With grimey bass lines rumbling out of the TBMC powerhouse speakers, you knew it only had to be Vex'd that had taken the stage. The visuals with the duo's name floating in the background certainly helped in this wonderous identifaction process as heroin laden hoover noises delivered an aural spookiness over a well up for it crowd. I'd been quite looking forward to Vex'd, their Breezeblock mix was voted mix of the year last year by the show's listeners, it being over here in zip format and their last release Degenerate and some other yoke I downloaded called Function have been sending vibrations up to the people above the flat for about a week now. They deliver the sort of set that could really go in any direction, you expect more pounding buildups or it just to kick off in a harsh DnB direction, with patient breaks clanging in the background, Vex'd were fucking, dark and dirty skagged out of it sounding shite and they were good, as punters bodies flowed in musical waves in this confused manner that asked how the fuck does a Dublin crowd dance to this? This ain't East London.

This was a very odd mashing of niches in a sense, coming in under the Leechrum banner who hosted the night for Mu/Warp, everything screamed breakcore, but it was only the Person who delivered a blistering Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole-esque Snares sort of set with gabber threats in the background in a typical vein that promoted momentary out bursts of pit behaviour. It really was odd to have him slap bang on after Vex'd, leaving it impossible for Milanese to down tempo again with some dubstep sounding like it was being strangled in an emptied oil barrel. No surprise one pocket of punters just started shouting "where's Chris Clarke?" during Milanesse. Feck sake. But you had dub step/grime/breakcore/classical warp sound seekers and fans all thrown in together under an assumed common banner of what exactly? And then left surprised when it wasn't meeting their expectations throughout the night. Breakcore no longer fits the pattern emerging at these gigs, if anything breakcore has become a handy byline for a scene that is all ears and eager to what the UK underground is churning out through trusted filters like Planet Mu and on the blogs documenting the productivity of what the estates are churning out like Guttabreakz. This umbrella effect has even being noted on forums such as Tolling Gang and U75 during the week with the question asked "is dance music dead?" before focussing on its underground regeneraton under breakcore and another with an audience left wondering is DnB the new punk? Maybe in mid 1990's, with no doubt what they were talking about hearing was breakcore.

The Person has come on huge since his Exile/Chevron in Belevedere support back there in summer, which if memory serves correctly consisted largely of metal guitars being dropped in quicky in a real rave revivalist clash of samples. Was it all original or was he dropping tunes? I missed out on getting one of the 25 cds though..pah.. I was delighted to see Vex'd live, it was very "bass culture" hoover noises rumbling in my belly- totally different to how I hear them in my ear phones as nice, quite chilled build ups but filled with a paranoid vomit inducing tension if you let it get to you. Industrial as fuck, I can only hope Autechre sound as promisingly transformed live...thump..thump...as for their label mate Chris Clark on the night? Well, with a crowd banging the stage for more at the end, what can you say? Throughout the night was given a visual edge, with banners strew across the stage's front, some mad out of it bloke who probably thought he was acting as a conduit for the crowd's delerium with charcoal strapped to him splattering out drawings on a huge sheet of paper. The 8 foot tale grim reaper reaching across the crowd with a scythe during Clark was a great touch too, and you have to beg the question of those who claimed to have missed it leering over them.

Labels: Breakcore, Dubstep, Gig Review, Vex'd