- The combined smell of artificial fog and fresh roast potatoes makes for an uncommon welcome into a rave. This, along with a few other factors, added to the curious charm of Próximo, a new party in Dalston. Given its stated aim to thread the needle between jungle, techno and general ruffneck fare, its choice of venue (a relatively fancy pub) and opening time (4 PM) seemed incongruous. But in reality, it worked well, adding to a growing congregation of London events that run day-to-night rather than vice-versa.
The party's ten-hour runtime meant I missed early sets from Próximo's Luke Handsfree, who went back-to-back with Tengui, and null+void's Kirsti. This was an understood payoff for the casual sprawl of the day, though. As a venue, The Victoria is the opposite of immersive, but this played in its favour. People spilled onto the street with drinks, free to slip in and out as they cared––a cheery informality that is rare in London. In the front, the pub's polished horseshoe bar and vaguely '50s decor belied the intensity of rumbling bass coming from the back. If stepping through a false bookshelf to reach the threadbare party space felt a touch Harry Potter, being smacked in the face with a punchy old Karizma cut was less quaint.
Minor Science was up when I arrived. Flanked by two green lasers and a red police siren, he was shrouded in such thick grey smoke that it was nearly impossible to make him out at all. He whipped through tracks at speed, cooling down every 20 minutes or so with a spot of sparse dub, before veering back into more weighty drum tracks. It was a good way to mete out energy to the 30 or 40 dancers without being overwhelming for that time of day. In a particularly inspired run, the abstract pings of Pearson Sound's "Quivver" slid fluidly into something off the recent Ténèbre record on WNCL, and then into LOFT's "I Am Bouyant."
The room had swelled by the time Lone and Konx-Om-Pax were ready to step up. They took Minor Science's cue of a breaks-y final track (his rinse-out remix of Special Request's "Stairfoot Lane Bunker") and ran with it, slamming immediately into classics by the likes of Remarc, The Dream Team and Altern8. From what I could make out through the haze, Konx-Om-Pax was playing streamlined bangers from Robert Hood and Basic Channel, while Lone was juggling the manic breakdowns and Wigan Pier piano riffs of jungle and hardcore with more fader trickery. Their transitions ocassionally reflected the slight nervous excitement that comes with trying to get through half a lifetime of Suburban Base and Moving Shadow favourites, but the crowd––at a glance, predominantly in their 30s and 40s––never stopped cheering and bouncing around.
Well, to a point. A drawback of daytime dancing from a sober start is the risk of running out of steam quickly. I bottomed out as a mood shift between afternoon casuals and punters raring for a proper Saturday night was taking place, but given the natural flow of the event, it didn't feel like a compromise. For just a few hours, Próximo was like stepping into a zone with a government decree ordering a minimum of one 2 Bad Mice tune per hour. That wasn't a bad place to be.
Photo credit /
Emily Taylor