Urban Nerds x Basslaced NYE Warehouse Party

Any club promoter worth their salt knows that, if you’re going to jump into the mix on New Year’s Eve, there’s no doing it by halves.  With parties across London drawing for their most serious of serious line-ups,  and artists determined to collect after another year of being fleeced by the music downloading public, it’s a crowded market which faces Joe Promoter when planning his NYE soiree.
 
Luckily for them, (and us), guerrilla party starters Urban Nerds have been doing this for four years now, and the wealth of their experience has resulted in a coming together of two of the biggest labels in UK bass music tonight, in the form of Swamp 81 and Numbers; with Zinc, Redlight and Mensah thrown in for good measure; plus a helping hand from London to Nottingham rave-makers Basslaced, who’ve seen their weighty parties at Cable go from strength to strength this year. Safe to say even if it rains (it does), the queues for the toilets are massive, the drinks are expensive and someone steps on the trainers we got for Christmas, we’ll still probably have a pretty good night.
 
We rock up to the Hearne Street car park in time to see Nerds resident Rattus Rattus take the decks. In case anyone is wondering where the crew are in terms of sound, he gives the already sizeable crowd a lesson in the Urban Nerds philosophy with a genre bending, energy heavy, house happy set. Even on New Year, it’s hard to get truly hyper by midnight, a time when any normal rave would be still in its formative hours. All the same, Rattus and MC Shaga, who are still in the hot seat at the stroke of twelve, make sure the party gets started right, and by the time they step down it’s hoods up and elbows out all over the place.
 
We know there’s an almighty clash going on next door in the Swamp 81 vs. Numbers room, but when Redlight and then Zinc step up next, it’s hard to leave. It’s been another stupidly big year for the artist formally known as Clipz - if he had a penny for every time Source 16 drops tonight across London, he could probably buy the whole dance a jagerbomb - and he’s on fine form in the 1.30am-2.30am slot. Upcoming release on MTA Get Out My Head gets a particularly warm reception.
 
Zinc takes the reins next with a serious contender for set of the night, and a blend of old skool garage, crack house and jungle so smooth it should come in a double measure over ice. Highlights include Duck Sauce’s soon to be anthem The Big Bad Wolf, UKG favourite 173 Trek and a very, very naughty edit of the aforementioned Source 16.

We wind up in Room 1 for a clash of the titans in the form of Jackmaster b2b Oneman. 2011 might be remembered as the year big DJs stopped needing to be big producers too, and both these guys have risen to the top of their game primarily for smashing up raves exactly as they do tonight. It’s slightly weary but massively up for it crowd that finishes the night with this most dynamic of dynamic duos, and they’re rewarded with a set that reads like a retrospective of 2011’s most dancefloor ready tracks, and not a screechy, wobbly, top heavy bit of bassline between them.
 
If 2012 really is going to be another year of economic belt tightening, as PM Cameron and his  hype man Osbourne promise us, then it seems fitting that we should have seen it in at this no frills venue, and to a soundtrack of no frills, independent, homegrown music. And, unless the Mayans are right and we’re all washed away in apocalyptic floods at some point in the next 12 months, I think it’s safe to say we’ll all be back next year at this cracking, annual event.