GIG REVIEW: Sasha at Matter
- Posted on October 6, 2008 6:10 PM
- 0 comments
Sasha
Matter, September 27th
Review by Max Hogg
If you were going to design a club from scratch, in one of the most iconic, controversial and inconveniently situated buildings in London, how would you do it? If you’re AEG, the owners of the dome, the answer is obvious. Turn it over to the people behind Fabric, the only (?!) half decent club left in the city, and throw at it the sort of money that is usually reserved for bailing out failing capitalist economies. What could possibly go wrong?
The toilets, that’s what. Well, not so much the toilets themselves, but the unreasonably narrow and totally gridlocked staircase that is situated between them and the dance floor. Plus the fact that the sinks only spew out hot water, a naked ploy to make us buy more water from the bar rather than refilling bottles. Grrr…
Why am I focusing on the toilets? Because, to be honest, that’s the only thing I could find that is remotely wrong about Matter. Let me explain.
The refreshingly speedy queue to get in at peak time (12.30am) was made that much more bearable by the professional, polite and friendly security. Yes you did read last sentence right. (Ministry of Sound are you listening?)
All the usual little niggles that annoy you at the start of a night were absent: no heavy searches, no overpriced cloakroom (a pound an item), and reasonable drinks prices.
The club design is faultless (bar the toilets!) It must have been tempting to overcomplicate things, to make the place a glitzy showpiece that would fulfil AEG’s aim of providing “the Ultimate Fan Experience”. Luckily, the Fabric lot knew better. The industrial feel of bare concrete walls and exposed air conditioning helped to offset the over-the-top technical wizardry of a bodysonic floor so powerful it made one of us ill and visuals that really ought to be confined to Imax cinemas.
One of my favourite touches is the awe-inspiring exposed bank of flashing amps up high on the back wall. No doubt the designers put them there to be worshipped by the revellers below. The surroundings help too; about 4.30 am Dom, a fellow punter we met on the night, turned to me with a gleam in his eye, shouting, “We’re in the f**king Millennium Dome!” Quite.
And what about DJ Sasha?!
All reviews are subjective, and this one especially so. I worship the man. I’ve tried to put this aside and write an objective review, but after half an hour of rewriting this paragraph I’m admitting defeat. As Marko said on the way home, “Every year you hear him and it seems as if he’s right at the peak of his game…until the next year he changes direction and pulls out a set that blows away all of his previous ones.” This was one such set and after experiencing it, any attempt at objectivity is utterly futile.
Sasha has certainly changed direction in recent months. As minimal has spread like a pandemic through the clubs, his sets have got a lot harder, more techno than trance. This culminated in an Invol2ver launch party in Ministry of Sound last month which we found cold, lacking in his usual complexity and impossible to get into. Tonight was a very welcome contrast.
The set was still fairly hard techno; the old Sasha of lush ambient soundscapes and hour-long euphoric build-ups seems gone forever. But he overlaid minimal-style beats with an incredibly complex myriad of synths, melodies and vocals. Although I can’t think of a single low point in the 4 ½ hour set, the clear highlight, perhaps unsurprisingly, was his Invol2ver remix of Ladytron’s ‘Destroy Everything You Touch’. It’s already a stone-cold classic, and set the club alight.
Actually I lie. The highlight of the night came after the lights went up and we’d been thrown out by security (very gently, of course). Sitting on a Thames Clipper boat watching the sunrise over the river with a swathe of fellow punters and mercifully easy access to the toilets, we came to a bold conclusion: we’re not going clubbing again unless you can get a boat home.
Matter, I guess that means our hopes are pinned on you…keep up the good work!
Related Links
Buy concert tickets
Sasha's official site.
Matter's official site.
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