Hed Kandi has crashed through the raised roofs of Es Paradis with a dynamo dose of glitter in a pairing creating a utopian dreamscape of grandiose. This beloved residency raises the double G packing of glitz and glamour in a visually dazzling venue which boasts sprawling white floored layers, speckled with lush green vines where the clubbers drench themselves in musical greatness within scaling Grecian columns. It’s a divine match and for the closing you knew it would be saying goodbye to yet another season on a grand scale.
If you needed a fresh coating of the body painted glitter stuff after a date with the Zoo Project closing then this then was your baby. Nothing like setting off your attire with a slashing of the ingredient which dishes the extra glam, right? And the track selectors ordering the glitter into motion was DJ Eibhlin, Nathan Cozzetto, Ben Santiago, Rocky and of course, The Lovely Laura.
When I got in amongst it, it was a case of old school meets new school with a melodically tuned remix of Black Box’s Ride on Time. “Gonna get up,” indeed and the old school didn’t end in this stormer, as the large screen on the staircase in gave a televised showcase of Es Paradis mid water party from what must have been late nineties early noughties. If you could drag yourself away from relishing in the past, a heavily packed crowd beckoned from all heavenly corners.
Hed Kandi delights in packing the music with lustrous soul which comes best with a powerhouse of emotive vocals. These escaped from each track played back-to-back, from Brand New Heavies love-crazy thumper I Don’t Know Why (Seamus Haji & Paul Emanuel Remix) to Michael Calfan’s much played Treasured Soul which is built with piano leads, manipulated vocal works and uplifting African chants. Hed Kandi lays on the kind of music that is all about the uplifting qualities that dance music brings in giant bursts. With the mammoth builds and the “OH” screaming vocal sample of Mark Knight’s summer release, Second Story, it became another catalyst to the sonic scheme of scream.
While the machine-made progressors are what keep the pulses racing, the hearts pumping, and the goosebumps rising, you can’t beat the magic of a classic instrument. I constantly punch myself in the face at giving up the keys of the piano. What a total eejit. “Don’t give it up,” were the pleads and I beasted on like a know it all 14-year-old who thought piano playing could be picked up as easily as the old riding a bike cliché. And last time I sat on a bike stool it was embarrassing. Anyhoo it’s not about my lost talents, it’s about the ever present talents of The Lovely Laura whose gifted abilities on the sax come with a parental advisory sticker of dumbstruck captivation. She is good, so very good. You want to stand back and admire her on the woodwind tool and yet you know she’d just as easily crack on with you in a miniature saxophone tutorial like your best pal. Sheer brilliance.
Thank you Hed Kandi for giving us the unbeatable classics and the freshness of the new.
WORDS | Aimee Lawrence PHOTOGRAPHY | Es Paradis
