I hope the Red Bull Music Academy comes back to Melbourne. The sheer number of affordable international gigs has been pretty phenomenal. Whilst not getting out to as many of the gigs as I would have liked, seeing Skream twice in a week as well as DJ Krust was a pretty special thing. The amount of inspiration people must have received from all of these shows, and for those participating in the academy, must be enormous and some of Melbourne’s electronic music producers will be coming up with some fresh ideas no doubt as result.

When I walked into Lounge last Thursday night the first thing that struck me was the bass. Fenton and Fickuss were rolling out a big dancehall number and the air felt thick with it. They had installed more subs for the night and it was clear, deep and loud. Fenton and Fickuss played some more bass heavy hip hop and were setting the mood for a night of very low frequencies very well. I made a mental note to try and get in to lounge on a Thursday night to see these guys again soon.

Special surprise guest tonight was Tempa records recording artist Skream. Tempa is a dubstep label from England and was one of the pioneers of the sound. For the uninitiated, dubstep is a fairly new style of electronica which emerged in the early 00’s out of London’s two step garage scene. It has a slow tempo of about 70 bpm. It has massive normally synthesiaed basslines, which are often quite liquid and relentless. Over this are big punchy kick drums and very sharp hi hats and raspy snare hits. It’s a bit like dub and a bit like drum n bass and breaks. It’s a fairly stripped back form of music and I think we’ll be hearing a fair bit more if it in Melbourne over summer.

I had seen Skream raise the roof the week before at the Croft Institute show and this was little different in approach or reaction, if a little more subdued at Lounge. He mixes very well often using a rewind from his playing tune to mix it out. The next tune then comes rumbling in like a semi after a bar of silence. An interesting style, which went down well, maybe offering the audience some reprieve from the very repetitive music. I was happy to see many people really enjoying it and I think he opened a few eyes and ears. He played almost all dubstep, some with vocals, which are spat at lightning speed, a la Dizzy Rascal. He also played some straight up dub, and some ragga. In all an excellent set from a great representative of this new and exciting sound.

Krust jumped on straight after Skream and mixed nicely out of his last track and got the drum n bass underway immediately, warming up the crowd with some nice vocal tunes to start. The dance floor filled up pretty quickly and over the course of his set he slowly drew me from the back of the floor to the front. His tunes just seemed to get better and better with each one he dropped. After the vocal warm up he played a tasty amen roller, which grabbed my attention and suddenly I was lost in the music.

This was the second time I’d seen Krust, the first time being a whimsical jaunt to Byron Bay from Brisbane based on a rumour he and Full Cycle lable-mate Die were going to play. He and Die rocked that night, but at Lounge, on his own he killed it. It was great seeing him not resorting to too many current hits to keep the floor alive. He banged out some steady liquid funk bombs for the middle part of the set and rewound about four tunes, which went down well with the crowd, but I don’t really understand why he did it so often. Maybe he likes the applause. He certainly deserves it. He then went nice and deep, at one stage dropping Ray Keith’s Dark Soldier to a few “yeahs” from some of the older crew. The dance-floor had thinned a little by this stage, maybe as it was getting late or maybe people weren’t so rocked by these less busy tracks.

Krust finished up after two scorching hours, his selection and mixing were top class and he was obviously having a great time as he hardly stopped bouncing his head along to the bass. Blanco then jumped on the decks and played some great harder drum n bass, which was very suited to the time of the night. Unfortunately I was getting so tired by this time that it was time for bed. In all this was a very good night of music, great crowd and good quality sound. Let’s hope Lounge can continue to put on gigs of this caliber. Very nice work from all crews involved. Bring on DJ Storm!