Roll up dem sleeves - Tuesday is a call to battle stations. Understandably, as the Norse god of war Tyr lens his name - seems like even back in the day, beserker warriors and pirates didn't like Mondays, choosing instead to sharpen their blades and prepare for the next days hustle. And when it comes to battles here, you can find them everywhere - from toasting and sound clashes, to record company pressure and struggles for artistic integrity and analogue fidelity.






First up, we cram in the lecture hall to hear the man like Superpitcher, giving a session that places the roots of stripped down Kompakt dancefloors as far away as Jamaica (with a version of Horace Andy's Man Next Door), T Rex, and a whole manner of magical, fairytale soundscapes. From childlike glockenspiels to pounding kicks and fuzzy basslines, when the supahpitcher pipes, feet follow. Rocking some killer Adam And The Ants style waistcoat and white harlequin shoes, Mr Pitcher rounded off the session with Sebastien Tellier's anthemic La Ritournelle.

 





After a quick lunch, The Dragon flew in to break down how to make extremely dope albums sound amazing. Best known for getting serious accolades for recording and mixing D'Angelo's Voodoo album, analogue warrior Russ Elevado gave tips on how to stack vocal arrangements, why it's important to spend time on an artist's signature track, and how to mix so that the bass is practically spillin' out the speakers.

The evening split into a few different directions, with most attention on a session in the live studio with Waajeed, Theo, Ron Trent and Steve Spacek jamming around some seriously out tunes, while Mark P worked alongside vocally-minded participants Niamh and Jennifer.

In the evening The Social turned into a costume fantasy, with even a salt and pepper couple gracing the club, while participants Alan 1 and Toma Ivanov battled with the residents for who could rock the party most fierce. Followers of the Cologne piper found themselves at a club called Loki, a warm wood-floored night run by Rene Blackmarket. After Aksel aka Superpitcher dropped some Mathew Dear mixes and his own glock-steady, he steered off the minimal track, while Rebeca Lechic from Spain danced admirably with a broken toe, and crew member Yannick tickled people with peacock feathers. As we headed back to the Academy to pick stuff up, the studios were still buzzing with frenetic energy, as an excited Ron Trent left to get some sleep before his lecture the following day, and Mark '8am' Pritchard waged a war against the cousin of death.