It’s strange how Uberzone has been around for years, yet he’s still not made a huge name for himself internationally. An American dude with beats as big as most of his countrymates’ waistlines, he’s been putting out techy, breaksy tunes since the mid-90s, with classic acidy electro-breaks tracks such as ‘Moondusted’ sounding remarkably fresh and funky eight years down the line. But his sound soon morphed into the absolute beast it is these days, with the 2001 debut album ‘Faith In The Future’ (which was only released in the States) dropping some of the most absurd breaks bombs of all time, including the monstrous collaboration with Rennie Pilgrem, ‘Black Widow’.
Last time I saw Uberzone live was at Fabric in London two years ago, and I have to admit, while I had nothing but great memories of the night, I had forgotten just how fucking HUGE the live show sounds. There’s the main guy – called ‘Q’, even though he’s basically Uberzone himself – with drumsticks, pounding away on his electro drum pads, plus the other guy – whose name I can’t remember – going digital-scratch crazy on a set of CD decks. And it’s really, really loud. Americans aren’t known for their subtlety, and Uberzone doesn’t try to go against this stereotype. In fact, Uberzone seems to revel in being unsubtle, instead making each hi-hat sound like a magnum gunshot, each beat sound like a carbomb going off, each bassline sound and feel like an earthquake measuring at least 5.6 on the Richter scale, and each farty acid noise sound like Hell itself is unleashing its fiery hordes upon Earth and tearing innocent children’s screaming souls out through their eye-sockets. And gosh-damn, it’s a whole lot of fun to listen to.
As Uberzone was playing from 2am-3am at Salt Shaker on Friday, I ended up leaving the venue with friends a few hours beforehand to grab some drinks elsewhere, ready to head back in a cab later on. Stupidly, I didn’t count on Sydney’s cabs being COMPLETE AND UTTER SHIT, so ended up missing the opening of Uberzone’s set. I got there to find it already in full, fat flow, with a good-sized crowd rocking away, yet still with an extremely pleasant amount of space to breathe and jiggle around happily.
I’ve never heard the sound system in the Chinese Laundry sound so good – right on the dancefloor it was thunderous, with Q’s live drumming feeling like a boxer punching you in the chest and the basslines having me worried my pub lunch was going to escape into my pants. They cranked their way through all the clubby Uberzone tracks anyone could want to hear – awesome Pilgrem collaborations ‘Cous Cous’ and the bonkers ‘Black Widow’, the frankly IN-bloody-SANE ‘Bounce’ and a whole load of equally HUUUUUUGE unknown (to me) material, all of which was bursting with rolling, chunky beats and excessive amounts of aciieeeeeed. The last section, in particular, was extra-noisy, with beats, samples, scratches, honks and bangs going off all over the place like their kit was exploding.Q spent the whole set either beating the living shit out of his drum pads or jumping up and down, punching their air and shouting “Come oooon!” at the crowd, while ‘other bloke’ (sorry) worked his CD decks intensely, flicking some mental sounds out of them at super-high speeds. And everyone seemed to love it – I know I did, and I know I’ve spent every moment since cursing Sydney cabs for making me miss the intro. You useless bastards!
Extra respect is due to Frenzie for not only playing a three-hour set before Uberzone and a one-hour set afterward, but for playing ‘Hip Hop Phenomenon’ – even if it was only about a minute of it. A quality night of techy, chunky, as-it-damn-well-should-be breaks.
