- At the time I started regular clubbing in Sydney 13 years ago, when you went to hear underground music it was often in small, single-roomed venues, with low ceilings and a minimum of opulence. A handful of people would be enough to get a dance floor moving, and there was a sense of illicit abandon about proceedings.
I felt more than a little of that vibe at Co-Op's 3rd birthday celebrations in the recently opened, below street level venue, One22. The Co-Op crew are perhaps best known for contributing the disco-oriented upper deck at the large-scale Pulse/Agwa boat parties, but here they could throw something in an intimate space better suited to the music. We were treated to two significant international talents at very close quarters.
The first, Bill Brewster, is not just an accomplished crate digger and DJ in his own right, but also a leading intellectual of dance music, having co-authored the seminal history of mixology Last Night a DJ Saved My Life. His set showed the same historical and emotional rigour you can expect from his writing, as well as the same ability to synthesise a wide sweep of music's past into a coherent narrative. Starting with the cream of obscure Italo (Funky Family's "Funky Is On," Easy Going's "Do It Again") he also veered into upbeat nu-disco (the Todd Terje mix of Bepu N'Gali, Faze Action's amazing "Hypnotic," Locussolus), proto-house classics ("Koro Koro"), straight up boogie (from Black Ivory) and a slew of not-forgotten killer house from the 1990s and early 2000s (Instant House's "Awade," Tiefschwarz's "Acid Soul" and finishing with Heller & Farley's "Tweakin"), as well as a smattering of more modern fare. Of course Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" was also there, provoking eruptions of melancholy-tinged dance floor abandon.
San Soda, less than half Brewster's age, showed a similar love for the best of the past. Not only did he play almost exclusively from vinyl, his brand of tuneage had a timeless feel about it—reflecting the way that the '90s is playing a role in currently shaping house music. He dropped Ron Trent's "Sometimes I Feel Like" alongside Justin Martin's "Sad Piano," and KiNK & Neville Watson rework of Donnacha Costello only to wrap us all in the sweet melodic embrace of Romboy's mix of "Love's Got Me High." When he played Sneak's "Show Me the Way" it seemed like confirmation that—for one night at least—we had been transported back to an earlier time, but only in the way that the past can make the present seem more immediate.