Black Atlantic with Levon Vincent, Anthony Naples and Galcher Lustwerk

Village Underground, London | 7 June

Having missed out on the previous Black Atlantic event at Village Underground (Ben UFO / Tama Sumo / Nick Craddock!), there was no way we were missing this one. So, keeping things relatively straight and fairly narrow at Field Day, we ventured into Shoreditch for some 100% solid techno.

Village Underground is a great venue. One room, amazing sound system, tall without being overbearing, big without feeling it. Galcher was warming the place up perfectly. Deep, dubby techno inviting the room to move. Thick, rounded kicks pinging off the brickwork and around the ever-increasing mass beneath.

Naples took over seamlessly at 1am, locking into a thrubbing techno pulse which while at first might seem at odds with the lively, melodic house with which he made his name, clearly showed a conscientious understanding of context and pacing. The pressure peaked sparingly, with Real Bad News by Bad News (aka Ron Morelli & Lee Douglas) and a bizarre track that we speculate sampled Jeff Goldblum’s wierd-as-fuck laugh from Jurassic Park (post-club research revealed it to be Don’t Laugh by Josh Wink. Not as fun but just as weird) being memorable highlights. Naples tucks away his more techno-leaning productions on the B-sides for now, but that might not necessarily be the case for too much longer.

Being deep in the pack and the DJ booth raised only slightly off the floor (definitely a good thing), it was impossible to tell whether the Joey Anderson track that thundered around the room around 3am was Anthony’s last or Levon’s first, but it really didn’t matter. LV was soon in full control, winding his signature off-kilter melodies around pummelling subby rhythms. Things remained resolutely heads-down for some time before the unmistakable NYC jack of Liz Torres’ In The City crept through the stacks. From there we dived again, until Levon’s last few records coincided with the opening of the huge skylights way up in the rafters. As light flooded the cavernous room, as pupils refused to contract, a pretty ecstatic morning makes the end to a pretty ecstatic night.

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Words: Steven Dores