- Snap, Crackle & Pop have come a long way since they first emerged in 2008's electro house era. Their debut party featured Mancunian Ed Banger artist Vicarious Bliss, and there were also flirtations with the Dirtybird sound. Now they stand alongside Left Alone, Body Motion and Wild Combination as some of the more interesting, open-minded promoters in London. In the next few months, Inga Mauer, Vladimir Ivkovic, Ivan Smagghe, Dollkraut and local heroes Jon Rust and Elena Colombi will play SC&P events at venues across Hackney and Stoke Newington.
SC&P's ninth birthday went down on Saturday night at MOTH Club, a refurbished veterans members club with a cigarette-stained charm similar to Bethnal Green Working Man's Club. (Key difference: MOTH has more glitter on the ceiling.) The sound, unfortunately, was bad enough that it's hard to say if SC&P should continue to use the venue. Still, spirits were high on Saturday as people let loose to the sounds of Karen Gwyer, Avalon Emerson and Lena Willikens.
Shortly before Gwyer started, people sat parked in the booths surrounding the empty dance floor as intrusive red and blue lighting cut through the dimness. Stepping onstage in an Ol' Dirty Bastard T-shirt, Gwyer launched straight into techno and maintained a take-no-prisoners approach throughout her set. The now-packed dance floor greedily lapped it up. Down the front, a curly-haired gent danced alone from start to finish, pumping his fist with a look of fixed concentration.
Avalon Emerson, who began with an edit of The Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds," proved an impressive DJ, even if her selections over-exerted the system. It was sometimes hard to discern tracks beyond the saturated thrum of the bass and drums, though the inventive break from Objekt's upcoming "Theme From Q" sounded great.
Lena Willikens had a better handle of the system's shortcomings—maybe because her selections were more slippery than thumping. Aside from "Something About The Groove," a new collaboration from Spoko, Elbee Bad and Matias Aguayo, there was little I recognised. But what really impressed me was how confidently and expertly she shifted between house, techno, EBM and whatever else. As I walked home through a quiet Hackney, it occurred to me that Willikens is now one of those DJs that you must see whenever they come to town.