Rolling into a club with a very empty bag of expectations is more often than not the best way to land in the midst of a stomp ground. If the end result falls in the scale of utter garbage to just alright, it's no real loss. But, if it falls in the region of good-to-stonkingly excellent, then that's some gain to bounce off with, and it's one I had this morning after a sampling of new Sankeys night, Shelter. I was familiar with Tiga's name from way back when, in the release of 2001 hit Sunglasses at Night and had seen the Canadian native trigger the tempo once, years ago. But that was as much as my knowledge stretched for this one, so I walked in with a near blank canvas ready for a potentially rabid ambush.
Arriving in the no frills basement with British bred Artwork nearing the close of his set before Tiga took on the system, I was near enough instantly thinking “alright, alright. Could be in for some tonight.” It was a first impression which thankfully saw me through the whole night as it was well and truly bangin'. Tiga slapped on his first carnivorous airwave molester with just a bit of a roar, soundsystem transferring the knee quakers right through my throat. His playground – the basement – drew the biggest crowd as the night's young dem music heads lapped up his bevvy load of hard hitters.
As Tiga continued on his sonic rampage, I checked out the rest of Sankeys' chambers. The Spektrum was understandably less decked out with bodies on this new night on the season roster but faces were happy and if you were seeking a sweat cool down, the tracklists from Felon and Kydus which later beasted out Traumer's Hoodlum was more than satisfying. Through in the LAB in the kitty Kingdom Suara takedown, Spanish Valencian Edu Imbernon was fiendishly testing the spectrum of the soundsystem with a strong package which tread the tempos from an early journey through the progressively layered and atmospheric exotic eastern sounds of Cobblestone Jazz's India In Me.
Back through in the darkened red lit basement, Swedish skillsman, Jonas Rathsman held the busiest of the camps. He crashed in with a head rocker of a set which included Oxia's near decade old stormer Domino with its building oscillating melodic tonal build ups relenting for crowd energising releases. By 5.30, Sankeys was on a wind down, the basement was still a good level of busy but through in kitty's purring paradise, numbers had dwindled to a finer number as Olivier Giacomotto took Shelter through to shut down. For me, the Frenchman who has been on the scene for over a decade was also excellent and from catching a quick chinwag with the other revelers that stayed for a sampling of his tech-house juicers, which included Danny Daze's fresh out the box kick thumped rolling crasher, Ready2Go, he impressed and would definitely draw me back.
I went in with an empty bag of expectations and came out on the other side with a full truck load of aural pleasure. Result. This one is worth a peeping Tom peek.
WORDS | Aimee Lawrence PHOTOGRAPHY | Luke Dyson
