Numbers is a collection of labels from
Scotland, the info on the sub labels that make em up is easy to find online but these guys are the people responsible for putting out some of the best electronic music in the low swung future hip hop and bass right now.
Headlining the event was the almighty Todd 'The God' Edwards. A house music producer out of
New Jersey,
America. Now, if you were ever into UK Garage then you would of definitely been aware of Todd's cut up re sampled productions. I’ve been playing this guys records for easily over 10 years and although the detractors say that each record he makes sounds the same, there is no denying the power hidden in the sine wave sub bass and sample skills of the man.
Also on the bill was the one and only
Hudson Mo. I first got onto this guys beats through the Beat Dimensions mix CD. Not much was known about him on his own then as he was laying stuff down with Mike Slott under the
Heralds of Change moniker. After much searching around the internet I managed to get hold of
Hudsons Heeters Vol 1, a beat CD dropped around 2006. After that, to coin a phrase, 'ITS WAS ONNNNNNNNN'.
Free Mo played at loud volume can help people fly through time and the free myspace track which landed on his album
ZoOoOm had my work colleges telling me to turn my headphones down the first time I heard it.
The was also alot of activity planned for the other rooms within Fabric, room 2 was host to a dubstep/dnb event and room 3 was the launch party of Fabrics latest CD,
Elevator Music. An offshoot of dubstep,
uk garage, elements of grime and this new UK Bass music. I didn’t manage to sample these rooms which is a shame because I hear it went down in room 3.
I spent most of the evening in the pub on my own doing a spot of Anthropology. Watching chicks get drunk, a guy pump a fruit machine (no homo) and being tempted to try and talk to an old man about football but this guy looked like he was on 'the register'. All the while I had the sounds of
devonwho,
Tall Black Guy and
The Essentials in one ear. I also created the POWER snake BYTE, that was yummy and put me in good stead for the evening.
'Excuse my brother - The Mitchel Brothers'
Don't try this at home kids
Hudson was on before Todd and was doing a live show. I was at Mr Mo's first live show down at Plastic People last year and although I enjoyed standing next to the speaker when Polka Dot blues dropped, the set was pretty in cohesive and obviously he was working out the joys of Abelton. This time, Hudson nailed it. With the livley Oliver Day Soul on mic it was definitely a show! Im not a fan of laptop shows but I could tell there was work gone into this. Hudson kicked off the set with a live drum remix of ZoOoOm which was FUCKING NUTS! I don’t know how it worked but it did and I want that track! The set moved with tracks of the new album Butter but mainly concentrated on his more well known beats taken from Heeters and off the EP he dropped last year. His last show opened with a lot of soundscapes, Star Crackout from the album had been moved to near the end of the show. A beat less haunting track which you can tell Hudson enjoys. Oliver Day Soul got his chance to perform doing a great version of Bopgunn (hit em with the..), Joy Fantastic and Just Decided. Oliver bounded around the stage whilst Hudson gave it the Fly Lo esq head nodding (y'all need to go Brainfeeder to see that!). Oliver finished and Hudons dropped the Tweet - Opps bootleg which probably got the biggest reaction all night. This track BANGS. Can’t wait for him to work with some US artist and bring back the funk that Timbaland left behind.
After some room viewing and looking for the pill heads on the stairs, we headed back to Room 1 for the biblical sounds of Todd Edwards. Now, I use the word biblical because Todd is a devout Christian and quite a few of his tunes feature this message. Tracks such as Wanting Jesus with the legendary UK Garage outfit Tuff Jam, Shut The Door (Healed from Within Dub) and a whole host of other tracks. Now, the main reason for Todd Edwards being as big is he is, is down to DJ EZ. EZ has played and supported his music throughout the years and I think was the first person to actually bring him over to perform. An event I went to in Atlantis in Croydon, that was A LONG TIME AGO. Being fair, Todd isnt the best DJ in the world, in fact, I think with a bit of Ray coaching, my old dear could do better but this is his only outlet from behind the Akai S6000 so we have to give it to him. Todd doesn’t play anyone else’s music, it’s a 4x4 fest of straight Todd dubs and when it’s loud and there’s a vibe. It goes OFF! The thing with Todd Edward tracks is they are pretty hard to remember, you can’t really sing them or hum them but on hearing them, the track is instantly recognizable. I went with my mate who LOVES Todd Edwards tracks, not as much as The Britsh Vybes Council but he could easily play hours worth of Todd tracks.
Todd kicked off his set with new and exclusives of none I knew, but that didn’t matter, the whole of room one was jammmed and bumping up and down to the skippy chopped beats and that simple but effective sine wave sub bass. Todd was throwing out glow in the dark crucifixes for the crowd. Kinda like new 'age' rave. Probably freaked a few people out but at least he didn’t give a sermon this time. The new music was fun but I just wanted to go up to him and ask him to draw something from the archive. He did, and when it hit it was like a mosh pit! He drew for the pirate classic, As I Am (dance on pants is what we used to sing). Everyone went nuts to it and that was the hi light of the set, he even wheeled it. He moved into some other exclusives, a Craig David - What’s Your Flava dub that I’ve NEVER heard and a special track dedicated to the people of London which was banging. Was a good set by the man but would never touch the EZ and Todd sets from back in the day.
After all this I was wrecked and cut out. Was a good night held by The Numbers lot and expect good things for the future. It’s also good so see people actually taking notice of UK Garage now.
A very influential genre of music.
Brokenhomes baby
