A10N Presents: Dense & Pika

Sunday, June 30, 2024
Doors 10PM

Advance Tickets on sale now.

In a studio behind an unremarkable roll-up door in rural England, two men are creating delirious mayhem for the world’s dancefloors. Since 2011, as Dense & Pika, these men – Alex Jones and Chris Spero – have garnered an enviable reputation for making devastating club ordnance that finds the sweet spot between dark, mysterious house and roaring, brawny techno. Not that Chris does anything more than balk when it comes to trying to “intellectualize” or post-rationalise the creative aspect of making their music, preferring to open it up to individual interpretation. “The whole point of writing music is it does the stuff that words can’t,” he says defiantly.

There’s no denying how adept they are at making music that talks to people. Together, they’ve released over 40 tracks – spread across more than a dozen EPs – and nearly as many remixes, and been associated with some of the biggest labels in dance music, like Hotflush, Drumcode and Hypercolour, the celebrated label that Alex runs. Meanwhile, the label they run together, Kneaded Pains (an anagram of their name), has had its biggest year to date. And they still travel the world together, DJing at the world’s best clubs and biggest festivals, keeping themselves sane during down times by reciting Alan Partridge sketches – the title of 2015’s ‘Lynn EP’ references the long-suffering PA of North Norfolk’s favorite son – and jawing about movies.

But the two friends of 16 years standing, and musical partners for the past nine, have never released an album. Until now. With guest appearances from Matthew Dear, Leftfield and Igor Cavalera, drummer with Brazilian metal deities, Sepultura, ‘Colour Burn’ was devised with Dense & Pika’s live show in mind, swooping and soaring like a set in microcosm. “There’s stripped-back tribal stuff,” Alex explains, “and it gets ravey in the middle, with more peaceful moments. It’s not ten club bangers.”

An album was far from their minds back in 2003 when Alex, then working as the creative director at a Soho design agency, would spend lunchtimes hanging out at Mad Records across the road. Chris was on the other side of the counter, serving. They quickly discovered a mutual background in the arts – after a foundation course, Alex won a prestigious D&AD design award for his work while Chris studied sculpture at Central St Martins – to go alongside the shared love of music.

Chris, an aficionado of the acid techno scene, was already making music under the name Glimpse, while Alex was steadily building a career as a breakbeat DJ that would culminate in a residency at Brighton’s legendary Big Beat Boutique. Soon, weekends were spent clubbing together, which eventually turned into weekends in the studio as Dense & Pika were born.


// Club Level //

Dense & Pika  (Drumcode | UK)
soundcloud.com/denseandpika
ra.co/dj/densepika

 

Eric Yaz (ArpTen)
soundcloud.com/ericyaz
ra.co/dj/ericyaz

Giovani (Trilogy | NYC)
soundcloud.com/giovani-trilogy
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