Review: Kyo 4th Anniversary ft. Octave One (live)

18/3/2017

Despite numerous acts flying to Australia recently for festivals like Day Like This in Sydney, Singapore has largely been overlooked as a stop. Answer Code Request was one of the few who stopped here en route to the festival. Now, we are thanking our lucky stars again as Octave One make their way to Singapore after playing the festivals in Australia. The Burden Brothers are veterans, if not legends, in the house and techno scene, having been around since the 1980s. Given that their last outing here was back in 2010, it was clear that this outing would be one for the memory and it would be another long wait to see them back here.

Last night, kyo also celebrated its 4th anniversary and it was fitting that Godwin P, the founder of the club, delivered the opening set. Meandering through tech house and deep house, his set eventually steered towards techno as the set time for Octave One approached. There was an early play of Oxia’s Domino at 1230am, which nonetheless went down well with the partygoers who were mostly in a boisterous mood.

The scene was set for Octave One to deliver their trademark energetic head-banging set. They brought along their Mothership (a reference to their live set-up), which occupied almost half the booth’s length and would have left the hardware heads salivating. Playing mostly new material for the first hour, Octave One’s live set was perfectly delivered and their energy infected the crowd. They have also stayed true to their sound over the years, perhaps best described as early techno when the genre was still branching off from house music. It was difficult to tell the new tracks apart from the older stuff if one was not familiar with their discography.

Towards the last half hour, Octave One delivered the moment that everyone was waiting for as the familiar orchestral strings of Black Water wafted out from the sound system. It was a goosebump-inducing moment hearing Octave One’s live rendition of the track. From then on, Octave One stepped on the throttle, playing out hits like Afterglow and The Forgotten before closing with Jazzo. All good things come to an end and we had to alight from the Mothership. But what a ride it was with Octave One.