Chew the Fat! 12th Birthday at The Arches

Chew the Fat! 12th Birthday at The Arches

13 October, 2009
by: Nuria

Bassline – best described as garage-derived electro house – is full of wonky beats and tubular bass sounds guaranteed to amp up any crowd keen to dance their cares away. Such it is at Chew the Fat!'s 12th Birthday party, held on a rainy Friday night at the Arches near London Bridge. This label/promotion team is renowned for pulling up-and-coming DJs with a proclivity for big bass, and tonight they've yet to disappoint.

I'm in the main room, it's gone three, and the much-loved Hervé (a.k.a. The Count) is halfway through his back-to-back set with Trevor Loveys, a collaboration they've dubbed 'Speaker Junk'. I have a lot of respect for Hervé – 'Ghetto Bass', his 2009 double-disc mix of electro-house/dubstep/bassline, is a fixture on my iPod. Basically, he's an example to follow in this scene. He's currently dropping crowd-pleasers such as Fake Blood's 'Mars' and The Count and Sinden's 'Hardcore Girls'. They're not exactly fresh tracks, but they're worthy floor-fillers.

Perhaps the set is a little too rushed for my liking (some transitions appear abrupt), but then again, there's limited time to make an impression. Meanwhile, I find out that acclaimed breaks trio Aquasky, also billed as headliners, have already performed, and for a mere half-hour at that; I wish they'd been slotted in later and for longer.

The Arches is a decent venue, intimate but not cramped, with platforms to dance on and corners to retreat to for a breather. It's pretty perfect for the night in size and layout, my only gripe being that the sound system isn't being used to full capacity. It's a shame, because Chew the Fat! is synonymous with all-encompassing bass. Particularly in room two, where the dimensions are smaller and the music is leaning towards dubstep, the sound is a little hollow. Nevertheless, I'm inspired to sway and nod my head rhythmically.

Back in the main room, I catch the rest of Speaker Junk's foot-stomping set. The atmosphere reminds me of going to urban nights on weekends back at uni, where students mixed with locals for fun, drunken dancing to solid party music . It's nice that times have evolved so that something else besides commercial dance and r&b can have the same collectively uplifting effect. There's a more laidback, less pretentious feel attached to it, and nobody cares how you're dressed.

A friend I've brought along is not sold on the frenetic nature of the night. Yes, nuanced it is not – it's hectic, in-your-face music. But that's the whole point. I admit that past a certain hour of the night, I'm more of a techno girl, but bassline is a true guilty pleasure, and one which Chew the Fat! has adequately indulged. 


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Nuria