Photo by Jonathan Clark
While Montreal’s club scene mostly remains the domain of muscle-shirted cretins and vapid-eyed skeezers* gorging themselves on bottle service to the rhythms of Euro-House and cheese-trance, the city has also spawned a wonderfully diverse selection of bass-music events over the past few years. Everyone has their niche from Boudah Slinky’s student-centered wobblizm to Bass Drive’s hardcore to Dig.It.Al’s blend of deep cuts and party starters to the Future Garage and Funky nights going on solid on Sundays at Blizzarts. But while “best” is totally subjective, my favorite events are undoubtedly Komodo Dubs’ parties at SAT. To be fair, they operate on a less pressing schedule than the others mentioned but the extra time allows for attention to detail. From the massive sound system to the understated visuals to the A-list DJs they bring in from England, everything about their events screams “first class”.
Even by those standards however, their April event raised the bar with a fantastically atmospheric eyes down vibe that transformed the ordinarily sterile SAT into a cross between Apocalypse Now’s USO event and the world’s darkest Reggae night. Headliner RSD whom I’ve written about at length more than killed it dropping everything from classic dubs to new material but props also go to French dub artist Mayd Hubb whose live dub manipulations set the vibe and resident DJ Hosta who ended things with a mix of massive tunes (Tron, Footcrab) and exclusive dub plates. As for the most eye-opening moment, check the above picture from Komodo’s set featuring the talents of Tomomi Morimoto: any performance that features a blindfolded dancer jumping into the crowd while swinging a Katana (not to mention Mongolian throat singing, a didgeridoo and Chinese cymbals) merits a write-up in my book. To put it bluntly: someone needs to book these guys at Low End Theory ASAP.
The crew isn’t resting on their laurels, bringing in Hyperdub artist and dub-plate engineer to the stars L.D over for his first ever North-American performance. If you’re reading this site, you’ve undoubtedly heard his stuff on Hyperdub’s 5, otherwise check the tracks below: whether it’s tribal rollers or the unenviable task of making Animal Collective palatable for bass heads, he acquits himself nicely. Definitely not a night to be missed.
* That’s right, we’re bringing skeezer back!
Download:
MP3: LD – King of Kong
MP3: Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes (LD remix)
