- Quantifying the mercurial rise of a label like Numbers seems less like a task for an abacus than a supercomputer, though the hyperbole still needs to be placed in a local context. Even once you account for a capacity crowd that saw fit to subject the ever-imperiled plexiglass of the Sub Club booth to a battering that would make a Mars bar wince, the Glasgow-based collective remains some distance away from a genuine tipping point. To some degree it still feels like a secret, albeit one unbeknown only by a section of Glasgow content to seek a casual, biannual thrill at whatever big top tech house night you might care to mention.
A front row of skyward New Era caps and dark flannels presented itself for a fashion-off with Space Dimension Controller's ridiculous/amazing (delete as you see fit) leopard print tracksuit zip-top, the results of which proved largely incidental to a retrospective set of Detroit techno classics and tape-worn hardcore rave from the Belfast native, despite all the future shtick that adorns his releases. Following another clammy-palmed assault of the plexiglass perimeter upon SDC's final selection, Asia's "Heat Of The Moment," a marked shift in mood and tone rumbled outward from either side of the pulsing crimson box occupied by Pearson Sound. It's somewhat unfortunate that David Kennedy landed the slot where the migration for fags and booze is traditionally at its height, but for the sizable majority that stuck around, Kennedy's surgically precise hour of brooding, polyrythmic house and techno easily surpassed the relief that a drag or a dram might have otherwise offered.
An atypically polite Hudson Mohawke production, "Octan," soon gave way to some rather more "fucking gallous" (as one nearby spectator had put it) offerings once Jackmaster took the reins with the almost comically impassive expression of a DJ capable of relegating "Bax" to a foonote with little more than a shrug, and it's with a similar insouciance that he barrelled through a succession of club tailored hip-hop, only reserving Rustie's "Ultra Thizz" for any sort of elevated status (two rewinds seems almost customary now). As a mass of damp bodies trickled out of the doorway, conspiring together excitedly in smoke-veiled cliques, you wonder how long it'll be before Numbers becomes the only show in town.