Soccer, coffee, cigars, well groomed women, drug dealers, ducks on holidays, winter in Brisbane… hang on a sec.. they call it football not soccer!

Thanks to Uptempo, Brisbane fits neatly into the above now that it has its own little slice of South America (but not predominantly) with the opening of the Moonbar’s newest D’n’B night last Friday (20/6).

Outside the mercury was well on its way to “farkizcohwd” territory, but it was all conga lines and fruit hats inside. Even the Middlebar was getting in on the act early on with house grooves with a distinctive tropical feel.

Ravi took a sip of his Bourbon Cerrado and got the Samba started with traditional, mostly acoustic live sounding Salsa and Latino rhythms. If you squinted hard enough you could just picture the sidewalk cafés on stone paved roads. These soothing melodies were randomly broken up by selected Tango and Indian sounds as well as deeper bass heavy 2step style tracks, enough to keep the punters moving but unfortunately it had many a glass and beer bottle clinging to their coasters for dear life to prevent a fall to imminent doom.

The first of the Momentum guys from Sydney, DJ Munk, broke out the maracas and feathers and about 100 bpm extra of broken goods to fire up the furnace with a style and track selection very much in the easily digestible vein of Hi Contrast and LTJ Bukem. Tasty tunes from the likes of Makoto – Music Has Never Let Me Down and Kymera – Secrets were backed by a live bass player, Dakkar Dan (Zephyr Timbre) and our very own Ministry of Sound celebrity, MC Shureshock – only too happy to pose for our photographer. Completing the Soulmotion trio, “value for money” man Journeyman bridge the gap to the next of the Sydney boys.

Lucian kept the momentum (pun intended) going by gradually bumping the intensity towards a more jump up D’n’B feel to bridge the gap from Journeyman, he went back to back with A.L.F., also of Momentum and had the blossoming crowd skanking up the white sands of Ipanema beach to some very SUV sounding tracks along with tougher ol’ skool Jungle to smoother nu skool, a lot with a distinctive ethic undertone.

The stand out guy to capture the eyes, ears and feet of the crowd was definitely A.L.F., frantically scratching up a storm with his best DJ Craze impersonation to the delight of the crowd. From this display of flare and energy he will no doubt be one to watch out for on the D’n’B clubbing circuit. Shureshock continued to keep the crowd hyped as always, trying his hand at some singing and even showing some honourable Brissy hospitality by letting a holidaying Western Australian MC get on the mic to spit a few rhymes.

There were also some quirky tracks with accompanying deep and dirty bass lines and tracks with a sped up dark breaks feel yet still keeping a danceable vibe all the way to a complete rinse-out.

Many find the “frown music” (re: darker feel) of Friday nights a little daunting, though the Moonbar may have found the answer with this night providing a lighter danc-ier evening of the more accessible end of the D’n’B spectrum. Simply proving that D’n’B is not all bangin’ Jungle and evil basslines. A perfect night for those open minded people that want to take a step up and a branch out from run of the mill house/trance and into the sporadic world of polyrhythmic melodies and non linear bass lines.

Up-Tempo is a monthly event put on by Journeyman, check street press and flyers for details.