RBMA Presents… Scientist VS The Upsetters W/ Pinch, Mala & SGT Pokes and Loefah

Fabric on a Thursday: no queue, relaxed, smiling bouncers and specially curated line-ups that slot neatly into the club’s surprisingly intimate main room...

Responsible for the programming this time is Red Bull Music Academy (in association with Tectonic) who are celebrating the release of Scientist Launches Dubstep into Outer Space, a two-CD set that presents 12 dubstep productions by crucial heads such as Shackleton, Kode 9 & Space Ape and Guido alongside 12 reinterpretations by dub legend and King Tubby protégé, Scientist. It’s an incredible project that has produced impressive results, also sparking a 7 date UK tour of which London was the first.

What’s most refreshing about visiting Fabric mid-week is that there’s space to dance. Stepping out onto the club’s trademark, rumbling dance-floor during the first set of the night, its remarkable how much room there is in which to manoeuvre. Granted, 11pm isn’t exactly peak time, but with dubstep recently becoming a focal point for hyped-up mosh pits, it’s nice to be amongst a crowd free of cheap chemicals and amped testosterone.

But maybe that’s more to do with who’s in the booth: Pinch, Tectonic boss and purveyor of heavyweight, deep, rolling, cuts. During his opening hour and a half, it’s clear that, although dubstep has now reached a wide audience, there is still no uniform interpretation of the sound. People are still unsure of just how to court it, so they move in whatever way they feel right: eyes down with slow sways of the head or brawny, muscular skanking or shuffling shoulders and feet or excited gun-fingers pointed toward the ceiling... The records that Pinch plays emit the type of vibration that made, and still makes it such an exciting style of music. That mesmerizing blend of valve driven bass, dub techno, two-step and stoned funk.

Scientist follows and, in turn, the performance takes a little while to get going. He’s appearing on this tour with The Upsetters, Lee Perry’s legendary house band, who play classic riddims on-stage while he controls the mixing board and dub effects. The band’s keyboard isn’t working (it insists on emitting a thundering cloud of mangled chords whenever pressed) and everybody involved takes a while to get used to the fact that the main man is hidden out of sight, stood over the desk at the back, but by the third song the chemistry clicks and the energy starts to flow.

The band move through Scientist’s Dance of the Vampires and The Corpse Rises, hit Dennis Brown’s No Man is an Island and peak with Horace Andy’s Money Money before ending with Exodus, a neat set that brought that familiar, warm, rootikal atmosphere to a London nightclub in the depths of November. A shame they didn’t play for longer, but a joy nonetheless. A contextualised history lesson and legend in the flesh.

As soon as the musicians vacated the stage, it was all downhill. Mala stepped up with trusty mic man Sgt. Pokes and proceeded to wow the dance. With his constant ‘meditate on bass weight’ mantra, cult DMZ clubnight and celebrated back catalogue, Mala’s performances are becoming ever more religious. He operates in a style that switches between on-point, blended mixes and quick, unforgiving, dancehall style cross-fader cuts. You never know what’s coming. He drops tunes out of nowhere, almost recklessly. Alongside Sgt Pokes, the pair whip up a house-party vibe; good music, good, nigh on epiphanic, times.

With the morning fast approaching and the club’s acid-green ‘n crazed lazers in full effect, Loefah steps up and flings his new brand of 4x4 house-not-house through the speakers. A strange, unexpected and irresistible blend of UK funky, dubstep and acid house, the DJ/producer who sculpted the unforgiving half-step bomb Disko Rekkah now offers a strand of London bass music that absolutely bangs. His selection is crisp and relentless, making it hard to leave the dance-floor in search of a night bus and the subsequent week-day reality that the journey home will usher in.