Tama Sumo and Lakuti in Manchester

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  • Beneath Manchester's Soup Kitchen is an unforgiving space. In some ways, it's like a blank canvas. You can either energise it or not. There is no handcrafted mahogany bar. No attractive DJ booth. No glistening toilets to braid your hair or reapply your friend's lipstick. To be honest, doing anything in the toilet other than your average toilet business is not advised. But that's all part of what I love about the place. For me, it's one of the most exciting places in the city, especially for underground music. It's an important part of a scene that seems to have only really found a strong foothold in the city over the past one or two years when compared it to its Northern neighbours. Manchester's revitalisation has obviously been due to the hard work of many promoters, meandyou. among them. One of the crew's greatest assets is their roster of residents. On this night, Dan Mumberson proved this ably with one of the best sets I've seen him play. He stood behind the decks wearing a grin so wide that it made you wonder if he'd chased Alice down the rabbit hole and wound up stuck in a room full of nitrous oxide. Groups formed sporadically across the dance floor, shouting out at the top their voices as a thick fog of house music closed in on an expanding room full of stomping Northerners drunk on enthusiasm, energy and rum. When Lakuti came on at 1 AM, I was beginning to fall down the rabbit hole myself as the crowd echoed their earlier excitement by cheering at full pelt. Space at the front became limited. The mood of the music took an unmistakable change in direction, turning darker as a thumping bassline hammered home a driving mix of house and techno hybrids. The atmosphere skyrocketed for the next hour or so and hit its peak. Tamo Sumo came on soon after and continued with much of the same. Hard sounds with acute nuances weaved in around a threatening thud. There was no let up. Last year the pair played the best set I saw of the year. While this one didn't quite reach the magic of that Saturday night at Freerotation, it kept a smile carved across my face until my untimely exit at 4 AM.
RA