as the global markets for these genres dwarf that of UK garage, which has failed to catch on abroad.
TRANCE	This mystifyingly popular, thumping dance music uses repetitive, staccato synthesiser riffs and diva-style pop vocals over a four-to-the-floor beat - usually faster than HOUSE but slower than DRUM'N'BASS. At intervals there is a breakdown, when the drums disappear while the melodic elements carry on, but eventually the drums kick in again and clubbers can continue with their dancing. A lot of it sounds like very bad Eurovision, so it's not entirely a surprise to discover it came from Germany.
	("Mystifyingly"? J.)
TECHNO	Imagine Jean Michel Jarre's old synthesiser soundscapes set to a pulsating dance beat, and you're almost there.The standard techno sound, which is entirely instrumental, takes sped-up HOUSE beats and overlays intricately programmed synthesiser patterns and otherworldly special effects. A few of the more accomplished techno producers, such as Detroit's Carl Craig, have elevated the sound almost to the level of art, producing filmic mini techno symphonies. Meanwhile, in northern Europe, more bombastic strains remain very popular, with millions of youngsters making the annual pilgrimage to Berlin for the Love Parade - a techno street party on a similar scale to London's Notting Hill Carnival. (TELL YOUR KIDS: Techno emerged from 1980s Detroit, where a handful of bedroom producers such as Derrick May and Magic Juan Atkins fused all kinds of electronic and industrial influences - from Gary Numan to the German band Kraftwerk - to create a futuristic new style).
	(You get the sense of where the preferences of the authors lie from this last entry, as well as the snobbery that goes with some music critics. Why they imagine that any kid's self-respecting parents would want to pretend to know more about their music than the kids themselves beats me. J. )