For the closing weekend of Fire In Session we have two very special parties, Kitsune Club Night at Fire whilst our sister venue Area hosts seminal London techno institution  Lost who have delivered a truly monster  line up featuring Detroit innovators Derrick May and Juan Atkins alongside Kyle Hall, Tevo Howard, Mark Ernestus, Mark Ainsley and Lost founder Steve Bicknell. We caught up with Steve to find out more about the party…

Fire: For those not familiar – what is Lost? 

Steve Bicknell: It is what it is, to paraphrase Derrick May. A place to lose yourself immersed in sound. Well for us, Sheree and myself, it has been based on ideas and concepts. We have often worked with djs/producers on special projects and within heritage locations for site specific events. All of our nights are carefully curated, the whole atmosphere is very important, and the presentation is paramount, although minimal. But it’s not just our creative outlet. The audience contributes to the whole. For some it’s an opportunity to hear the music from the guys who produced it, for others an opportunity to ‘lose it’ and just have a good time and for others it has been the stepping stone to a new career, many British techno DJs of repute have emerged from the LOST dance floor.

Fire: You’ve pulled together an outrageous line up for the In Sessions closing party on November 24th, can you tell us a little about who’s on the line up and why you’ve booked them?

Steve Bicknell: For both Sheree and I it is a representation of the LOST musical heritage, past and present. The Red Room features Derrick May and Juan Atkins, two of the guys who defined the genre of music we call techno, but with soul. They’ve played for us since the beginning and very much reflect the sound of the LOST  dancefloor. Their influence on dance music cannot be underestimated. To us, both Kyle Hall and Tevo Howard, in the Blue, are the younger generation who have emerged out of the oeuvre. The next step. Mark Ernestus, in the Purple, is an unassuming artist whose influence cannot be underestimated. His partnership with Moritz von Oswald as Basic Channel and latter day dub Rhythm & Sound are beyond compare and have fed into so many areas of electronic music.  So basically this line up enable us to embrace the past with a vision of the future.

Fire: You must have had some amazing events over the years, which is the most memorable to you?

Steve Bicknell: There have been a few. Sheree and I were fortunate in that we could hold events in the Docklands when it was desolate, a pre-Olympic wasteland. This were prime ‘LOST’ moments, adventures in London’s only original lighthouse that people had to find. Film studios. Warehouse spaces with attitude. And uncompromising DJs, such as those we have on the 24th, who are figureheads for their generation and the future of electronic music. Memories include Richie Hawtin arriving  21 years ago, our first night, to find the dance floor empty, the police had closed us down. All events licensed thereafter, no matter how illicit the unusual spaces may have seemed. Sheree teaming Derrick May and Francois K for a LOST at the lighthouse, truly epic and a first in London. The Axis presentation way back when featuring Jeff Mills and Robert Hood, highlight Basic Channels’ only UK live set, electronic music history as they have been so influential across the board of electronic music.

Fire: Can you give us your LOST Top 5 classics? 

Steve Bicknell:

Lil Louis - Blackout

Rhythm is Rhythm (Derrick May) – Strings of life

Model 500 (Juan Atkins) – No UFO’s

Steve Bicknell – Lost Recordings #1 – Why? + For Whom?

Robert hood – Minimal Nation

Fire: Besides your event with us on November 24th – what else do you have coming up as both an artist and event promoter?

Steve Bicknell: Sheree is currently relaunching COSMIC records in digital format. We’ve never exploited the back catalogue in this way as cosmic was very much a vinyl concept. A collaborative project with dual contribution,  I produce music, Sheree the artwork and titles, often reflecting life at that moment. With this in mind, COSMIC will be working outside of the box with some releases the artwork  will be accompanied by bonus tracks rather than the other way round. Cosmic back cat features a number of producers and remixes across imprints relating to their sound, such as Clubtracks, primarily chicago based, LOST RECORDINGS, a reflection of the dance floor, ID(entity) known artists under alternative guises and COSMIC itself, the sound of the future. So we also have some exciting  new releases in the pipeline with a limited digital download only track for 24th November.

In relation to LOST, we continue our monthly spacebase nights at plastic people, intimate gatherings for 200 whereby djs play a little of what they fancy, allowing them to dig deep into the past and their perception of the future. New Years Eve is in the pipeline and we’re back with the next sessions on Easter Sunday 2013.

This event is not to be missed… more info / tickets here