Australian producers have been making waves of late over in the UK. Melbourne’s Infusion, Phil K and EK have all been showing the goods over the last few years and Tasmania’s Paul Smith aka (Smithmonger) is no exception with some major releases recently. Smith was in town last Saturday at Ambar nightclub to showcase the past the present and definitely the future in the break beat world.

Skelly was the first of the locals to warm the crowd up, playing his trade mark funky beats the slowly building crowd was populating the bar getting some early beverages in whilst an early crew were already getting down on the dance floor. Micah was up next increasing the tempo, playing some of the more driving tracks ending on the new Poxy Music release “Our Break” which gives those that may not know what the genre is, a definitive lesson in breakbeat.

Smithmonger graced the decks and didn’t waste any time in getting the crowd moving, opening with some unfamiliar tracks that were immediately well received by the punters.  A new Krafty Kuts remix of fellow Aussie Friendly’s “Bump n Grind”  absolutely exploded on the dance floor  which indicated that the energy level was increasing. Smithmonger took this upon him and introduced some of the “bassline breaks” that had been promised. Deep Impacts “Bass Trap” from the Cyberfunk posse boomed over the Ambar sound system with many wondering what the hell had just hit them. Smithmonger then dropped his forthcoming gem on Skool of Thought’s label Supercharged titled “Keep your Head On’. A dirty funky roller that has a build up to make the ladies swoon. Smith then changed the flavour bringing in some dirty house beats that he is also well known for. At this stage I felt that he lost the crowd a little with a few punters leaving the dance floor with puzzled looks on their faces. However he quickly brought them back dropping Rennie Pilgrem’s agatha stomp remix of Emit Collect, followed by Aquasky’s “Wheels of Steel”. 

Overall an up and down set that had it all, the funky, the dirty and the downright scary beats that he had promised prior to coming over. His own productions are absolutely mint that boarder on the smooth and sexy to the dirt and grime. To sum up Smithmonger in one sentence from tonight’s set would be “A producer who DJ’s”.  His productions are A1 and has some absolute peak time fillers, however judged on tonights set from a DJ point of view, I felt that it lacked flow going from one extreme to another that overall left some punter’s confused about what had just happened. Going from Funky party breaks to the bassline tearers to the 4/4 dirty house back to the party breaks was an interesting combination. Possibly due to a hectic travel schedule, only leaving the UK the Thursday prior and playing a sell out show the night before in Sydney could have contributed.  In conclusion? Smithmonger rocked the Ambar crowd, had a great presence behind the decks, and had the tunes to match. We look forward to his return to our shores in future.

Closing the night was Perth new trio the “Nyquist Freq’s feat. The Angry Buddah (bro). Combining the use of the decks between two, and the Angry Buddah Bro on the CDJ1000 mk2 providing some intricate scratching over the mixing was a breath of fresh air with many punters staying to appreciate a slick performance from the trio.