- It's seems odd now how big prog house in the UK had become by the turn of the millennia. Six-hour sets in Cathedral-like (blokey) rooms, DJs worshipped as deities, healthy compilation sales. Skip forward ten years and the musical landscape has irrevocably changed. One thing, though, remains the same: The few who really grasped the gradual yet grab-you-by-the-throat mentality of a sound where techno, house and trance collide continue to impress long after the majority of production and performance has moved on. John Digweed is one of these few.
The usual expectancy was evident in the crowd, who got stuck in pretty much from midnight onwards. Tribal Sessions' resident Greg Vickers was on warm-up duty, keeping things reminiscent of the sound of Sankeys Soap many years ago; switching from plodding to driving to vocal to deep and back again. As the tunes rolled out across the long room, the surprisingly young attendees under the blue-red glow of the low ceilings were gradually joined by ever more ageing faces. Perhaps they'd been outside battling the terminal queue for a cigarette, or maybe they had just put the kids to bed. Either way, it confirmed that many veterans still couldn't resist a night like this.
They would have to wait. Digweed came on at 3 AM, too late for a guest in a club situation like this. Luckily, the Bedrock man was worth it. Opening with ricky-ticky percussion and dubby epicness, it was clear that little if any of the next three hours would be familiar. Each white noise breakdown and ever-darker synth dropped deeper and deeper into an underworld of shuffling beats and twisted harmonies.
One hour in, though, and the upward trajectory had begun. With a whistle and a whip such moments of building groove seemed a distant memory, and familiar yet never-heard-before basslines took over the room. Hard and fierce, inviting and intoxicating, his is a sound perfectly suited to a dance floor basking in strobe lights, fuelled by steam jets and a smoke machine.
As such, it was no surprise that come dawn the club was deserted except for the dance floor, where flashes of faces and contorted bodies offered half stories of a late night soundtracked by effortless key changes, huge hooks and hoovers. Outside, with our ears ringing to the sound of drums and distorted vocals, the addictive potency of the music kicked in, suggesting the next hit won't be so far away.