The Inthemix party series touched down in Perth last Friday night, bringing with it; plenty of alcohol, good music, fun and an opportunity for ITM’ers to meet each other. The surrounds of The Church nightclub played host to the event, which featured a pretty stacked line up of local house, breaks, progressive and trance DJ’s. The ritual room was allocated to the sounds of breaks and house and the downstairs main room featured the sounds of progressive and trance.

As the doors opened and the ITM party officially got underway, a few people began to make their way into the club and were greeted with the sounds of Sean Chee, working the system with a nice combination of progressive house and tribal tracks. As the party started at 8pm, there wasn’t a solid show of punters at such an early stage, however, there was a steady mill through the door, some of whom opted to check out the upstairs room. As with all ITM parties, one lucky up ‘n’ comer is given the opportunity to land a set on the night and for this particular party, it was the dynamic breaks duo called The Loose Screws. They had the first set in the upstairs ritual room and wasted no time in slamming down some dope sounding broken beat tracks. They worked exceptionally well together and before long, a small crowd had gathered, either dancing or at least bopping to this duo’s impressive concoction of beats. The intimate surrounds of the ritual room were decked out quite nicely, with a mini smoke machine and a few basic club lights adorning the little room.

Back downstairs, Riki then took over from Chee and displayed his versatility as a DJ by laying down a progressive set, ranging from the house side of the genre all the way through to the more percussion led tribal variety. His seamless mixing and quality track selections highlighted the predominantly progressive set. Walking back upstairs, The Loose Screws set had come to an end and leaving it on a breaks tip, Seb Miraudo managed to work with the broken beat to gradually pull it back to a steady 4/4. That by no means was an easy feat, especially considering there was a good sized dance floor on the go, obviously enjoying the breaks at hand. The chunky big room style house tracks Miraudo dropped were of the less mainstream kind, and the the punters immediately responded with many a bust a moves occurring at once.

Again traversing down the wooden staircase and back into the main room atmosphere, Lanithium was on the decks and pumping the quality sound system with a range of uplifting trance selections, most of which were of the upfront variety. The range of beats and layers within the tunes, were being enjoyed by many as the room began to fill even more. His oh-so-smooth trademark mixes added to the flow of the set and overall, he laid down an excellent set; cementing the fact that he is considered one of Perth’s best trance DJ’s. Wandering back up to the ritual room (stairmaster eat your heart out!) breaks extraordinaire Philly was whipping up a phat set of delectable beats, I found even I couldn’t resist dancing to. With the couches at the back of the room and the decks set up at the front, the ritual room provided the perfect environment for many, whether you just wanted to sit and chill or dance away; you could do it in comfort.

Returning to the main room, there was a good amount of punters hitting up the dance floor to the sounds of Deejay V. His blend of uplifting to slightly harder trance had the attention of many in the room and his good mixes held the tracks nicely together. The highly regarded Beatslappaz were rocking it, back up in ritual room, their track selections were consistently good and I believe I heard a rumour that these dudes even produce some of their own stuff (nice work I say!). Following on from this vibrant and very well received set was the one and only Karlsav who rocked the room the way only he knows how to. His blatant love and passion for breaks is apparent throughout any set he plays and this one was no different, nailing a top notch breaks set; which all the punters in the room clearly appreciated.

Back down in the land of trance, Church residents John Paul and Kenny L embarked on a manic versus set, taking the uplifting tunes a few notches higher by introducing heavier and techier tunes of the trance variety. Their set was a clear crowd favourite and their tunes attracted many more punters to the dance floor. Ziad followed on from this set and kept the caliber of tracks cranked up to high with a banging and tightly mixed selection of tunes. Heading yet again up to the ritual room, Gully and Axis were working their magic on the decks, their blend of party to techy to rocking breaks well and truly rocking the room. At this stage, the room was still nicely full and it was then Micah’s turn to mix it up for the ITM’ers. His set was of the “Micah” standard I have come to expect (minus the few needle skips, thanks to some gurner’s overly excited dance moves), full of a range of breaks tunes and some super tight mixes.

The final sets of the night were about to come to pass as many ITM’ers began to activate the bail mission and leave for the night. In the main room, Big John threw down a mighty fine trance set, mainly of the harder and techier kind. Having never heard Big John mix before, I must comment on how impressed I was with this guy’s mixing. Ultra smooth and quite clever mixes dominated his set which kept many punters glued to the dance floor for its entirety.

As can be seen, there was a well stacked line up of kick ass locals who kept the foundations of The Church rocking all night long. It was so good to see so many ITM’ers out in full force and it was also great to be able to put a few more faces to names from the ITM Perth forums. Shout outs must go out to that ice cream cake (well not to the cake, but whoever was responsible for it!), Smirnoff (gotta love those drink specials), Inthemix (no need to elaborate, we all know it kicks ass!), The Church nightclub (nice venue, thanks for being host) and of course all those responsible for organizing the party (looking at you Jon!).

Another successful installment for the Inthemix party series, cheers guys! I look forward to the next one.