- Three years ago it would have been hard to claim there was much buzz in Brighton's dance music scene. The last few years, though, have seen a budding interest in house, techno and dubstep here, thanks to promoters such as Below The Line, Well Rounded and Aka Aka Roar. This last one has generated perhaps the most attention, hosting nights graced by the likes of Actress, Joy O and Kode9. Last month they welcomed Blawan for a four-hour set, supported by Metrist and Dense & Pika, with Well Rounded Records running room two.
Extended sets are becoming increasingly common for Aka Aka—they recently had Ben UFO and Paul Woolford play back-to-back all night long. With the recent resurgence of interest in the UK techno scene, it seems appropriate to break the conventions of one-to-two-hour sets in favour of lengthier performances. But while the set times may have adhered to European conventions, the crowd were happy to cling onto the majestic tropes of British club culture—football chants and monkey onesies both made appearances. I couldn't help but think the girl I overheard apprehensively shouting "Do you think he'll play 'Getting Me Down'?" to a fellow clubber was in for a shock as to how Blawan's sound has progressed over the past two years. He set the tone pretty quickly with a host of industrial stompers, including his tremor inducing "6 To 6 Lick."
Prior to Blawan's relentless four-hour performance, Hotflush's Dense & Pika took to the booth for a thundering live set, following a similar path to their recent Boiler Room performance. Their hook-heavy style of techno made a fitting opening, beginning the night with an easily accessible slant on the genre. As the venue filled up, it became clear that Life's recent relocation of its main room DJ booth has done little to address the venue's layout issues. The club is perfectly adequate for regular student nights, but when the party's sole focus becomes the DJ booth, the fact that upstairs is separated into three rooms becomes problematic, with people constantly jostling between rooms.
With room one overly packed, downstairs sadly received much less attention than it deserved. The Well Rounded team brought a priced-up record crate fresh from the store, with Donga selecting tunes available for purchase. Downstairs' proceedings provided ample relief from room one's pounding techno, with Donga using his exceptional skills to play a nicely varied set loaded with Well Rounded classics. Room two also hosted Tangent, Richta & Dom 877 mixing a variety of styles from house and techno to '92-era hardcore and dubstep under the WR banner.