On Friday, December 21st, I made my return to UNIUN Nightclub to see producers Overwerk and Cazzette. I had no complaints my first time at this club (for Fedde Le Grand) but I had heard many horror stories from various sources about the guest list line being so long that some people don’t get even get in the door. Considering it was the one of the windiest and coldest days of the year, my friend and I decided to go very early and avoid waiting in line at all costs.
The doors opened at 10pm where award winning local resident DJ’s Manzone and Strong kicked the night off. I arrived at Uniun at approximately 10:45, the earliest I had ever been to see an EDM show. Both the regular and guest list lines were almost empty as I waited less than three minutes to enter the building where I was greeted by the heart thumping bass and crystal clear audio precision of Uniun’s extraordinary sound system.
My friend and I were one of the first 100 people in the club. Seeing the dance floor completely bare was a weird sight to say the least, especially when you are used to over-capacity crowds for all mainstream EDM producers. Uniun started to fill up around midnight just as London, Ontario’s own Overwerk was about to hit the stage. I will admit I had not heard much of him prior to this date but he had a big following in the crowd that night. His fans started chanting “Overwerk! Overwerk!” as Manzone & Strong were leaving the stage and they saw their man prepping for his performance. He played most of the tracks from his debut EP The Nth Degree and had some great remixes, my favourite being Werk Me, originally produced by Hyper Crush. There were many track ID’s I did not recognize but I still had tremendous amounts of fun dancing to his music and the crowd was terrific. Overwerk is someone I will be keeping my eye on in the future.
At around 1:30 am I saw two oversized, lit-up, cassette masks slowly emerge from underneath the DJ booth and I was not the only one to notice as the crowd started getting louder and louder. Finally once the Swedish duo stood tall with their trademark masks, they kicked off their set with Antidote from Swedish House Mafia, a great opening song to energize the audience. I was in the very front row touching the stage and when I peeked over my shoulder, I was amazed at how many people had turned up, the place was bare no more, in fact it was absolutely rammed.
Sebastian Furrer and Alexander Bjorklund, who call themselves Cazzette, stuck to their electro dub-house, hard-hitting, bass-banging style, which their fans are accustomed to but it was easy to see they are evolving and getting much better with experience. They added a different sound to their set compared to when I saw them at Veld Music Festival in August. In the Bacardi Tent at Veld their sound consisted of their popular dub-house remixes of hip-hop and pop genre songs mixed in with mostly work of other producers due to their scarce selection of original productions. With the release of their EPs Eject Parts 1 and 2, they were able to construct a much more complete set, something they can call their own. The largely successful releases of Beam Me Up and Weapon have really helped launch Cazzette into the spotlight as seen at Uniun when the crowd went ballistic to each song.
Cazzette also played Cream, Surrender and Run For Cover from their Eject EPs, giving them a slower more melodic style yet allowing them to still keep hard electro elements in their set. This more mature sound allowed the duo to incorporate songs in their sets like Kaskade’s Room For Happiness – something you wouldn’t have seen from them in August. They shied away from playing too many of their remixes, the only one I can recall is the Kanye West and Jay-Z In Paris remix which was obviously a fan favourite.
Some other songs played were original Cazzette productions Hit Da Face and The Rat. My favourite songs that were included from other artists were Alesso’s remix of Pressure as well as his number one Beatport single Clash. Sebastian and Alexander also played a little Skrillex with Breakin’ A Sweat and one of my personal favourite’s Who by Plastik Funk and Tujamo. They closed with an encore of RL Grime and Salva’s dirty trap remix of Mercy by Kanye West which had everybody off their feet!
Overall I was happy to see Cazzette progress with their music because no artist should be content with staying at the current level at which they reside. Everyone, not just musicians, should always strive to learn more and evolve. These Swedes were really impressive and I had another amazing night at Uniun Nightclub, my new Friday home.
Overwerk Links
Cazzette Links
Jesse Maida – EDM TOR
