- Join The Dots have built a healthy reputation for putting on events that push both the visual and the musical elements of their label. For their latest outing, they secured a venue that doubles as a basement photographic space during the day. The outfit's chosen guest for the night, Raphael Ripperton, has continued to build his reputation as one of Europe's most prominent house artists in recent years, buoyed by a fine artist album, Niwa, and strong releases on labels like liebe*detail and Rekids. In support on the night were Namedrop, Duffstep, Loose Fit and Helen S, all of them Join The Dots residents.
Ripperton has appeared sporadically in the UK at nights like Buzzin' Fly, but less so at the kind of impromptu warehouse shindigs that Join The Dots specialize in. The two large rooms of the venue had been well prepared for the event, one kitted out with a healthy Funktion One rig, the other housing an art installation called Colour Theory from Join The Dots' resident artist Layla Zamir. The main room had also benefitted from some visual embellishment, made up of white squares that protruded from the back wall and forming 20-odd concentric screens onto which the visuals were projected. Walking into the venue, it was clear that a lot of time and effort had gone into the production and preparation. Namedrop did a great job of warming up the crowd as they assembled, dropping progressively slower tracks that drew cheers from the audience. The Loose Fit live show was a high-energy affair that might have worked better later on in the night, but set the stage well for Ripperton's appearance nevertheless.
Ripperton's experience shone through in his set, which walked a fine line between the tougher basslines of his recent Loose Joints remix, and the more melodic sounds of tracks like Robert Owens' "I'll Be Your Friend" and the recent Arto Mwambe remix of "Better" by Vladrina on Pets. A few unexpected technical glitches contrived to break up the later sets somewhat, a surprise given the thought that had gone into setting up the venue. The soundcard that was being used during Duffstep's repeatedly cut out, meaning that the sound stopped for a minute or so at a time on a number of occasions, while, later on during Helen S's set, the monitors cut out periodically. The atmosphere didn't dwindle, though, and Helen S finished the party with an excellent techno selection, including the final track of the night, Underground Resistance's anthem "Knights of the Jaguar."