The Nothing Special in London

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    Jul 22, 2010
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  • What would London look like without fabric? It's a question that's vexed many in RA's world, and caused much consternation amongst the clubbers of the English capital. It would be without what is quite possibly the best soundsystem in the world, for one. And to lose those labyrinthine arches to some corporate entertainment group, or (God forbid) a bowling alley? You can't say the city would be better for that. Yes, it's only a nightclub, but at the moment London needs an anchor point of quality and musical integrity that doesn't genuflect immediately to the guy that holds the cheque book. Say what you will about the tourists, the touchy-feely guys, the crush and the cloak-room queues, if fabric had disappeared, you'd mourn the passing of an institution that sets agendas. Photo credit: Nick Ensing Business as usual was the battle cry among everyone involved with the club, however. And, as if to prove the point, Craig Richards' recent The Nothing Special showcased a group of artists that are uniquely complementary, on a night that kept you shuffling from room one to room two, via room three. With a line-up that would have shamed a dance tent at a festival, Shackleton vied for attention with Dettmann. Pole held out against Martyn, and Shed nearly overloaded the bass-drivers in room two. And that in no way should diminish Nina Kraviz, who played a set that fluidly transferred between Underground Quality-esque house and classic techno in room three, followed by Terry Francis with a set that was both charged and subtle, playing on a system that now makes it a destination room in its own right. (Oh, and of course the inimitable Richards, who pretty much without him, none of this would have happened.) Earlier in the evening, following a slightly slow start, Pole surprised in room one with a live set that tested the limits of the Martin Audio equipment and packed more into an hour-and-a-half set than could ever have been expected. From the subtle to the sublime via the chest-crushingly heavy—every corner of his music was explored. Shed generated sounds that my hearing range struggled to cope with, but my body patently understood: His live set was heavily bass-driven, low-frequency and drivingly raw in that rectangle of a brick-room, and he built the anticipation up to a thunderously hanging crescendo before Marcel Dettmann took over. Photo credit: Nick Ensing Edging into his performance with an ambient, beatless intro, Dettmann played an uncharacteristically diverse set that at times bore more resemblance to Klock's slightly more musical sound than Dettmann's usual minimal purity. Nonetheless, I stayed in room two transfixed until the small hours of Sunday morning. At some point in the night, I dropped into room one to catch a little of Shackleton. The scene (and sound) was something I hadn't seen in fabric on a Saturday night: The dance floor resembled a mosh pit, with bouncing torsos and heads colliding to what could only be described as a cross between hard techno and dubstep. At least that's what I think I heard. Intense. But I left, feeling the pull of the 4/4 in room two, and thanked whoever is to be thanked for the fact that I still lived in a city where I had the choice between Shackleton and Dettmann in one building on a Saturday night.
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