Hospitality open this year's Warehouse Project on a high

The opening night of Warehouse Project back for a third season of events at Store Street. At around midnight the main room of Manchester's Warehouse Project filled out in that stealthy way it tends to at these things. One moment you have loads of space, which you take for granted, waving your arms all over; an individual amongst the many. Then you notice a few nudges here and there but ignore them, attempting to salvage your slowly diminishing kingdom which you laid claim to with flailing limbs. Then, finally, the MC announces the next act: "High Contrast". The first tune thunders into being, and you realise that you can no longer move any of your limbs, you're being thrown around like dice, and your beer is frothing all over your face.

So yeah... it was pretty full. Not surprising really for the man who remixes the likes of Missy Elliot and the Streets as well as producing enough original tracks to fill three hugely popular albums. Even with the contents of your beverage all over you it is impossible to get annoyed when High Contrast's signature light hearted sound is filling your ears; and so with feet being stomped to shreds, elbows banged blue and a mutual atmosphere of sweat permeating the air, everyone jumped or swivelled (or all those other attempts at dancing that lack of room permits), equally light of heart.

Songs that stood out were the High Contrast's own classics such as 'If We Ever', showing his ability to bled euphoric high melody with a driven but tuneful bass. All of which was coming out beautifully from the sound system. Other high notes, particularly for me, were some of the remixes he played. There's the shamelessly cheesy 'Show Me Love', featuring the vocals of Robin S, remixed by Blame. Then there is a song I've been dying to hear out for a long time, and which I'd given up hope of hearing when London Elektricity pulled out. That song is London Elektricity's 'Just One Second' remixed by Apex. The beautiful vocals along with the ephemeral high end and general ambience of the track was mesmerising.

Next up was Logistics and the night took a more serious turn. The room emptied out significantly for this and it was just as well. The music was deep and thoughtful and required you to have your own space. Having just released a new album under the odd title of 'Crash Bang Wallop!' there was a lot of new material in his set. One that struck me was 'Warehouse', the opening track which begins in a typically Logistics kind of way that is euphoric and melodious. You're taken out of this comfortable familiarity, though, when the vocals begin to stutter almost unpleasantly leading up to an uncharacteristically heavy drop only to have the melody slowly brought back in over the top.

This was a recurring thought throughout, actually, that despite the almost ambient liquid style of this producer, his tracks were coming across heavy and bassy enough to not diminish the want to dance after the likes of DJ Marky and High Contrast. The other side to this obvious plus point is the fact that while listening to this set I happened to be more to the rear of the room. Despite the even spreading of Funktion One speakers throughout, the sound was noticeably worse than towards the front and so some of the high end was lost sometimes making the songs hard to differentiate, adding a feeling of monotony to the set that really shouldn't have been there. A small problem, though, and easily overcome by simply moving closer to the DJ. I just hate to think of those stuck right at the back of High Contrast when there was less room for manoeuvrability.
I'm sad and ashamed to say that by the time Goldie was beginning his set it was bail time for me. From what I heard, though, him and Manchester's much loved MC Tom Piper brought the crowd out of the Logistics induced trance and upped the tempo (figuratively speaking of course), which I'm sure delighted the more, shall we say, 'awake' members of the crowd. Hospital Records did a good job opening this year's warehouse project, which judging by the line ups looks like it'll get better and better.

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