by RAF KATIGBAK

“Retro-futuristic” is one of those overused oxymorons, quickly becoming as played out as turntable graphics on a rave shirt. For some reason, the term keeps popping up in dance-music press releases, becoming a catch-all description of any artist, DJ, mix CD or label that slaps together some old-school and new-school flavours without rhyme or reason. Oh, you’ve got an old drum machine on your album? How retro! Wow, you sampled an old disco song, how old school! More often than not, the referential gesture is merely superficial, an attempt to cash in on the past.

Enter Germany’s Steve Bug, DJ, producer and head of tech-house imprint Poker Flat Recordings. For the last decade, Bug has been paying homage to house music’s past the best way he knows how, by taking it into the future, and this Friday, Nov. 18, at Station C, he’s taking Montreal along for the ride.

Anyone familiar with Bug’s sound knows only two words to describe it: dead sexy. Bug’s latest productions and mixes harken back to house music’s roots, featuring driving, bare-bones tracks that have the emotive urgency and deep, dark textures of early Chicago productions. In the late ’80s and early ’90s in Chicago, house music was seen less as the commercial, sterile soundtrack for the martini-guzzling jet set it is now, and more of a dark and mysterious underground force, an impetus for change. Steve Bug’s minimal funk entrenches itself in that emotive drive and affirmative spirit. It’s a positive groove that is sexy, dangerous and rump-shakingly infectious at the same time, and yours truly can’t wait to lose his mind at this party.

Speaking of Chicago and getting giddy as a little schoolgirl, I can’t wait to lay my hands on Ghislain Poirier’s latest Breakupdown, launched last Tuesday on Chicago’s Chocolate Industries label. From the single and teasers I’ve heard in Poirier’s sets, he’s coming hard with fresh influences and new takes on the electro/hip hop interface. Make sure you catch him with his boy (and blogger buddy) Nick Catchdubs at Zoobizarre on Nov. 26 for some bleeding-edge Brazilian baile funk, hip hop, grime and assorted dancefloor shenanigans.

While we’re talking Brazil, the Canadian NGO Alternatives is prepping to send a few interns to the South American country (as well as India, and throughout Africa) to help local organizations learn various media and computer skills, as well as helping with community education (like helping South Africans fight the privatization of water). They need your help. Saturday night’s fundraising sock hop (you literally check your shoes at the door!) at Studio Nyata Nyata (4374 St-Laurent) is a smorgasbord of live magic, dancers, live painters, beatboxers and DJs featuring Pablo Solis, Quadraceptor, DJ Movez, Mato Romero, Sophia & Donya and Dr. Octoboobies. It’s a minimum $5 donation and refreshments will be served. Doors open at 9 p.m., so be there or be squ-izz-are!

NYADDA, NYADDA, NYADDA... Diskoakimbo@sympatico.ca

>> Music Listings