MOVE D
Rotary Club @ Kongs, Cardiff
Fri 29 Nov
Rotary Club started life in Cornwall before moving to the slightly more clubber-friendly climes of Cardiff, and are six years old this month. There are more venerable promoters, certainly, but a great many more who peace out long before this stage, and if your taste in dance music incorporates slo-mo disco, proper deep house and ‘nice little groover’-prizing cratedigger types, then they’ve consistently booked respected names: not instant sell-out types, more heads about which real heads know the deal.
Following an (eventual) sell-out night in Kongs in late September, co-run by Groove Theory and Blue Honey and featuring bearlike German DJ Prosumer and south Wales’ Earl Jeffers, November sees Rotary Club’s biggest standalone promotion to date, with another German house icon: Heidelberg’s David Moufang, best known as Move D. Moufang has played Cardiff before, Undertone specifically, but it was before Rotary Club started up, let alone moved here. He’s also a pretty much annual guest at Freerotation, by the Welsh border – heck, I’d wager he’ll recognise a few punters’ faces in the crowd for this one. RC are giving him a three-hour set here, which should in no way be profligate for a DJ who likes to spread beats out before him like an especially lavish picnic. You wouldn’t call his sets minimal(ist), really, but every pattern and element has an audible place, and can be drawn from a taste and collection developed over 30 years of playing vinyl.
Initially arriving at techno from a funk and hip-hop background as a DJ, and from a jazzier, more ambient direction as a producer, 2019 marks 25 years since the debut Move D release – he had a label before even that, Source, now dormant having issued a fine catalogue of off-the-dial electronic music. By all accounts Moufang is a lovely fella too, and vocal in his desire to have his audience at eye level when playing. Kongs’ back room, likewise Rotary Club, should see him right in that regard.
words NOEL GARDNER
Tickets: from £8. Info: 07807 970534 / www.rotaryclub.dance