Pariahs, Manchester
Tom Boogizm doesn’t have a Twitter feed, a personal brand, a set of dramatic press photos or anything else that is a part of the modern DJ standard. What he does have, though, is a record collection to rival the best in Manchester, and perhaps the whole of the UK. He mixes it with an innate ability to lock the most diverse of dancefloor crowds into his possessed DJing style and is well known for seamlessly linking dub, dancehall and hip-hop with house, disco and techno. For his cult Pariahs night, Boogizm is let loose for five solid hours at Soup Kitchen.
Soup Kitchen, Sat
JT
Essence: Purified Dance, London
Clapham’s dance culture is based around Infernos and gawping at lasers at South West Four, but Bournemouth-based promoters Essence are bringing the underground to the area’s core demographic of twentysomething estate agents. They host a pair of producers who omnivorously place Miami bass, ghetto house, dancehall, kuduro, juke and rap on a spirit-levelled, irony-free plain. Neana cuts up booty-shaking snares into stutters, wedded to the kind of jingles you’d hear on Night Slugs or PC Music (check out his remix of Air Max 97, which sounds like the theme to a hospital drama in 2042). Sheen, meanwhile, hops from earnest trance to R&B slow-jams to hyped-up Afrobeats, as if you’re rolling through some glorious section of the FM spectrum. If you want a sense of the polymorphous sonic mulch that emanates from formative years spent on the web – for free, in a pub – then get involved.
Stane Street Syndicate, SW4, Sat
BB
Out To Lunch, Dublin
Being DIY is about more than buying records: it’s about starting labels and building scenes. As well as helping to create the lauded East Village Radio station, New York’s Veronica Vasicka gave birth to the Minimal Wave label, releasing obscure, synth-based electronics from the 70s and 80s. Now 10 years old, Minimal Wave has driven chilly sounds from avant garde industrial acts like Einstürzende Neubauten and Throbbing Gristle into the dance underground, and Vasicka’s DJing holds a mirror up to the label: strung-out techno with flecks of post-punk, industrial and coldwave. Joining her is another New Yorker, DJ and producer Willie Burns. His playful style of house and techno has been released on stalwart darlings such as The Trilogy Tapes, L.I.E.S. and Crème Organization, but it’s his most recent release as Black Deer that makes his pairing with Vasicka so apt: droning, percussive deep house cuts with a shamanic, locked in groove. Together, they’ll have a chilly glint in one eye, with the other firmly on the dancefloor.
Bar Tengu, Sat
LM
Charged Launch Party, Brighton
Dave Jones, more memorably known as Zed Bias, became a household name with 2-step garage classics such as Been Here Before and the singalong good-vibe bomb Neighbourhood, going on to touch on the dark dancefloor style that was dubstep’s larval stage, while also channelling deeper, jazzier rhythm constructions. He’s been continuing in these two directions simultaneously for 15 years so, in keeping with his itchy grooves and liquid rhythms, we knew he didn’t like staying still for long. His Madd Again project, in collaboration with a trio of MCs, takes him in another new direction, where the stripped-back interplay between blunt and sharp percussion lends itself a bashment swagger.
Patterns, Fri
GT
Mute, London
Bristol’s brand of Jamaica-facing bass culture gets a good look-in at this potentially deranged night. Kahn & Neek headline and while they’re part of the often brooding and paranoid Young Echo collective, their oikish brand of grime is also full of spunk, featuring lots of bass wobble and rewinds. Fellow Bristolians Jus Now do their juddering dancehall thing with Serocee on the mic, while Scratcha DVA and Spooky bring garage-laced menace. Over in room two, Josey Rebelle focuses her magpie eyes on an all-jungle set.
Corsica Studios, SE17, Fri
BB
