Pacha Macau at Studio City Opens with Mega Party

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Is everybody ready for a little bit of Ibiza in China? Well, ready or not, it’s about to happen, when Pacha Macau at Studio City, which we told you about in December, opens its doors. On January 16, the club will host its Grand Opening Special Event, which entails a batch of top-shelf DJs from all over the world, headed by Erick Morillo, the Subliminal Records boss man who owns an armful of DJ Awards both for Best House DJ and Best International DJ. The club boasts a capacity of 3,000 people, and has cutting-edge audio and video setups, to provide the most complete multi-media party experience on the West coast.

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The venue’s 1,000 square foot dance floor, outdoor patio, and four private luxury VIP suites will undoubtedly all be hopping on the evening in question. But the prelude to that big blowout actually begins on the night before. On Friday January 15, Pacha Ibiza heavyweight Sebastian Gamboa will be on hand to bring the beats for the club’s “Welcome to Macau” introduction.

“Backed by the finest nightclub brand in the world and the best international acts, we envision Pacha Macau at Studio City, to be the most amazing nightlife entertainment experience Macau has to offer,” said Pacha NYC President & CEO and Pacha Macau Managing Director Eddie Dean.

Sounds like that vision is set to become a reality.

The Rebel Remixed: A Batch of the Best David Bowie Remixes

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via GIPHY

With the whole world mourning the passing of David Bowie, there are eulogies coming from every corner of the globe at a dizzying pace. In the information age, those tributes are conveyed and disseminated at lightning speed so that even after less than 24 hours of his absence, on one hand it’s hard to say anything that hasn’t already been said elsewhere. But on the other hand, there are as many perspectives on Bowie’s legacy as there are voices to tell his tale. Everybody knows Bowie as a stylistic chameleon, seamlessly shifting modes, moods, and personas from album to album, tour to tour. But part and parcel of that mercurial quality is his status as a visionary and a searcher, a man who was nothing if not an early adopter.

One of the many things Bowie got a jump on way ahead of the pack was electronic music. Not only did he make use of synthesizers early on, by the mid-to-late ’70s, on his legendary “Berlin trilogy” of Low, Heroes, and Lodger, with the aid of Brian Eno, he made use of electronics in a way that was as innovative as it was influential. Bowie’s two-way love affair with electronics never ended, and there’s an endless supply of remixes by prominent electronic artists out there to prove it. Here are just a few, comprising what we think of as the cream of the crop, offering one more way to remember an artist who was bigger than life and just as complex.

David Bowie – Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy for the DFA)

David Bowie & Philip Glass – “Heroes” (Aphex Twin remix)

“Hallo Spaceboy RMX” (Pet Shop Boys)

“Heart’s Filthy Lesson (Trent Reznor Remix)

“A Better Future” (Air remix)

“Sunday” (Moby remix)

“Telling Lies” (Adam F remix)

“I’m Afraid of Americans” (Photek remix)

“Let’s Dance” (Rabbit in the Moon remix)

“Blue Jean” (extended dance mix, Jellybean Benitez)

“Sound and Vision” (808 State remix)

Why the European Club Scene Is Burning

Rusko performs at Rain Nightclub in Las Vegas 8.4.12

Who might have guessed that the best place to turn for an informative article on the state of the nightlife scene in Europe would be The Economist? Yet that turns out to be exactly the case with an intriguing story that analyzes the reasons why European clubs seem to be in a downward spiral. The article offers up a lot of scary statistics that seem to prove things are on the decline among dance clubs, saying “Between 2001 and 2011 the number of discotheken in the Netherlands fell by 38%. In Britain there were 3,144 clubs in 2005 but only 1,733 ten years later,” and that’s just for starters

What’s it all about? Well the story brings up a few possibilities, including the decrease in use of intoxicating substances among young people (not exactly conducive to a healthy club scene, let’s face it), the ongoing issue of gentrification in cities that once sported club-friendly areas but are now full of noise-sensitive neighbors, and politicians cracking down on clubs by getting stricter about codes and getting pickier about who they issue licenses to.

Partly this is because most European cities are becoming nicer to live in. “Even in Berlin it is harder to find an unused space in the inner city,” sighs Sven von Thülen, a DJ who has compiled an oral history of clubbing. Clubs are being pushed farther out. Increasing rents are also a problem, says Lutz Leichsenring of the Club Commission, a German industry body, especially in places such as London where property values have soared.

Gentrification can muffle the high-decibel economy. “If there’s one complaint, then the whole circus starts,” says Eelko Anceaux of De Marktkantine, one of the handful of clubs that bucked the trend and opened in Amsterdam in 2014. It is possible to build good relations with neighbours, he says; his night club, like many new ones, doubles as a restaurant and hosts vintage markets, which makes it more acceptable to nearby yuppie families. Even so, middle-class residents’ complaints about noise and drunk or stoned revellers make the life of a club-owner far trickier.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. The article goes on to explain that some places have created a new “night mayor” position, designating nightlife industry advocates to help keep the club scene from falling apart. Anybody want a job?

Move Over Technics, Sony’s PS-HX500 Redefines the Turntable

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We’re only one week into 2016 and it’s already shaping up to be a pretty damn exciting year for turntable lovers. Just yesterday at CES 2016 in Las Vegas there was the big news that Panasonic is bringing back the beloved Technics 1200. And now, in case that wasn’t enough for you, Sony has announced the impending arrival of its new PS-HX500 turntable. The deal with this baby is that not only does it deliver high-quality audio in and of itself, it allows you to convert the analog signals of your records into hi-res digital files, offering audiophile-quality digital sound that captures the classic warmth and depth of vinyl.

So you may be wondering how this mystical feat is accomplished. Well, apparently, the signals can made into your choice of two different formats. You can save them as either 24-bit WAV files or else you can make use of some proprietary Sony technology to turn them into DSD files. The turntable comes with a free “hi-res audio recorder” app in order to facilitate the process. It’s too soon to tell what the price for this puppy will turn out to be, but an educated guess is that price won’t exactly be bargain-basement. In any case, we should find out soon, it’s said that the PS-HX500 should show up sometime this spring.