- As a producer, Omar McCutcheon, AKA Batu, has risen rapidly from relative obscurity to become a highly regarded figure in UK club music. As well as putting out EPs on Dnuos Ytivil and Beneath's Mistry, he runs the Timedance label and party series. The final Timedance event of the year went down on Saturday at The Island, Bristol's intimate and forbidding underground prison cell complex. UntilMyHeartStops cofounder Leif had the run of the decks for three hours, before local heroes Pev and Kowton performed the UK debut of their live show.
The Island was slow to fill up compared to recent sessions, though the roomy dance floor made it easier to connect with the more delicate, fractured sounds that Leif opened with. Broken beats have become his calling card—from pitched-down jungle to quirky electro to abstract techno—bound together by a penchant for ethereal atmospheres that you can trace all the way back to his microhouse days a decade ago.
The Welshman had ample time to shift gears. As the dark basement filled with bodies, he began edging some harder bass tones into the mix, then went straight-up techno. It was like he was playing in mainland Europe, where longer sets are the norm and keeping energy levels high is paramount. (Later, he admitted that this switch in style was rare for him.) Either way, the tougher material still sounded lithe and limber in his hands. Such is Leif's imaginative approach to selection: he manages to avoid monotony while displaying an acute understanding for what works on a dance floor.
Pev and Kowton's only other live performance was earlier this year at Dekmantel. Their setup was leaner than the heavyweight rig used for the Livity Sound shows, but that didn't seem to affect the physical presence of their output. The soundsystem had sounded more than adequate throughout Leif's set; when Pev and Kowton triggered their first bassline, the blast of wind that leapt from the stacks was staggering.
There were plenty of familiar tracks from the pair's respective catalogues, which were worked into a heavy techno pulse that acted as a counterpoint to the more jagged rhythms. This push and pull (reflective of Pev and Kowton's respective outputs these days) kept the vibe lively right through until close. There was the odd mistake, though that only added to the tense atmosphere. And anyway, since when did taking the easy, error-free route yield the best results? This spirit has characterised a lot of the fantastic music and parties that have come out of Bristol over the years—a tradition that Batu and Timedance now very much belong to.
Photo credit /
Alex Digard