I can honestly say it's been an incredible start to 2011 already, and we have barely scraped the surface yet. This is even more exciting, if slightly precarious as we have just stepped into typically the calendar year's first major month for parties. Last weekend closed February in style for myself over in London with four exceptional parties over the three days.

On Friday, we took a trip to the temporary Old Street warehouse space CitiPost where James Holden kept us captivated until 5am with his genre-spanning CDJ wizardry. It was an almost flawless night- I say almost because I lost my keys, but that trivial point aside, we enjoyed Holden's impeccable skills mixing experimental electronica, fizzing house mutations and delicate divergences into techno, all in the blissfully crude surroundings of a Shoreditch basement, on a fantastic soundsystem.

Saturday was never going to be for the feint-hearted. Bugged Out! returned to XOYO as we returned to Old Street, and Boys Noize was who we were there for. Despite minor publicity and no tickets available through RA, the night sold out weeks in advance, something I fully expected. Chris couldn't make it unfortunately, having felt his wallet a little lighter than desired after an impromptu trip up north to Sankeys, a night I'm sure he'll share all the enviable details after he's recovered from mumps, which he believes he caught while up there. Without counting, it must have been about the sixth or seventh time I've seen Alex now. Disregarding the very first time, when we witnessed arguably my most memorable night to date at Bristol's legendary 300 capacity boat, The Thekla, I've only ever seen him at huge-scale events, like several times at The Coronet or at EXIT. By large, this is because the nature of Boys Noize's music and the size of his fanbase makes only very large venues appropriate for his visit, but XOYO is certainly no converted theatre or 17th century Serbain fortress. I would estimate its capacity to be little more than 500, which is a fraction of many of the crowds Ridha is used to entertaining, but this made the prospect naturally far more exciting, and consequently very, very violent. During a typically explosive two-hour set of classic BN techno/electro/acid (all the fav's such as the opener, Jeffer, Yeah, Lemonade, My Moon My Man and surprisingly his magnificent summer mix of Chemical Bro's Swoon), the dangerously overcrowded basement main room rocked back and forward in waves of techno-induced chaos, leading to some very angry bouncers, plenty of raver-on-raver and raver-bouncer conflict, gallons of sweat and me unsurprisingly losing my wallet in the bedlam.

As thrilling and typically awesome it was, I left XOYO as we made our way to fabric for part 2 of the night rather dejected. I somehow had the mental collection and wisdom to call my bank and cancel all my cards, which turned out to be a somewhat premature move as miraculously moments later XOYO called me to say they had found my wallet. After marching back to get it, we waltzed past the farcically long queue that snaked round the corner of Charterhouse Street with my retrieved fabricfirst card and headed down that famously treacherous stairwell to another uncomfortably packed main room, this time where Marco Carola was about to start is 5-10am set. As if fabric isn't normally filled out with enough annoying ketted-up Italians, Carola's Play It Loud album launch was always going to attract plenty more of his compatriots, as well as what seemed like the rest of London. As we squeezed ourselves onto the floor of Room One and shuffled a little to the monstrous basslines Carola's album promised from this set, we could barely breathe. After checking out Robert Hood over in Room Two and Terry Francis upstairs, we decided to call it a night at the young time of about 7am, as virtually no essential dancing space was vacated and we didn't feel in the mood to be sardines for much longer.

After only a few hours 'sleep', it was time to begin London's Sunday fun and games. Kroenenbourg and Tequila straight off wasn't the classic lazy Sunday brunch with the broadsheets that is often traditional, but is shamefully necessarily when the party begins at 5pm and you get up at 3. The Half Baked crew returned to the East End after a few months out, this time bringing Dan Ghenacia with them for another dark and sweaty close to the weekend for the many still desperately clinging on to it. The party delivered, but Ghenacia was far from his best and several times we were plunged into darkness and silence as power cuts interrupted proceedings. As the clock hit midnight and it was time to leave, a few of us still had a little energy left and jumped in a cab to, of course, fabric, WYS! style. Despite my initial reluctance to go, the few hours we stayed were great fun. Sascha Funke was the main guest, the portion of his set we caught sometime after 3am was deeply satisfying squelchy, acid-tinged minimal. We finally resigned ourselves to the week ahead tired, but gratified by one of the busiest, most eventful weekends in a long time, but it's only gonna get better. Now it's March...

The video featured above is one I deeply cherish. It was the first time I ever witnessed Ricardo Villalobos in all his glory and will be a night I will never forget. If I had to pick one moment from the 12 hour night that stood out most it would be the one I captured above, where in a moment of dream-like idealism, the master slowly mixed out Laurent Garnier's legendary Acid Eiffel and in comes my greatest track of all time, the Chilean's own Dexter. I'll let the video do the rest of the talking, but I decided now was the perfect time to share this as at almost the exact same time as last year, Ricardo is back at fabric on the 12th, as the previous FABRIC WATCH post elaborates on. But that's just the tip of the iceberg:

London is spoiled for choice this weekend with a handful of huge parties taking place all over the city. The unmissable events happening down at fabric this month are discussed in the last FABRIC WATCH post, but away from EC1, Carl Craig, Radio Slave and Paul Woolford headline the massive 20 Year Anniversary bash for Planet E at Ewer Street car park in South London this Saturday with tickets still available. Elsewhere, Move D, Ewan Pearson and Will Soul take over Corsica Studios with Trouble Vision and even Ministry of Sound has grabbed my attention for once, booking two of my favourites, Joris Voorn and Butch. To not be attending any of that would require only the most credible reason, but I feel I've got one- I've chosen Superfreq's 5th Anniversary party 31 floors above Oxford Street at Center Point where Steve Bug headlines the private members bar. Ok, a little more swanky than usual but the prospect of seeing the sunrise over London as we rave to Bug was something I couldn't say no to.

The prognosis for the rest of the month is, dare I say it, epic. Kubicle with Lee Foss et al will be this Sunday's little treat, while next weekend offers possible the weekend of the year. If I was feeling inexcusably crazy then I would check out Claude VonStroke's London visit next Thursday, but I'm seeing him the following night in Bristol at The Blue Mountain, where he's joined by Seth Troxler. Not a bad line-up, usually one to settle a weekend's raving, but back to London the following day, taking Chris and several other Bristolians with me for Mr. Villalobos's well documented visit. To be honest, I've not stopped thinking about that weekend since it was finalized, but can you blame me? The physical and financial restraints of it will be a challenge I'm aware, but if that's my last 'big' weekend of the year, then I'm satisfied. Art Department and Tim Green are in town the next week at a venue yet to be confirmed, but for now March has promised me more than enough.

Check out Resident Advisor for all region's events this month- there are too many for me to pick out but I can assure you there will be plenty of choice, wherever you are. I also plan on posting two features soon of pure music- I'm aware that reading my essays might be a little turgid at times. First, I will post all the tracks I've been listening to religiously over the last few weeks, and there are plenty of sensations I can assure you, and secondly a little feature I'm conjuring up in dedication to an artist we love very much, and the best of his work. Keep an eye out...