Jaunt (jônt, jänt) n. A short trip or excursion, usually for pleasure; an outing
Plain and Simple’s roving reporter/man about town and clubbing addict Jammy brings you his eye view of the event he was partying at in the last week… We welcome him back and this time he spent his jaunts at the The Save You night and Blackest Ever Black party.
Hello and welcome to Jammy’s Jaunts! Your weekly clubbing review of London! This jaunt featured the very special Save You Records meets Meadows in the Mountains party at Basing House and the Blackest Ever Black night at Corsica Studios. So to start off this jaunt I headed off to Basing House to see my very good friends DeadEcho play (Rob Bradley and Adam Firman) warmup the night’s proceedings. Alongside them were Bruno Schmidt (Louche) and Carlos Valdes (Studio Soulrock/BPitch) Timings were 10:00pm-12:00am DeadEcho, 12:00am 02:00am Bruno Schmidt, 02:00am-04:00am Carlos Valdes. I arrived around 23:15 to see Deadecho warm up. The place will beginning to fill up really nicely and Basing House had been done up really well, by the people from the Meadows in the Mountains Festival (Bulgaria). It was great to see DeadEcho play after so long and they were really bringing their infectious groove to the dancefloor that has made them so popular.
The crowd filled quickly and by around 23:45, the main dancefloor was packed with lots of people by the bar and upstairs in the smoking area. The Save You crowd were very cool and there was such a good vibe inside. Everyone looked up for it and the beats kept coming. It was good to see familiar faces there and people that I hadn’t seen for a while. DeadEcho made sure that they smashed the warm up and by the end they set it up perfectly for Bruno Schmidt to come on. He continued from where DeadEcho left off and his beginning was full of energy and excitement. It was nice and groovy and very easy on the ear. It wasn’t banging nor was it boring. It was high quality dance music and the response from the crowd was excellent. The crowd lapped up every beat and Schmidt was making sure that the music was of a constant high level. The Save You parties are always a good laugh and it is always enjoyable to see the DeadEcho boys behind the decks. A great way to start off the weekend jaunt! I left around 1am and headed down to Corsica Studios.
The next party was called Blackest Ever Black down at Corsica Studios. I arrived, to a bit of a queue. The night was sold out and no tickets were being sold until later on in the morning and they said that they would be running a one in, one out system by then. I had a ticket however and went in with some friends and by the time I got fully in, the place was completely packed in both rooms. Friends that were in there beforehand, had told me how chaotic it was and the music programming being confusing. There were loads of DJs on in both rooms. In room 1 starting off was A.D. Jacques, DVA Damas, TOC, Shampoo Boy, Russell Haswell HDJ, Dalhous, Prurient (Ian Dominick Fernow) and Regis as Necklace of Bites. In room 2 were Luke Younger, Chris Farrell, Helena Hauff, Horsepower Productions, Raime, Source Direct and Felix K. So I arrived just after 1am and stepped into the 2nd room where Housepower Productions had just come on and they were playing quite dubby bordering on a variation of dubstep which was very interesting to hear. That room was very busy and I went to check out the main room which wasn’t too bad and there were pockets to move about in. Russell Haswell was on and I wasn’t really sure what he was playing or can even begin to describe the genre of music. I wasn’t really feeling it to be honest and I wasn’t even sure if I understood what was being played.
So much hype and expectation surrounded this night and in many ways the night was a bit of a letdown in all honesty. As a reviewer I try to give an impartial view of a night and how I thought it went and it was quite difficult for me, as I was constantly going between the 2 rooms to find the best sound. I reverted back to the 2nd room and Raime (Joe Armstrong and Tom Halstead) were on. Their blend of rhythm, percussion and experimental/drone sounds were certainly something I have never heard before and the crowd were really up for this duo. By then the room was still packed and for the moment I stayed there and enjoyed Raime’s sound and their take on electronic music.
Dalhous were in the other room whilst Raime was on, but didn’t get chance to catch them play. Once Raime were over Prurient was on in the main room. Many of you might know him as Vatican Shadow and on this occasion he was performing under his different guise. I’ve never heard him under Prurient and I was expecting to hear a good set, but I wasn’t entirely impressed with his industrial ‘noise’ sound that you could best describe it as. His Vatican Shadow alias I much preferred listening to and it was very different in my opinion to his VS sound. The main room was packed for him to start and it really was shoulder to shoulder business! It was brutal and loud and really banging for the straight 30 minutes that he was on for. You really had to be there to fully experience the craziness of his set. Definitely an eye opening spectacle!
Last up after Prurient, was the very influential and Downwards label boss: Regis playing under his different moniker: Necklace of Bites. He played the closing in the main room and again it wasn’t the best I have heard him play and really kind of summed the night up when Russell Haswell was in the booth messing about and God knows what he was doing. It ruined the flow and made the music stop at least twice, which I’m pretty sure Regis was not at all happy about. He did his best to rectify the issue but it wasn’t the normal high standard that we are normally used to. He played a banging set afterwards and tried to make up for it. A disappointing way to end the night but sometimes it just doesn’t work out! Same time, next weekend?