Ever since our Easter break had finished, the terrible summer exam period of library-confinement and general disappearance of a social life had once again returned. Just as the clouds cleared and sun began shining, I resigned myself to about a month or so devoid of any kind of fun as I was personally faced with two critical exams to conclude what has been a fairly erratic first year university experience. For this period, King's College took a leaf out of our beloved fabric's book for longevity, keeping its library doors open 24 hours. This, however, is where the similarities end as sweaty, ketamine-hoovering Europeans were replaced by stern-faced oriental law students, and the all-conquering Martin Audio system was replaced by a PA to remind everyone to keep their phones on silent. Ok, maybe trying to force some kind of comparison between a university library and a London superclub is perhaps a little absurd, but that is the swap I've had to make recently, which is why (as I hope you would already know) SOTW, which recently allowed its first birthday to pass without celebration, has been distinctly and tragically silent for the last few weeks.

But as I kept telling myself later than 10pm most nights, when I was still sifting through piles of useless lecture notes knowing I was missing so much in pastures East, the end is nigh and 12 noon this morning officially marked the beginning of Summer for me. Chris isn't so lucky, and will continue to be a physics slave for a little while longer... Our hearts go out.

As I hinted at in my previous April chart post, there were still a few essential parties we had to show our face at regardless of the consequences. These I will discuss in further detail, as I will for some very important releases such as SebastiAn's long-awaited debut album, John Tejada's new EP, Ricardo Villalobos's latest collaboration with Los Updates and several others. I also feel it is important to raise awareness of what warehouseland has to offer over the coming weeks. As ever, London and Bristol are littered with some show-stoppers, most notably Boys Noize and Sven Väth this weekend at fabric and Bristol's gargantuan In:Motion Summer Party in June, marking the birth of Chris's Summer 2011 in some style, with Ridha again featuring, alongside Erol Alkan and featuring Art Department.

On that note, I am pleased to announce the return of SOTW, now a little over a year old and still as grateful as ever to those of you that have continued to follow us. I'll begin by bringing you up to date with the few things we've been up to since the last post that isn't school-related.

Part 1: April
Magda at fabric, Steve Bug & Jamie Jones at fabric, Air London presents Nick Curly, Simon Baker, MANIK (live), Half Baked meets Bar 25, Paul Kalkbrenner (live) at fabric, Benoit & Sergio (live), Onur Özer, Marcel Dettmann at fabric

The short synopsis of the month of April would suggest it was far from a studious month, however, for me and Chris it marked the closure of freedom really, before 'knuckle-down' time (as my mother would call it) well and truly kicked in. Technically, the first party that welcomed me back to London was on the very first evening. The CAMP Basement was about to get Perlonized again, very much as it did earlier on in the year when Zip and Baby Ford arrived and I was as good as dead before the clock struck 6am and missed the best of everything. This time my condition was far more sustainable, and I got to observe Thomas Melchior's fine vinyl mixing on what was a fairly thin dancefloor. That was a bonus if anything though, as I really didn't expect to be getting my shoes scruffy anywhere other than fabric the following night where I would finally witness Magda's regal presence in command of Room One.

Alas, some never learn from their mistakes. This old proverb could never have been more relevant for me the following night, when Saturday had come and M-nus's royalty had landed after weeks of anticipation. Maybe I was too excited. Maybe the fairly tame few weeks I had endured prior to this night had hindered my stamina levels somehow. Whatever the reason was, waking up in one of fabric's toilet cubicles at around half eight was one of the lowest points of my year so far. The vastly depleted bottle of Russian Standard that I found when I got home was a clue as to how I ended up in such a way, but the result was that I remember very little of Magda. I do recall her beats being very big, and Magda herself being very, very small. She really is pint-sized, and it's difficult to believe that those immense basslines come from such a dainty figure behind the decks. I'm sure she would not appreciate being described in such a way, but unfortunately I really have very little more to say about her performance on this occasion, and I'm sure that is very much my loss. If there's one thing I did learn though, it's that vodka is overrated.

I decide to write that episode off as a false start. It was a frightful shame and entirely my own fault I didn't see the best of Magda, but it happens to the best of us. The following weekend was the opportunity to redeem myself as Chris, followed by an entourage of Bristolians descended on London for a heavyweight deep house session at fabric, a scene Chris has developed growing affection for. The line-up was roughly engineered from two angles. Jamie Jones and his Hot Creations imprint took over a large proportion of the proceedings, while Steve Bug took the coveted 5-close slot in Room One and Andrew Weatherall along with Slam live represented a typically techno-orientated Room Two. As ever, the Room One line-up was the main showcase, with Craig Richards sandwiched between sets from Jones and Bug and obviously pulling the majority of the crowd in there that night. However, for us the real charm was the Hot Natured takeover of Room Three where Russ Yallop and a live performance from Subb-an promised something special to keep us from hugging the floor downstairs. Upon entry, Jamie Jones was in full swing in Room One and we wasted no time in soaking up the warm, feel-good house vibes he laid down. No complaints about the density of the club or the crowd that had gathered. While techno and its minimal offshoots traditionally attracts a continental crowd that (unfortunately) breeds animosity amongst some of London's more conservative clubbers, the deep house movement of late is certainly a very English development. Damian Lazarus and his Crosstown Rebels crew got the ball rolling, paving the way for label's like Visionquest, and now Jamie Jones's Hot Creations to begin taking London, Bristol, Manchester and beyond by storm. Jones kept true to his signature rolling tech-house style, but his inclusion of Aril Brikha's Berghain although a welcome surprise, was in reality fairly predictable as it Seth Troxler's recent fondness for the classic would prove.

Chris didn't make the journey down just to jostle comfortably in Room One however, and had his sights firmly set on drawing every drop of deep house goodness from upstairs in Room Three where Jones joined Russ Yallop after he had finished his downstairs duties. As Craig Richards took Room One into slightly quirkier territory, Jones and Yallop kept things slow and sexy as the maze of arches gradually began filling as word got round the club that Room Three was where they should be. Subb-an's live set was arguably the highlight of the entire night when he took to the platform facing Room Three's DJ booth. It was the first live set I had witnessed in the room and Subb-an proved why the cavernous little space has so much more potential that it may get credit for. His set maintained the same deep, throbbing house mood, his sumptuous 'What I Do' provided a classic example of feel good vocals in perfect harmony with those resonating 2020 Vision/Hot Creations basslines that the soundsystem handled with remarkable ease.

Inevitably we delved back into the bowels of the club as Room Three began wavering slightly. Steve Bug was already in command of Room One, Julio Bashmore's playful genre-spanning hit 'Battle for Middle You' had the entire room leaping around upon our arrival to the dancefloor before Bug drifted in and out of various other mutations of house and techno. Although I can only applaud Bug's performance at Paramount when I caught him there in early March, his audience and less daring surroundings perhaps inhibited the far more adventurous side he displayed here. Never one to pin himself down to one style in his sets, Bug once again proved his envious knowledge of music and his superior ability mixing it. Old and new was sewn together so smoothly that it took an unusual amount of time for me to recognize Laurent Garnier's immortal The Man With The Red Face slowly filtering in at around 8:30am, shorty before we made a well-timed exit.

One of the greatest things about 2011 so far has been that unlike 2010, it has provided me with an opportunity to enjoy the abundance of festivities that the bank holiday 'season' offers. It is around this time of the year that we are littered with those special little weekends that are every party-goers dream and every barman's nightmare, as I discovered last year. Easter Sunday was the first one to tackle, directly following the previous night at fabric and requiring some preparation before we were going anywhere. As always, London didn't exactly give us an easy decision to make, with Shoreditch and beyond crammed with appetizing line-ups. Despite the competition however, surely a free party, yes FREE party, headed by Nick Curly, Simon Baker, MANIK , Geddes, Glimpse and Alex Cellar at Rivington Studios/The Red Gallery couldn't possibly be ignored? The line-up rivaled any in town, but the extreme rarity of a free party in London tipped us, and hundreds of others over the edge. But before we negotiated that, it was Chris's turn to lose his Half Baked virginity...

I had been singing the praises of Half Baked for a long time. My first experience of the monthly Sunday afternoon party was right at the beginning of the year I believe, expecting very little as I ducked and stumbled my way through the low, narrow archways of what was formerly a car park on Fairchild Street, a remote turn off Shoreditch High Street. Ever since I have been well and truly beset by the simple philosophy of the operation. Of all East London's scruffy, heavily European, guestlist-only techno gatherings, Half Baked is without doubt the best. The rumbling stack of Funktion Ones, piss-smelling toilets and the constant shade of French accent in the 'chill-out' area gives the initial impression that HB is like any other of those kind of parties, but as I learned first impressions can be very misleading. Half Baked may have started out in such a way, but today it is a thriving hidden gem with excellent sound and impressive line-ups every time. This time Half Baked 'met' Bar 25, the tragically now defunct Berlin fantasyland party (imagine a cross between a child's playground/circus and Berghain), with Perlon's Matt John enlisted to provide the beats. The 'chill-out' area was appropriately decorated with various props in an attempt to recreate that Bar 25 'fantasy', so manikins, swings and weird 'confession booths' were deployed at the mercy of imagination. If it wasn't for the sweltering heat that resulted from the summery London weather that weekend, it would have been an almost flawless party. Resident Robin Ordell delivered a typically punchy warm-up set with all the Sunday classics (i.e. JJ's remix of Flash), before Matt John finished off with a quirky blend of percussive minimal and dub techno. As always, HB was the perfect way to finish off the weekend once a month, around familiar faces immersed in perfect beats and sound. This time it wasn't to be the final party however, as we made our way on foot to 'Love Not Money', the free party...

It's not like we had anything to 'lose', but the inevitable popularity of a free party with the likes of Nick Curly was always going to make things a little stuffy, but we didn't expect humidity like the Amazon during monsoon season. HB acted as a warning, but Rivington Studios was something else. I could actually feel the heat on my hands as I danced, sweat lathering our entire bodies as we tried our best to make the most of Geddes and Simon Baker's B2B set. I was determined to catch some of MANIK's live performance upstairs and Nick Curly's 4-6 set, but it just wasn't going to happen. It's nights like this when the practicality of warehouse spaces like Rivington Studios is exposed. Sure they usually make perfectly adequate venues for throwing no-frills underground raves, but when the British weather takes an unexpected turn for the better things beneath the streets of Shoreditch can get a little uncomfortable. Without proper air conditioning, ventilation or good access to drinking water, the power of the soundsystem can't ever make up for the simplest lack of utilities in a venue. For this reason we made a quick escape and found ourselves back where we started the weekend. Yes, back at fabric. It wasn't quite what we had in mind, but WYS! really did remind me how much of a great clubbing experience fabric is. Compared to Air London or even Half Baked, fabric was like a refrigerator, and very welcome one at that. Ironic really as that's pretty much what fabric once was.

Rewind back to December last year and it was time for John Digweed's legendary Christmas party at fabric. I can't realistically imagine how it could have been any better, with Diggers commanding Room One for over 6 hours at his peerless best. However, Paul Kalkbrenner was billed to perform live in Room Two but fell victim to the apparently apocalyptic British weather. Had the evergreen German producer made it, he could have somehow prised us away from Digweed's grasp in Room One. It was without doubt a very unfortunate loss, glossed over only by an exceptional English DJ at the top of his game elsewhere in the club. But fabric, always eager to please and seldom disappoint, continued their recent utility of the Thursday night at EC1 by opening up the main room just for Kalkbrenner, after a decent warm-up set from Dominik Eulberg, who would soon release his magnificent album Diorama. Paul Kalkbrenner is one of those figures in electronic music that 'needs no introduction'. Whether it's his prolific record as a producer of pioneering 'techno-pop' on BPitch Control or his role on screen in Berlin Calling, there will be a good reason why his name is at the very least familiar to you. It's also why the night at fabric dedicated to him sold out within a couple of days and was a sea of excitement inside the club. He delivered his three-hour set with all the smoothness and confidence you would expect from such an illustrious artist. There was a breezy, summery narrative to Kalkbrenner's approach, keeping things essentially techno, but never too serious. It was an effortless performance, music crafted by, and in the hands of, someone with an undiminished passion and devotion to the sound he's created. The soundsystem as always made easy work of handling the array of deep, complex basslines that were emitted, and the crowd were an educated army of Kalkbrenner devotees, lapping up every last morsel of bass before time was called shortly after 3am. fabric's recent succession of 'school-day' parties may cause havoc for those with Friday morning commitments, but when they're as good as this the sick notes will have to become increasingly original.

As so often is the case, I ended the month how it started, and usually continues throughout- at fabric. Cast your mind back to my last fabric watch and you will remember I forecast Saturday, April 30th as the pick of what was a string of heavyweight nights. Now I do not regret making that forecast, for I had very good reasons. For example, the main live act of the night, Benoit & Sergio are responsible for one of the cult tracks of the year so far in Walk and Talk; Marcell Dettmann not only claimed tenth position in RA's Top 100 DJ's of 2010, but is also one of Berghain's über-residents and finally, if Onur Özer's previous appearance at fabric was anything to go by then his gifted ability mixing Villalobosian minimal was surely an unmissable element of what would be an epic night? In theory yes, in reality it was far from the spectacle I envisaged. I'm not quite sure what went wrong. We missed B&S, but feedback from trustworthy friends suggest remarkably that it was 'awful', and while we did catch most of Özer's awkwardly allocated set, he seemed hell-bent on avoiding the style he is so naturally gifted at. His two hours of boring tech and deep house maintained little attention on the Room One dancefloor, which was scarily empty at such an early time. Of the people that were actually in the club, the majority collected in Room Two where Dettmann launched his classically German techno assault. If there was something to salvage from the night it was Dettmann's honesty as a DJ. While Özer experimented with a sound that none of his audience wanted, Dettmann did precisely the opposite, supplying a set entirely representative of why his name has become synonymous with the Berghain signature sound, to a crowd who wanted nothing other than that. Admittedly it was a little too pounding for me to hang around for long, but I left with little confusion as to why Dettmann is now such a formidable figure in the world of techno. Despite a rescue-mission set from Craig Richards in Room One to finish, I can't imagine he was spinning anything far beyond 8am.