- Plastic People is one of those London venues that never quite delivers as much as its hype promises. It's a dingy basement with a good sound system, no lights and not much else. With the Spartan surroundings, the emphasis is all on the quality that fills it—and when this is off the boil, like a white sofa, it shows up the dirty marks.
Photo credit: Nick Ensing
Luckily for Warm, quality isn't much of an issue. Showcasing DJs they love—and represent as part of the Warm agency—the nights they've held at the space so far have proved well thought-out, and busy. (Too busy, if Friday's event was anything to go by.) Deep, slow-grind house and disco is brilliantly suited to a dark room, with a low ceiling and a fat sound system. It's the perfect setting to give this sound, and its followers, the space it needs to breathe, and dance. Sadly, when the space is chocka, the music sounds fuzzy, there's barely space to move, let alone dance, and all those great bookings count for very little.
Warm got busy early on with Gerd Janson and Mark E jamming back-to-back sorta (each would take about a half-hour) pulling laidback disco and pitched down house out of the bag for a nicely paced chug. Move D took the middle slot and played it well with the same kind of deep house his productions boast. Alongside some homegrown productions that rattled the Funktion 1 to its roots, highlights included Murk's "Reach for Me" and Motorcitysoul's rumbling "Feel the Love." It was elbow-to-cheek on the dance floor, possibly with a few too many stumbling Friday night drunks, both of which curtailed any serious shuffling, sadly.
Photo credit: Nick Ensing
Next up for Warm, a whole night of the Horsemeat Disco boys—and no doubt this one will be just as sweaty. A victim of its own success already? Maybe Warm should change it's Friday night name to Hot...