- Jus-Ed has been building his reputation in Europe lately playing at Fabric and Tape Club Berlin and by pushing his unique deep house sound via his Underground Quality label. That latter fact is most likely the reason that Süd Electronic chose to pair him with Berlin's Efdemin at their latest party: The producer's latest mix, Carry On, Pretend We Are Not in the Room was inspired by early house music and he has been releasing deep house on Dial and other imprints for a few years now.
BG's—the venue for this event—was tucked away off a side street in a residential area, and attached to the side of a small pub. The space is normally an old school rum den where guys play dominoes, but for this night the small space was taken over by the Süd Electronic team who have a penchant for putting artists in intriguing spaces. In the past, they've put Move D and Lerosa in an artist's studio with working freight lift that overlooked London and Rick Wade in a neat jazz club in Dalston. BG's featured cheap wood cutout clouds hung from the ceiling of the dance floor, while the illustrations of the Jamaican flag and a bikini clad girl outside also added to the vibe.
As the doors opened, I was greeted warmly by the Süd girls passing out cardboard 3-D shades to enhance the visuals. I very quickly lost interest, though, and checked out Lakuti on the decks playing some slow druggy house which sounded warm and atmospheric on the Funktion One speakers. Lakuti worked a low BPM groove that was enjoyable, and as the hours moved forward the club filled out with a mix of arty types and music heads. I even spotted Scott Ferguson—who runs the Ferris Park label and headlined the last Süd electronic party—on the dance floor.
Rndm was up next, and he similarly started off deep and slow, but then really found his groove playing bits of the In The Streets compilation on Sascha Dive's Deep Vibes label. Throughout, Jus-Ed was taking pictures with the crowd which only added to the community spirit. He soon arrived in the DJ booth after walking around the dance floor, though, and started to drop tracks like Efdemin's "America," amid old school classics. For much of the night, it seemed like everyone knew the words to those latter tunes, and I couldn't stop smiling for the duration, especially when he played Carl Craig's remix of "Domina."
As Efdemin donned his headphones, the intimate space was spilling over capacity. Jus-Ed played a perfect set of party tracks and UQ stuff—as well as what sounded like new Levon Vincent—which is exactly what I wanted to hear. Efdemin, however, played a more stripped down set, which people enjoyed and kept dancing to, but I personally would have liked to hear deeper house gems than what he offered. Nonetheless, parties pushing an underground sound in more intimate spaces are few and far between, and this was one of the best that I attended in the past 12 months.