- "Compared to Glasgow and Edinburgh, promoting in London is a different ball game," said one of the Notsosilent promotion team on the terrace of the classy Madison restaurant and bar, with St Paul's Cathedral and The City sprawling behind him. "The market here is so saturated." Notsosilent's summer run of rooftop parties is the Scottish crew's introduction to London, and vice versa, before they set up permanently in the capital for a series of monthly events. The business of putting on parties is always full of unexpected complications, and to add British weather into the equation is daring. But this time it paid off: the sun mostly stayed out, and worked nicely with Maurice Fulton's lush selections of disco, R&B and deep house.
Fulton is a disco DJ of high regard, and he's also known for staying out of the public eye. On Sunday, both of these aspects of his reputation were apparent. Almost everyone was outside on the terrace when his set began, but he'd requested to play inside, with a buffer zone around him that no one could enter. He spent the first couple of hours relaxing on a couch with a drink and going outside to smoke, returning to the decks briefly to mix in each next record, which he did quickly and flawlessly every time. Earlier in the afternoon, he was playing breezy, soulful vocal tracks like Howard Johnson's "So Fine," Gwen Guthrie's "It Should Have Been You" and Roy Ayers' "Don't Stop The Feeling." The venue was full from the beginning of his set, with the periodic drops of funk bass drawing cheers as the sun beat down gently.
There were waves of more solid, 4/4 tracks, followed by periods of soulful disco. As the afternoon went on, momentum gradually built. Gutsier cuts like "Useless" by Kym Mazelle and "Bostich" by Yello gave the party a nice peak, helped along by the way Fulton worked the faders and EQ. The market may be saturated, but judging by the setting, booking and the general vibe of this event, we can expect Notsosilent to bring something fresh to the big smoke.