ELITE FORCE COMES AS ONE
Tech-funker launches series of solo parties
Fed-up with being shoe-horned onto line-ups where he travels for miles and then only gets to play for an hour or two, tech-funk warrior Elite Force, aka Simon Shackleton, has come up with a new concept for his 2013 shows. “The One Series has a simple underlying concept to it,” he tells DJ Mag. “One DJ. One Room. All Night Long.”
“It's something that's evolved out of a general dissatisfaction with the stack-em-high culture of McMusic as seen in EDM 2012,” he continues. “There are some amazing developments in event production going on, but in the constant pursuit for spectacle, it's felt to me that more and more we are losing sight of the fundamental 'connection' between mind and music.
Events increasingly boast 100s of DJs with shorter and shorter sets, which has been great for World Domination as far as electronic music goes, but terrible for that 'immersive' experience that you only get when there's continuity to the flow of the evening.”
Simon, who was once in a band with Thom Yorke of Radiohead, cites his attendance at the crazy Burning Man festival in the US for the past few years as pivotal to his wish to formulate the One Series. “I've found going to Burning Man that the truly memorable experiences have been the ones where you have completely surrendered yourself to a musical mind for as long as they play for,” he says. “You only have to look as far as Lee Burridge's sets on The Robot Heart to find an experience MUCH greater than the sum of its parts.”
Also known as Shack, the DJ tells DJ Mag that longer sets are the most rewarding for him, where “I can properly explore a range of sounds and styles”.
Of course, the one DJ playing all night long concept isn't new in itself — Laurent Garnier, Layo & Bushwacka and Danny Tenaglia, for instance, have worked the floor all night on numerous occasions — but what Simon is doing is trying to create parties in unusual locations.
“We're really looking to take music out of the clubs and into something extraordinary, hence the forthcoming weekender, but that being said it isn't always viable, so the next best option is to take an interesting space on and do something remarkable with it,” he tells us.
The first One Series was in San Francisco at the end of last year, and plans are afoot for unusual parties in Budapest, Perth, Hong Kong and London. “If you have an idea of an unusual space to use, hit me up!” says Shack
