- Sitting at the foot of the Victoria line, Brixton is a thriving musical hub that's home to a number of venues and clubs. Plan B is arguably the cream of the crop, with a diverse music policy and decent facilities. Leeds-based outfit Louche and the Red Bull Music Academy have formed an impressive allegiance there of late. This time the party featured Ame, Andres, Roman Fluegel, San Soda and Amir Alexander.
With such an appetising bill, the night was to some extent the victim of its own popularity. Plan B struggled to comfortably accommodate everyone, leaving many disgruntled folk desperate for just a little space to dance. The more intimate downstairs room suffered especially (the cloakroom queue and the dance floor chaotically merged), but it hosted the finest performance of the night. Chicago's Amir Alexander was at his very best. He stayed loyal to his deep American house sound, but his record bag was by no means homogenous: Fumiya Tanaka's ""I Can Tell You of Course I Know it Was" on Perlon showed his ability to catch his audience off guard.
Upstairs, Andres was in command of the main space. He willfully indulged his more expectant fans, particularly by closing his set with the unforgettable strings of his 2012 hit "New for U." Despite the crowd-pleasers, his set was a little underwhelming and perhaps too reliant on his own material to be truly engaging. Ame, represented by Kristian Beyer (the DJ half of the Innervisions duo), took over around 2:30 AM and delivered a varied but coherent two-hour set. Like Alexander, he kept everyone on their toes with the occasional curveball, such as Simian Mobile Disco's "Breaking Time."
Roman Fluegel closed the night slightly later than planned, but he did so in some style. Packed with records that reflected his own style as a producer, his set was a luscious tapestry of the house flavours he's explored throughout his expansive history in the scene. Levon Vincent's gargantuan "???" and Genius of Time's "Tuffa Trummor Med Synt" were the pick of the bunch, rounding off an elegant and sophisticated mix that rewarded those still up for it beyond the allotted 6 AM finish.