It may have come up in a story or two throughout the last year. Most of those instances were in reference to C2C, four French DJs who come together into a turntable orchestra.

They started off competing at DMC, won four times and moved on to making their on music as two separate groups, Hocus Pocus and Beat Torrent. Just last year they released a collective EP, Down The Road, followed by a full album, Tetra, this year. This is kind of a big deal and it calls for a tour.

A fairly small group of people gathered this passed Monday at the MOD Club to see C2C. I’m not sure what it is about French DJs not gaining the popularity that they deserve in English-speaking Canada (the Montreal show was sold out) but one would hope that with artists like Daft Punk and SebastiAn coming out from that corner of the world, Toronto would be more open to new sounds.

New, old, remixed, replayed, scratched, battled. This show was all kinds of fun. The set up alone was visual eye candy. Digital stage with synced animations, shifting turntables and a quite sophisticated light system made what could have been four dudes scratching records into a grown-up show. Their competitive battle roots are very obvious during a live performance.

Granted the battle part of the show was a staged and rehearsed performance, it is still the closest one could get to a DJ battle these days without road tripping to DMC. The jazzy swing tracks (“Down the Road” and “Happy”) got the entire room dancing while “Who Are You,” as initiated by the crew, got everyone’s arms up in the air for a solid three minutes. Tilt to the left, tilt to the right, “Who Are You“. Release. Inhale. And Dance.

Hats off everyone. This really was a fantastic show.

The post Border breakers. C2C live at the MOD Club appeared first on Quip Magazine.

All you have to do to win one of the two pairs of tickets for this super awesome NYC show is to tell us why you want to go on Twitter or by commenting on this post if Twitter is not your thing.

Hard details: to enter the contest tweet us why you want to go, follow us on Twitter and mention “@IrvingPlaza @QuipMag #C2CNYC” in your Tweet; if you are not on Twitter you can enter by commenting on this contest post, make sure to use your valid email address.

Contest is running starting Monday, March 25 at 10am and ending on Thursday, March 28 2013 at 10pm Eastern Time.

Winners will need to be able to show photo ID at will call to pick up their tickets. One entry per person.

The contest is open all residents of the United States, please read full Rules and Regulations.

Show details:
Irving Plaza powered by Klipsch,
17 Irving Place,  New York,  NY  10003
Thursday, Apr 4, 2013 08:00 PM
To just get tickets now, go to Live Nation

The post Contest: See C2C live in concert in Irving Plaza, New York appeared first on Quip Magazine.

The first track leads in with a heavy bass line accompanied by some synth pop, which comes across more as an electro-pop sequence than a DMC camp album. In saying that, ‘Because of You’ is the most commercial track on the EP, with polished lyrics and shiny production giving it an anthemic sound, but the EP evens things out by introducing their track “The Beat,” which brings back some of their most classic turntablist routes.

All in all, this album takes you on a journey that travels back to the classics. It reminds me of the early Kid Koala but drops in some heavily polished lyrics, pushing the sound closer to that of a club anthem than would be expected from a French hip hop turntablist group. It is still, definitely, worth a listen.

Purchase the album on iTunes

The post Tapping into complex beats on C2C’s latest record “Tetra” appeared first on Quip Magazine.