Crack

Getting BLOC festival to curate a night at Motion as part of the In:Motion season was always going to guarantee a solid line up.

Despite the main room being shut and Green Velvet having to cancel due to a family bereavement, the roster of artists that appear on tonight’s bill is still enough to have any self-respecting tech-head’s mouth salivating.

Across the two rooms BLOC have skilfully combined the techno and house styling of some world renowned artists, intermingled with enough home grown talent to give the party a real Bristolian grounding. This is definitely reflected in the knowledgeable audience that means this is a full party when the lights come on at 6am.

If any convincing was needed that The Tunnel room is the best place in Bristol to watch house and techno music, tonight should dispel any doubters. Between Claude Von Stroke and Andrew Weatherall the space has never been in safer hands and while Mr Von Stroke’s quality productions have been strangely absent in times of late, his Dirtybird records imprint has more than enough quality at its disposal to make any dance floor ignite.

Tonight’s spoils are not won by room one. The Applepips sponsored showcase in room two provides Crack with such a rich vein of future dance music, it’s hard not to be enamoured. Between four hours of Scuba, Ramadanman, Julio Bashmore and Appleblim, Crack is treated to a plethora of advanced sounding tracks that fill in that rather grey area to the left of the dubstep genre.

It’s often difficult to resist the temptation to stick with reliability. That’s why shit clubs in any major settlement will continue to prosper. They offer a formula the small-minded cannot resist. This mainly involves girls and alcohol. While the BLOC launch party cannot be compared to this is any way at a much higher plain, it’s certainly why Crack spends four hours in room two enjoying house and techno sounds of the aforementioned artists. Their take on the genre is some of the most multi-faceted to emerge in sometime. From the two-step influenced house and dub sounds of Ramadanman, to the deep dubby techno of Scuba, this room offers a great taste of the future diversification of the genre.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing is the instantly distinguishable camaraderie between all the performers in room two who gather around for the last two hours and indulge in some tune plugging for various artists and an open decks policy. Holding a strong crowd right until the end, tonight is a victory for all the artists on the bill. Despite not shifting as many tickets as they may have liked, the intimate surroundings of the small room in Motion and the committed crowd make this a victory of sorts for those who like their music the right side of underground.



http://www.bristolinmotion.com/

http://www.blocweekend.com/

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