Swerve

Went to the Swerve party at The End nightclub last night. This is a drum & bass party organized by Fabio, one of the leading drum & bass DJs since day one who also has a BBC Radio 1 programme. The theme of the party is smooth drum & bass, in other words, liquid funk.

It's always interesting to see how the guest DJ responds to this concept of the party. Even DJs known for their hard, dancefloor-smashing style play a bit different set than usual. This kind of tension - creative people faced by some constraints in what they can do - sometimes creates a marvelous thing. (If you think DJs are not creative, you're absolutely wrong.)

Tonight's guest DJ was Bailey. He began with a series of liquid funk tunes, which is not his usual style. But he still tore the floor down. As the previous warm-up DJ was terrible at mixining tunes, his skill was in stark contrast. It kept me, and all clubbers in the floor, dancing.

Then he moved on to noisy-but-cosy style (I make up this phrase) - fast beats with slow melody and bass line. I love this style of music. Now I was just standing listening deep into music. It washed my mind away.

It was already fantastic, but Bailey didn't stop there. In the last 20 minutes or so, he revealed his own style, almost leaving the audience behind. The style got harder and the rhythm got totaly unexpectable. Different, irregular rhythms cross over each other, creating a totaly wicked vibe. Yeah, that should have been what drum & bass was all about. Complicated, unexpected, but still danceable. The current drum & bass scene tends to forget this. I couldn't resist dancing madly. There were a few people who understood this, dancing hard to this style of music. That was an amazing moment.

Bailey was too good to appreciate Fabio taking over tonight. Usually, I feel somehow relieved when Fabio takes over at this party, because his set is what attracts me to this party. But tonight, Bailey was too wicked, making Fabio less impressive. So I left the venue before 3am, when the party would be over.

I love drum & bass. It's one of the few, very few things that completely please and satisfy me. It's an increasingly scary thought that I will leave London in a couple of year's time. It's very hard to find a decent drum & bass party outside London...

P.S. I deleted the previous post. Thanks a lot for your comments and encouragements, Mir and Ikem. I appreciate this. I feel pretty much fine now thanks to this drum & bass party. :)