Former Air staff to open new club in Tokyo called Contact
Laurent Garnier, DJ Nobu and Abdulla Rashim have all been lined up to play
The team behind Tokyo’s much-loved Air nightspot, which closed in January, is set to open a new club, Contact, in the Japanese capital on April 1.
Line-ups for April and May have been unveiled, with Function, Artefakt, Francois K and DJ Nori appearing across the opening nights on April 1 and 2.
Richard Devine, Louie Vega and DJ Nori play the following weekend, while artist details of the Dekmantel parties on April 15 and 16 are currently unannounced.
Elsewhere in April there’s a Giegling showcase and performances from Laurent Garnier, John Osborn and more.
May sees Mister Saturday Night, nd_baumecker, Efdemin, Karizma, Derrick Carter, Erika, Fumiya Tanaka, DJ Nobu and Willie Burns all come to town, with the month closed out by a Northern Electronics showcase on May 28 featuring Abdulla Rashim and Acronym.
Derrick May, a frequent guest at Air, coined the name of the new space, a two-roomed basement club, and it'll have a no-photography policy for clubbers, with the club’s director Yuko Ichikawa explaining to RA: "We’d like to create a space where everyone can easily come and enjoy the music without any concerns. A place where you forget that you even have a mobile phone to 'take pictures.'
“There will be a policy for no cameras/video recordings/etc., but we will hire professional photographers. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind the photographers forgetting to take pictures because they get sucked into the music and the environment.
Ichikawa also stated Contact's desire to be a place where lesser-known DJs can carve a reputation for themselves, although there are no resident DJs for the time being.
Head to Contact’s website for further details.
Patrick Hinton is Mixmag’s Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter here