night makes a stop in Leeds on its tour, as outside of FWD, Leeds played a
significant part in nurturing dubstep sounds with its legendary Subdub night
and regular DMZ parties. The quality of house producers in the city makes it
even more strange that the city never challenged Bristol more on the bass
front. Vox Warehouse is nicely located outside of town near the motorway, but
still within walkable distance. Linked into a studio complex it features two
rooms, with finely tuned sound systems, friendly, reasonable bar prices
(possibly too good for the quality of the dark Havana rum I was slurping down)
and plenty of room for dancing.
It was only 11pm when we made our
way inside the club, and already the venue was abuzz with people partying. Paul
Spymania was holding down duties in the main room, co-founder of Sub:stance;
his music is not something I’m familiar with and even now, post event searching
on the internet I struggle in my Sunday haze to find much. His set on the other
hand was undoubtedly one the highlights of a stunning night. Weaving his way
through an astounding range of sounds, building up it up from slow shimmering
atmospherics, gradually introducing more intricate percussion and finally low
slung sleazy bass grooves. Finishing his set perfectly for definite star ascendance,
George Fitzgerald took over and whipped
the growing crowd with more funky flavoured four to the floor beats. I’ve been
loving his latest ‘Shackled’ EP, and that type of future house sounds, laced
with a heavy nod to the finest of Chicago’s past, were a strong part of his
set.
No sooner was everyone locked to
the 4/4 vibe than next entrée of the evening
Sepalcure stepped up for a live set. Despite enjoying their
releases and backed up with some very cool and arty visuals across the three
screens behind their set up, they failed to hold the attention for me. In the
second room on of the hottest student party crew Influx were hosting, with a
great selection of grooving tech-house their space was getting plenty of dance
action, throw in a few updated classic house sounds and the roof was off.
A name on everyone’s lips right
now and one I was egger to hear was
Boddika.
I’d purposefully not searched online for any mixes of his, so really wasn’t
sure what to expect. So varied are his productions, yet imbued with an organic
toughness. Tough was a constant vein through his set, and while I loved a lot
of the sounds, after a while straightness of the music was starting to loose
me, then he started dropping his more electro tinged sounds like ‘tell me’,
freshening up the dancefloor nicely and bringing lots of cheers and grins.
The final set of the night to a
still packed out club was down to
Scuba,
drawing from a range of very melodic tracks that lifted the crowd up again.
Aptly opening with
‘Something Special’
from Leed’s own
Miguel Campbell,
which sounded far phatter and tastier in the club. Before touring through
beats, breaks with a distinct nod to post northern exposure Sasha and Digweed
selection. No doubt, it will have pleased a watching
James Zabiela. As Scuba acknowledges his past tastes of music are
we about to witness a revival of some of those progressive sounds? Renaissance
the brand has awoken, and Digweed himself has just re-launched his legendary
Bedrock parties, and reason for my monthly lunchtime powernaps under the desk
when I lived in the city.
It is no doubt a glowing
testament to quality of the line-up night that for many of the acts some of the
biggest tracks in their set were their own. Scuba’s own Hope and Adrenalin,
producing anthemic responses from the crowd, which even coaxed a smirking grin
from the man himself. Scuba, Hotflush and Sub:stance are all hot currency at
the moment, and the seamless matching of eclectic music and quality throughout
tonight’s mayhem suggest this will continue for a while. Personally, I can’t
wait to catch another Sub:stance night - passport ready in hand as I day dream
of dark, hot nights in Berlin.