Pictured above is an early 20th century photo of the Labour Day parade in Toronto. Fast forward, oh about one-hundred years, and society has found a couple more enticing ways to celebrate this statutory holiday. This weekend is summer’s final hurrah. An opportunity to go hard, for three, four or maybe even five days in succession. Most notably, Labour Day weekend is synonymous with the Guvernment’s super event, Labour of Love. Although this year’s line-up leaves much to be desired in our eyes, it still presents an opportunity for thousands of electronic music enthusiasts to congregate around good music, and explore the subterranean realm of synthetic drugs. One more item of note, an absolute sizzler of a booking at Mod Club on Friday, when Fake Blood attempts to rekindle his dominance of the Toronto club scene.
An exclusive 12 track mix by Teki & Orgasmic (aka the Sound Pellegrino Thermal Team). The mix features four upcoming tracks set for release on the SP label, in addition to work from Sinden’s new label Grizzly, Youngunz and Dirtybird. It’s truly difficult to pick out a climax in this 40 minute ensemble, but the Noob remix of Para One’s Kiwi is truly out of this world. Honorable mention also goes out to the Douster remix of a mystery Bobmo track, as well as the Harvard Bass remix of Felix Cartal. My God, if this is what the future holds, it is a very good time to be a fan of house music.
This Thursday, Toronto will welcome Annie Mac, the widely recognized host of a number of shows on BBC’s Radio 1. Her most notable show, Annie Mac’s Mash Up, “is renowned for playing an eclectic mix of new musical genres such as electro, dubstep, dnb, hip-hop, and disco.” In addition to her on-air accolades, Annie Mac has a reputation for throwing it down live. This will be crazy.
With simply too many top-notch productions to mention, it is sufficient to say that this Friday Toronto will host one of the world’s top electro-house acts, Laidback Luke. His resume speaks for itself, and regardless of the fact that he was in town less than a year ago, you’d be silly to sleep on this one.
The Opener: Zombie Disco Squad — Sat. @ The Drake Underground
The weekend’s super-sleeper involves the Dirty Bird, Made to Play, and Sound Pellegrino breakthrough DJ/producers, Zombie Disco Squad. These guys are popping up all over the place, and that is music to our ears, as there is no denying the quality of their productions and live sets. Take advantage of the rare opportunity to check these guys in North America.
The Opener: Tommie Sunshine & Felix Cartal — Sat. @ London Music Hall
If it’s a roadtrip that you fiend, then you might as well make the two hour trek down to London, Ontario and check out the London Music Festival’s tent party. It will be a star-studded affair with both Tommie Sunshine and Mr. Felix Cartal on the decks. Definitely worth a nauseating drive West on the 401 highway.
“The man the dubstep scene has come to know simply as Martyn has been a drum & bass DJ in his native Holland for more than a decade (he even recently collaborated with Mancunian D&B king Marcus Intalex). Deykers grew up in Eindhoven, but eventually settled in Rotterdam (his record label, 3024, is named after his old zip code there), and his fingerprints are all over the Red Zone D&B club nights that were held throughout the country.” (Thanks xlr8r.com) Be sure to check out the city’s solution for dubstep, Wrongbar Sunday.
The Headliner: Embrace Presents Time Festival, Sat. @ Sound Academy
Talk about an event that need no sales pitch at all — the 2009 Time Festival, hosted by Embrace, at the Sound Academy. The bill is absolutely packed with world-class electro personalities, you can peep the event poster above if you don’t believe us. A-Trak, Mehdi, Felix Cartal, Don Rimini etc. etc. will all be spinning non-stop exclusives, showcasing their undeniable skills. Anyone who is anyone in the Toronto electronic scene will be in attendance Saturday, and we highly recommend you do yourself a favour and attend. We will be there in full force, tearing up the d-floor and providing you with the track ID play-by-play, on our trusty Twitter account, which you can check out right HERE.
On any other weekend, a visit from the Italian-native Congorock would certainly be crowned the week’s glorified ‘Headliner’, but it just so happens that his appearance falls on the same weekend as TIME. Such is life. Regardless, The Social is the undisputed place to be on your Thursday night, and that has been verified by our good friend and Toronto promoter, Mr. Cody Lekush. We’ve kept a close eye on Congorock ever since his debut single “Runark”, we’ve watched him explode under the watchful eye of Bob Cornelius Rifo of the Bloody Beetroots, and we look forward to going buck with him on Thursday.
The weekend’s final warm up for the TIME festival will showcase international house/techno dee-jay, Steve Porter, alongside Toronto-native JELO. The New York-born Porter dropped the album ‘Homegrown’ in 2005, a release that propelled him onto the global stage and contributed to DJ Times anointing him as one of “America’s Best DJs”. Meanwhile, JELO has ripped local events for years, and blew up after his widely regarded collabo with Deadmau5 entitled “The Reward Is Cheese” — again, a very solid bill.
We can count ourselves lucky for two reasons. First, we are lucky because home-grown electronic talent from the Toronto area is expanding far beyond the shadow cast by MSTRKRFT, and these DJ/Producers are making their names heard through their quality work. Second, we are lucky because these up-and-coming producers are willing to show love to independent blogs from the GTA, so that their fans can truly embrace their music.
There is no better example of this than Toronto’s own Golden Gloves– the duo of Benny Bumpdatsh*t! and Cowiebunga. Though they come from diverse musical backgrounds, they have come together to create a dominant DJ/production team that has catapulted onto the electro scene.
It would seem that this duo have locked themselves in the studio as of late, and it has paid off large dividends. Here at ElectroTO, we’ve been blown away by GG’s collaboration with John Roman (posted a while back), as well as their remix of Major Lazer’s “Hold The Line” (which might be the best of the batch so far). So you can imagine how excited we were to find their newest production Pick Up The Slack in our drop box today.
The trackhas been described as having a “Dutch house” feel, and we can honestly say we’re feeling it 100%. Simply put, the track is massive. The catchy harmony, the bouncy bassline, and the well-timed drops have all the makings of a d-floor smasher.
Also, you can check out GG at the Time Festival in Toronto on July 25th alongside Canadian talents like A-Trak, Felix Cartal, Barletta etc. We will be in attendance– losing our minds, of course. If you want to join us, check out the line up and grab tickets HERE. Without further adieu, straight from Golden Gloves, here it is:
