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12-29-09

2009 end of the decade.

It’s been a weighty year for Contort Yourself. We’ve all drank too much beer, been pulled off the speakers by Paul for dancing too enthusiastically and ended up in a sorry mess in Kan Zaman, babbling pure bullshit whilst half eating/half spilling a Chicken Kebab. 2009 has seen some very important faces passing through the rave cave (aka The Roadhouse) namely Jack Beats, DJ Zinc, AC Slater, Riva Starr, Noob, Goldielocks, In Flagranti, Toddla T, Jackmaster, Hot City, Drums of Death…and definitely not forgetting an early appearance from La Roux, who were at the time teetering on the edge of massive mainstream success.

Outside of their regular fortnightly dance party, Contort Yourself were once gain invited to curate their own nights at longstanding annual Mancunian events Eurocultured and Manchester International Festival which resulted in bookings for Finnish bass-don Rico Tubbs, Top Billin’, Bicep and Gigi Barocco who pulled out all the stops and turned up a ridiculously energetic set dressed as… a frog.

The year also saw the return of the meticulously painted Drums of Death and Trouble & Bass’ AC Slater, who all made like ‘Oliver’ and came back for some more. Big up to Blackout Crew’s stunt doubles who came down to the AC show and graced the club with a front-row all-out sweaty topless dance to ‘Show Me Love’. Guys, everybody fancied you and wanted to have your babies that night.

Contort ain’t one to abandon the true souls left in Manchester over the summer, so a nice plan was hatched to carry out five part ‘versus’ series in which Sex With Robots, Now Wave, Micron, Naive Melody and Murkage came forth to bring their punters together and musical nouse to throw a doubleplusgood, no limits, head-to-head summer rave-up spectacular. Guests included Scottish electro wizard Hostage, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Turbo boy Noob, Rory Phillips and drum and bass turned house impresario DJ Zinc.

On a sad note, this year saw the departure Ric Davies, a core member of Team CoYo. He was a true Manchester clubnight professional and the bulging brain behind the clubnight of bygone days, Invest in Property. If you were in Manchester between 2005/6 you probably experienced the Invest glory days. If not, then oh dear, you missed some stuff. It was Contort Yourself’s big sister, and handing down the knowledge and experience for when the day came that she couldn’t rave it up anymore. We miss you Ric. Never in my days have I met anyone who can network as powerfully as you do!

To mark Ric’s departure, draw close on the summer and set September off with a bang, the Resident DJ team was expanded, and comprised of Will Tramp!, The Oldboy, Team Yeah and Natalie Esquire. A selected resident (or two or three) now support the headliner and bring that extra bit of madness to the dance.

Towards the end of the year, the rave cave opened its doors to Jackmaster and Hot City and although these weren’t the busiest nights of the year they still smashed it HARD, especially Dress 2 Sweat/Numbers head honcho Jackmaster who played a flurry of hip-hop, grime and funky hits whilst Murkage Dave took to microphone duties and a bunch of 6 foot models paraded around the stage. Look back on the photographs from that night (courtesy of Tomas Jones) and yeah, it looks like a truly indulgent booty shakin’ skank out.

Now there’s only one Contort Yourself left for 2009. But it’s a special occasion as we’re seeing in the New Year for the first time at The Roadhouse! So come join us for the usual dancing, drinking and debauchery all the way through ‘til 4am. See you there.

Oh and if you thought 2009 was a lot then just you wait for 2010. The line-ups are STUUUUPID. We leave you with a collection of our favourite tracks, honourable mentions of 2009 plus a few things to keep you’re eyes on for 2010.

2009 HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Sound Peligrino being born and consistently smashing it.
Crowhead Circa ‘92 Breakcore mixtape vol.2
Fever Ray’s LP
Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
Wet Look Leggings
Barack Obama
The #WhyDavidGuettaIsShit Topic on twitter
Collaborations, of all our favourite was “Mums of Death” (Mumdance and Drums of Death)
People not playing as much incredibly noisy music
The ace and weird film ‘Let The Right One In’
The end of Technics 1210’s production due to globally poor sales. (had a great run to be fair)

HUMANMAN’S MOST INFECTIOUS SOUNDS:
Siriusmo – High Together
Florence And The Machine – You Got The Love (The XX Rework)
Erol Alkan & Boys Noize – Waves
Renaissance Man – Spraycan
D.I.M. & TAI – Lyposuct (NOOB remix)
SIS – Trompeta
Azari & III – Reckless With Your Love
Gucci Vump – Sha! Shtil! (L-Vis 1990 Remix)
Tony Lionni – Found A Place
Spencer & Hill – Cool (AfroJack Remix)

TEAM YEAH’S DANCE FLOOR DOMINATORS:
Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo
Miike Snow – Balck & Blue (Tiga Remix)
Spencer & Hill – Cool (AfroJack Remix)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll (A-Track Remix)
Idiotproof- The Deacon (Duke Dumont ‘live from Brooklyn’ mix)
The Faint- Mirror Error (Das Glow remix)
Mr Oizo- Erreujean (Arveen & Misk mix)
The Gossip- Love Long Distance (Riva Starr remix)
Fake Blood- I Think I Like It
Boys Noize- Starter

NATALIE ESQUIRE’S TOO HYPE TO WHYPE:
Tempa T – Next Hype
Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo
Cooly G – Love Dub (Refix)
Hostage – Valhalla
Boltan – 9-5 (DZ Remix)
Zed Bias – Neighbourhood 09
Sukh Knight – Knightlife
Busy Signal – Da Style (Douster Dagga Remix)
MJ Cole feat. Serocee – AO
Major Lazer – Pon De Floor (Diplo Rap Remix feat. Ninjasonik)

WILL TRAMP’S TOP LISTENERS:
House Of House- Rushing To Paradise (Walking These Streets)
Golf Channel Recordings Pres. ‘Try To Find Me Vol. 2′
Body Language Vol. 8 Mixed By Modeselektor
Lindstrøm & Christabelle- Real Life Is No Cool LP
The XX- XX
James Curd- We Just Won’t Stop
Grace Jones- Williams Blood (Aeroplane Remix)
LCD Soundsystem 45:33 Remixed
Floating Points- K&G Beat
Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix LP

THE OLDBOY’S GOT TO BE DIFFERENT BY PICKING 12 TOP 10:
Crystal Fighters – Xtatic Truth / I Love London
Major Lazer – Pon De Floor
Popof – Serenity (Noob Remix)
L-Vis 1990 – United Groove
Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo
Tempa T – Next Hype
Florence & The Machine – You Got The Love (XX Rework)
Mumdance for working with Jammer and Brodinski and his November BBC 1XTRA mix.
Retro / Grade – Moda / Zoid
In Flagranti – Brash & Vulgar LP
Visti & Meyland – Yes Maam (All Night Long) (Original & Trentemoller Remix)
The Toxic Avenger – The Fall (Switch Remix)

GEZ MAGUS’ MASSIVE TRAX:
Riverside – Sidney Samson
Bye Bye Bayou -LCD Soundsystem
Hold The Line – Major Lazer
Poison Lips – Vitalic
Lies – Fenech Soler
I Don’t Want To Lose You – Peaches
Go Surfing – The Drums
Misdemeanor – The CB’s
Play the Record Again – AC Slater
Dancing In The Dark – Proxy

KEEP WATCH FOR:
Hot City… big things!
Anzari & III
Egyptrixx
Thom Yorke’s full band touring
Shoe throwing
Daft Punk @ The MEN Arena Sept 2010
Chaps, the next logical step from Jeggings
David Simons new show called Treme.
Tron 2 (Scored By Daft Punk)
LCD Soundsystems new LP
Big Brother Fucking Off (finally)
Floating Points (Amazing producer)