It’s hard to beat Datcha on a Friday night. With Forrest on the decks, it was little surprise that the line to get in wrapped around the building. Forrest is a versatile DJ. He knows that his audiences will expect to hear some well known dance tracks, but he is also willing to play tracks that might be less familiar for most. When I arrived, for instance, he was playing the now super popular Fred Again..’s “Delilah (pull me out of this).”

Not long thereafter, he mixed in a remix of of Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” for a short duration, then played a track I was really impressed with, Mount Liberation Unlimited’s “Madame of the Magic Mushroom."

The track begins with an ascending arpeggio with a round sound profile (think sin waves) with some delay. A filtered kick begins the track and a live (or at least, it feels live) drummer plays an acoustic snare. The drummer starts off-beat, then builds into a snare fill which drops to the main beat at 1:02. At this point, we now have a more full acoustic drum set (snare with open-hat, which sounds sequenced and not performed lived) with the kick and the ascending arpeggio pattern. At 2:05 two new sounds enter, a faint didgeridoo in the background and a (likely) synthesized plucky sound that sounds like it went through Ableton’s Corpus device. These two sounds last for about a minute until a new belchy, almost acid sound is introduced in place of the plucky sound around the 3 minute mark. Put simply, this track is wild. I love it. Forrest’s choice to play this track at Datcha (around 12:30am) is, I think, one of the reasons he draws such a crowd.

In addition to playing well known and more adventurous tracks, Forrest was sure to play some of his own creations, like “Take Away,” which he co-produced with Giuseppe Lanni. As is typical of Forrest’s performance, he stood on the DJ decks and took up the microphone to sing the vocals live.

“Take Away” has an addictive but simple chord progression that is expressed with a nice, round sounding, descending arpeggio pattern. The backbeat (clap mixed with a woody clave sound) in this track is very tasteful, as is the hi-hat sequencing, especially the open hi-hat.

Another track that stood out in the evening was Davis & May’s “Penelopeia Playground.” The track starts with a kick and an active tom (or perhaps another kick). When the hi-hat pattern enters (around :34 seconds in), the track stabilizes and we begin to hear a sustained low-passed note. Thereafter, Davis & May introduce a noise sprite that appears in an interesting rhythm. The backbeat claps (a clave, stick sound) that enter not long after and the bass begins to move causing harmonic changes. Its nice how the artists coordinated adding new drum layers with harmonic movement.

Smak Yo’ by Beltran hit hard in Datcha. This track is quite simple harmonically and melodically, but the the 2-m. FM-pluck, mid-bass loop is really effective in creating a strong groove. The sub bass is also well mixed and adds to the impact of the overall track. Finally, the short vocal samples on the top add some additional interest and the hypermetric double claps (don’t know what Hypermeter is?) help turn arounds every 4 measures.

Overall, Forrest was careful to read his crowd. If a track wasn’t driving the dance floor, he let it play out to bring a brief rest, but was quick to move onto the next track. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Forrest wasn’t afraid to mix in popular tracks, like Enur’s “Calabria 2008.”

From Mount Liberation Unlimited to Enur, we all traversed an enormous musical distance.

See you at the next event!