Arriving at Plastic People early-doors, one never knows quite what to do with oneself: it's just a big, dark room with a huge rig and a bar slapped on, and that's about that. As ever, a few devout souls are taking their pre-rave vows, shuffling around by the bass bins in hushed anticipation. Others look confused. "Where am I? What year is this? Who's the president?" Well mate, you're in a basement club in Shoreditch, it's 2009, and the president (at least in this universe) is Jack Dunning. That OK?
Medium's Tasha kicks things off with deep, percussive, tidily mixed DnB, the most orthodox fare in what's a consistently leftfield night (as always). At one point, something big and jungly and a little bit monstrous enters the mix, much to my excitement, but it's early days and is promptly whipped away before it's had a chance to breathe. Ouch. We pop outside for a ciggie and, predictably, fall victims to PPSS (Plastic People Smoking Syndrome): the condition of standing out on the street smoking, talking and swigging beer purchased from a local offy for AGES.
By the time we snap out of it and get back inside, young Rockwell is half-way through his set. It sounds sick. Neither really dubstep nor drum n bass (properly speaking), it's just savage, forward-thinking club music built out of sparest of elements, all clicks, taps and brutal snarls of bass. He ends with what is, by some way, the messiest thing I've heard all year, a filthy bit of junglism boiled down to liquid, baked back into concrete and promptly put through a blender backwards. Filth of the very highest order. Underground big boys Alix Perez and Ramadanman follow, sticking to a similarly ambiguous, uber-minimal template, but upping the ante just a little. Perez drops deep, dark, synth-heavy gear that feels like it's building towards something epic, Ramadanman lighter, dubbier, skippier stuff that takes things off on a percussive tangent. It works - just - and makes for an interesting disruption of both DJs' usual habits.
Suddenly it's one o' clock, and time for our man Untold. Another quick breather (no PPSS this time) and we're back inside, hopping around to the stripped, tribal 2-step sounds that are rightfully earning him a lot of love right now. Plently of older bits are thrown into a mix that spans dubstep, grime, garage, 4/4 and wonky, and which isn't short on the odd big vocal. Some painfully over-enthusiastic hopping and skipping duly breaks out (gents, you know who you are), and by the time the man drops his last tune - a demented, voodoo-minded stick-tapping workout - it's hard not have fallen head over heels for his madcap but deadly serious take on UK bass music. Mr President, we salute you!
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