- Basement clubs are always a safe bet. A small, dimly lit room is often the most appropriate place for people to move to hours of off-kilter, repetitive music, while the low ceilings are forgiving of a soundsystem’s flaws. The chosen venue for the first edition of Rota, named only by its street address, was one such basement. Nestled away in a darkly lit alleyway on a residential Hackney street, its obscure location and scuzzy interior seemed the ideal setting for Rezzett to debut their live set of white noise-imbued reinterpretations of jungle and hardcore.
The night’s residents, Nic Tasker and Jon Rust, should be familiar names to any regular listeners of East London station NTS Radio. Joining them on the bill were Palace Skateboards-affiliate Rory Milanese, Will Bankhead and Rezzett, the mysterious duo whose two releases on Bankhead’s imprint, The Trilogy Tapes, have combined a rough, grizzly aesthetic with absorbing depth. Arriving at midnight, I was too late for Bankhead’s early set, settling instead into cuts of sparse, analogue house courtesy of Milanese. The sequencing of his selections felt slightly odd, though, as the momentum of individual tracks jarred with one another.
Rezzett’s live set followed and was the undoubted highlight of the evening. The duo, whose identity has remained unclear, came appropriately dressed: hoods up, heads down as they fiddled with the bits of gear in front of them. There were large periods of beatless, coarse noise; the shifting washes of sound making for captivating listening. The 75 or so people in attendance were all locked in anticipation of the kick drum, which eventually appeared with a satisfying crunch.
Up next, Tasker and Rust each span sets of tough four-to-the-floor material, which developed an increasingly tunnel vision-like focus as the night went on. In the close quarters of the tight basement, it seemed the only logical thing to do after Rezzett had pitched the balance so sweetly between the energy of thickly distorted noise and the slivers of glinting melody.