Red Bull Music Academy Presents: Kerri "Kaoz" Chandler

After treating dance aficionados and devotees of deep house music to a rare and insightful talk about his musical career to date at the Harlem Café, Belfast earlier in the day (alongside visiting hip hop producer Just Blaze) New Jersey legend Kerri Chandler strides onto the stage in the heaving Stiff Kitten around midnight for a DJ set that leaves no-one in doubt of his status as one of the major players on the global club scene. With the crowd nicely warmed up by both Danny Simpson and Chris McCormick, the American innovator effortlessly conducts his audience with his symphony of cyber sounds backed by suitably spacey visuals, as the beatsmith brings the noise like only he can for the next few hours.
Chandler soundtracks the ebb and flow of the evening perfectly and holds the assembled clubbers in the palm of his hand. His rich, bass-heavy jams incorporate everything from soul, funk, techno, jazz, trance, pop and more to create a vivid, arresting and unrelenting soundscape and his set tips its metaphorical hat to the last 20 years or so of house music, while also adding in some new and fresh ideas to ensure the decades to come are just as bright.
Armed with a handmade mini-mixer, some state-of-the art equipment and a seemingly unquenchable thirst for creating new ideas, Kerri kicks out his own classic jams as well as tracks from his contemporaries, keeping the hordes hopping to the wee hours of the morning and we even get a brief impromptu cameo from Just Blaze too. Result. Something of an acolyte to the classic 4/4 beat, it’s almost impossible not to be charmed by his addictive and iconic music and based on tonight’s performance, Chandler has certainly made a lot more friends in Belfast. I’ll get my coat...