Primetime Saturday night in the Valley, and the Moonbar was playing host to theJunglettes versus Shifty. It was a night featuring all styles to suit all tastes and certainly delivered a varied mix of old school beats and more current face-melting bass.De la Haye and Syntax were first up battling between early hip hop and the relatively recent, so there was a healthy mix of everything from O.P.P. to ODB. Of course no night of hip hop on display would be complete without Paid In Full getting its turn, and if there had have been more than a few people on the floor, it would have undoubtedly got them moving.
Sadly though, it was taking a while for people to be drawn away from the middle bar and make it to the top floor and so far the bass emanating from downstairs was at times more pronounced than what was pumping out Moonbar’s speakers. For the last half an hour or so the pace was changed as the hip hop gave way to a more dubstep feel, and some of the people who’d been loitering around the fringes edged closer and began to breathe a bit of life into the floor.
Chancing upon this, and with de la Haye nowehere to be seen, Syntax gave way to Dr Dom & Phylum who immediately set upon the crowd with a striking DnB assault onRadiohead’s Creep. The heavy bass and the thick beat of the hardcore rhythm somehow married perfectly with the vocals and really lifted the remix beyond your average DnB track. It certainly inspired a few hands in the air, and more were sure to follow.
It was looking like the packed floor would be there for the night, but the numbers seemed to inexplicably fluctuate, with one minute there being a sea of bodies, and then ten minutes later the floor had the look of closing time with a few stragglers drunkenly bopping as best they could to the beat.
Despite of this, or perhaps because of it, the duo determinedly refused to relent the hardcore pace and only did so to introduce another nice DnB reworking of a recognisable track. They turned their hand to the biggest track for Pharoahe MonchSimon Says, and gave it driven and nicely craft DnB edge, with Monch’s lyrics being amplified by the deep bass. The numbers on the dancefloor had fluctuated in the negative when they blasted out the highlight of their set, namely one of the biggest tracks of 1996, Ready Or Not by you-know-who.
Justus kept the momentum going, and like everyone before him, enjoyed periods of a crammed dancefloor to a dearth of souls reluctant to move their feet to the beats on offer. Following on from his predecessors, Justus threaded some soulful hip hop throughout his set that poured a nice mix of DnB and dubstep into the set, with No Diggity a notable highlight of his hour in the spotlight. He soldiered on and put in a solid hour of some great tunes, accompanied by, it should be mentioned, some great visuals by Dilate that distracted from the frustratingly low turnout.
At 2am it was the turn of Cutloose and he was definitely the highlight of the whole night. Breaking out some of the deepest, darkest dubstep he could find, Cutloose planned to use his hour as fully as possible. Going berserk behind the turntables, he showed off a hefty mixed bag of floor-shakingly loud breaks-laden beats to booming funky electro dubstep.
If the whole night had had the kind of energy that the aptly named Cutloose showed, the people who had come to the floor to pack it out the first time, probably wouldn’t have left. It is always a pleasure to see DJs who take great pleasure in what they do, and the fact that Cutloose had the kind of attitude to his set when the room was hardly bouncing means that his professional approach towards his music means that he’ll go far. He already is, with some dates in California and Vegas over the coming months. Before he sets off for the States he has a few more dates lined up in Brisbane so catch him before he becomes too big for his home city.
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