- The 12 AM closure of the over-priced glamour bars that dominate Sydney's CBD always sees hordes of well-dressed aspirants surge towards the nightclubs. As a blessing and a curse, Chinese Laundry's reputation sees these aforementioned patrons flock to its doors. As they stride in, brows furrowed, they glanced towards the DJ. "What is this?" one confused bar-hopper poses to his friend. The friend shrugs. Well, I'll be happy to solve your mystery, gentlemen. Welcome to the jungle.
Tonight Hospital Records was taking over the club with headline acts Nu:Tone and MC LowQui representing for the night. As I arrived, one of Sydney's brightest drum & bass talents, Royalston was in full swing. Having dropped his debut release on Med School Music, a Hospital Records sister label, last year, he was a no-brainer for the support slot and his swag of tunes had the early crowd hyped. It was a dark and heavy ride for the most part. Tracks like DJ Fresh's "The Gatekeeper" and Loadsta's "Link to the Past" received massive love from the dance floor, but it was his own productions that doled out the most punishment on the Chinese Laundry speakers. The biggest reaction came when he dropped his remix of Australian indie-electro act Art vs. Science's radio friendly "Magic Fountain." It was a hard set (there was even a mini mosh pit at one point) and probably not suited as a warm-up for the funkier sounds of Nu:Tone, but given Royalston's production style, he stayed true to his sound which shouldn't be held against him.
Photo credit: Joel 'Milky T' English
By the time 1 AM had rolled around, the suits had either given up and gone home, or resigned themselves to the fact that there was no Deadmau5 playing tonight. It was lucky for them that the DJs in the second room were holding "Dubstep 101" classes, dropping every known hit under the sun like "Sweet Shop" from Doctor P, and Flux Pavilion's beastly remix of Freestyler's "Cracks," which kept the casual punters happy. Back in the crowded main room, it was Nu:Tone's turn behind the decks. Starting with his own track "Broken," he took the tempo and vibe down a few notches and rebuilt things from there. Old school rave breaks and jungle could be heard in the early going, as well as tracks from his brother, Logistics and long-time friends Commix.
The eclectic tastes and varying tempos Nu:Tone is known for were distinctly missing for the most part. But that's not to say that I was disappointed. Scaling jazzy heights on some tracks, while delivering uplifting vocals on others (these predominantly being from his latest LP Words and Pictures, including the soulful "Coming Back") Nu:Tone kept the energy rolling. At times, too much so. There was more than one occasion that Nu:Tone and LowQui had to stop the surging crowd from bumping the turntables, especially noticeable during a fantastic drum & bass rework of James Blake's "Limit to Your Love."
But with the help of the admirably understated LowQui—who eventually had to MC in front of the stage to keep the punters from making the needles skip—Nu:Tone got things done. He finished with some deep and funky rollers that included a cheeky bootleg of Cassius's "Feeling for You" and culminated with his own rework of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." As soon as the closers Linken and Vertigo belted the crowd with a Sub-Focus record, I took my cue to exit, leaving it in the capable hands of the few hundred junglists left on the dance floor.