Welcome to Atlanta!
And also the new online home of Kai Alcé. As you can see we still have some work to do so please bare with use, we are building the site as fast as we can.
Peace
Kai
NDATL DVD PROMO 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Watch NDATL DVD PROMO in Music Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Music Institute 20th Anniversary 12" Series Pt1 of 3 "EARLY JAN 2009"
Friday, December 05, 2008
'NDATL Muzik continues with Pt1 in a new 3Pt limited series honoring the legendary Detroit nightclub The Music Institute. Just in time for it’s 20th Anniversary! So with that we bring together for the first time all of the original dj’s from the MI. This three part series will contain tracks obtained from never heard before lost tapes, dats & cd’s from Derrick May, Chez Damier, Kai Alce, D-Wynn, K-Hand, Mike Huckaby & Alton Miller. These tracks will only be available in this format this one time never to be repressed!'
What was "The Music Institute"?
The Music Institute was Detroit's answer to such legendary house and garage clubs as New York's Paradise Garage and Chicago's Powerplant.
At the beginning of this music, the MI was the only place where you could hear Detroit Techno the way it ought to have been heard; loud. Bumpin'. Funky.
The MI (along with the smaller UN club) was the last gasp of young, black intelligentsia; the final celebration of the unique, creative vibe of the "cool" kids from Northwest Detroit; a vibe long since supplanted in more recent times by the relentlessly shallow and low-class gangsta aestethic ("keepin' it real, son") of hip-hop.
But in 1988 and for two years, Derrick May rocked the turntables from midnight to 8-9 am with UK Acid House, Chicago House and the first Detroit Techno classics that the world would later come to know: Suburban Knight's "Motor City Pressure" (later to be released as "The Art of Stalking"), Model 500's "No UFOs", Inner City's classic "Good Life" and his own anthems, "The Dance", "The Beginning", "Nude Photo" and many others. Although others spun at the venue; Mayday was the star of the show, and fuck anybody who says different. Many times, he'd play tracks right off a Fostex two-track recorder that he'd just cut hours before at his studio, something I never got over. He'd beat mix between the reel to reel and 1200s and back, using the pitch control on the reel. He'd cut, edit and destroy other people's tracks, too, as he did with his fucked-up psycho re-edit of the MI theme "We Call It Aciiiieeed" by D-Mob (which I still have on reel).
Although some newer heads deride him as a has-been, Derrick in those days did by hand what many of the current Techno producers do digitally. No DATs. No acetates.
The MI, through Derrick, brought a European vibe to our city, something that there never was before. Before, we were just a bunch of middle-class black kids who read The Face and GQ and Melody Maker and dreamt about what London or New York would be like; now ABC and Depeche Mode came to the MI in its heyday to witness the relentless Mayday at work, and to hang out with us. Real Brits ! Real accents ! In our club !
A no-liquor (pop and juice only) policy kept the MI open without incident to all comers. The older kids, the Cass Tech and Renaissance high school kids, the gay crowd and girls girls girls. All in one house; pre-rave, pre-drugs. One strobe light and House Music All Night Long.
But, ultimately, that's what did MI in at the end. The frat boys wanted alcohol. The older kids didn't like high schoolers there. The girls came to dance, not to get hit on; which made the straight guys mad, as did the healthy presence of a gay clientele at the club (in fact, in those days, the only white faces in the crowd would be the more-adventurous House-loving gay kids and their fag-hags).
Then with the twin debuts of NWA and 2 Live Crew, gangsta hip-hop and booty music (always an East Side thing in Detroit) supplanted House and Techno with the youth. Europe became more lucrative for a lot of Detroit producers as they turned their sights overseas. AIDS destroyed the previously open and fun-loving gay community who had always welcomed straights into their world, and whom House Music had belonged to before Chicago, New York and Detroit had given it to the rest of the world. The talented, smart kids went on to college, only to ultimately leave Detroit (and who could blame them ?).
But for a second, it was there.
There were tears and hugs on the last MI night back in 1990. Every person in Techno at the time, along with a house packed to capacity, jacked their last jack ("jack your body" was current slang back then) at their beloved club. Derrick May's final record was the sad and plaintive "Pacific State" by 808 State; made even more sad by this new context.
Detroit plunged into the Bush years (more bad news for us black folks). And we said goodbye.
But not before a lot of young, talented black people were inspired to take up this music and one way or another, make it their lives. Then go on to rock the planet.
George Baker (owner). Derrick May. Juan Atkins. Kevin Saunderson. Alan Ester. Alton Miller. Chez Damier. The Music Institute, 1315 Broadway, Detroit, MI.
Alan D. Oldham
Feb. 1997
NDATL LIMITED T-SHIRTS AVAILABLE
Sunday, November 23, 2008
T-SHIRTS ARE $25(US) $35(UK) includes shipping.
Send request with design, size & shipping address
to kaialce@hotmail.com
Payments accepted thru PayPal.
The Power Thru Pt 3: ReRubs "COMING SOON"
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
After an ovewhelming reception to the batch of mixes of Power Thru Pt 3, NDATL label honcho Kai Alce reapproaches Azulu's sultry vocals and surrounds them with a warm organic flow of keyboards and hypnotic bassline. While letting a few alternate takes from the orginal recordings out and another outstanding mix from Mush that puts his two previous takes on Power Thru into one secret weapon!
These mixes will be exclusively available @
www.whatpeopleplay.com
Power Thru Pt 3 is currently being charted by
Dj Deep, Steve Bug ,Fabio Genito, Alex from Tokyo, Karl Injex, Larry Heard, Lars Behenroth, Thomas Martojo, Moodymann, Funmi Ononaiye, Chez Damier
REVIEWS:
It's hard to decipher the electronic music sound of Atlanta that Kai Alcé claims in his work for his own NDATL Muzik imprint. To these ears, the only bleeps worth noting recently from ATL have been the ones squirted out of the drum machines of guys named Birdman and Lil' Jon. But as Southern hip-hop continues its downturn, perhaps it's time for a new Southern sound to rise again, one that humanizes Atlanta's crude robotic sexuality with an old-school Detroit smoothness.
That's what I hear at least in these re-rerubs of Alce's "Power Thru Pt 3" collaboration with Azulu Phantom. KZR—an alias for Alce—takes over the first two pieces of this digital-only release, luxuriating for a collective 14 minutes of instrumental and vocal versions of the track in the sublime power of a two-chord keyboard riff. Things get even more spare with the Original Broke Down Dub—as you might expect from the name—with Phantom taking center stage, but it's Mush's Classic Sax Mix that stars.
The French producer is exacting where Alce's other mixes are loose, urgent where Alce is laidback. It's a mix that sounds little different from the KZR re-rubs element-wise, but Mush bulks up the bassline and the smooth jazz saxophone works wonders (believe it or not). It's eight minutes of bliss that doesn't exactly get me any further towards understanding what Atlanta has to do with it, but has me in thrall nonetheless.
Words /
Terrence Fuller
Published / Resident Advisor
Mon, 08 Dec 2008
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Kai Alce's "Power Thru Pt.3 (Don't Turn On The Lights)(1)" is brilliant and typically Detroit sounding- a beautiful, dark and deep melancholy affair, featuring incredible soulful vocals by Azulu Phantom. This track originally came out in 2002 but wasn't chosen for Kai Alce's "The Kaizer EP," his first EP on Trackmode. Instead, it was handed around to Detroit DJs and caned by such names as Larry Heard, Theo Parrish, Carl Craig and Moodymann. Upon first listen, you'll understand why. Next up, "More To Come(2)" is another delectable Detroit house nugget, not as dark, but just as deep. On the flip, the Mush Classic remix(3) is a more minimal cut, yet still hangs on to the subterranean feeling of the original. Last up, Mush's Sax Dub(4) features, yes, some nice sax work, and no vocals- it's being compared to Lil Louis' classic, "The Conversation." All four cuts are hot hot hot. Don't sleep!
reviewed by Alison Tara
www.turntablelab.com
Tastemakers pres Quenchin Thirsts!? Japan Tour w/ Kai Alce October 2008
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Friday Oct 17
Nagoya @ Club Mago
http://www.club-mago.co.jp/
Saturday Oct 18
Chiba Future Terror @ Queens Club
http://futureterror.net/news/ 
Friday Oct 24
Tokyo @ Liquid Loft
http://www.myspace.com/liquidloft
http://www.liquidroom.net/loft/index.php
 Oct 25
TBA (either osaka or kyoto)
 
4th Annual House In The Park
Friday, July 25, 2008
Kai Alce Music Available @ Whatpeopleplay
Sunday, July 06, 2008
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