2006: a year that two geezers hailing from Nottingham and Leeds set about turning their relatively humble party into one of the only refuges for quality house music in Sydney. They did it in style too: regularly touring all the big names in the deep, jackin’ house genre. Subsequently, 2007 looks to be a year that they further develop the success of Monkey Tennis, with more red hot internationals set to blaze through the Candy’s Apartment DJ booth in the first quarter of the year.

The night in review, however, played host to Monkey Tennis (MT) instigators Gary and Lummy; MT pin-up boy Synik; long overdue first-timer Matt Roberts; and one of the more diverse and inventive deep house DJ’s from the USA, Slater Hogan. Hogan, along with partner-in-crime John Larner, own and operate the record label Muzique Boutique, as well as the recently formed Last Call Recordings. Both having been producing and DJ’ing for well over a decade and are well entrenched in the deep house genre, commanding respect from all their peers and fans alike.

Speaking of which, that leads me rather nicely into the first guest DJ of the night: Matt Roberts. I arrived at Candy’s Apartment a little past 1am and immediately noticed the support he had from all his DJ peers – I hadn’t seen a DJ booth surrounded by that many DJ’s since Adam Freeland played at Home Nightclub in 2003. Matt already had the dancefloor vibing to his unique take on the deep house genre, which is to only play the tunes which ring true to the origins of funk music. Wearing his hip hop roots on his sleeve, there were rap accapella’s aplenty, all of which seem to add intensity to any given track. Having said that, it was very apparent he was aware he was warming up for the international guest, as the set had a building flow to it. As a little shout-out to local DJ/production outfit Lamanex (both of whom were part of the DJ convention next to the decks), Matt handed over to Slater Hogan leaving their track Turducken Cover rotating on the CDJ’s. A totally solid performance from one of Sydney’s finest – to use an old Brendan Fing quote, “Matt Roberts brings the funk”.

After only three tracks from Slater Hogan, my sleepless Friday night hangover was no match for the pleasure of hearing this ‘DJ’s DJ’ mix the records. Conventional phase-mixing is thrown out the window when Slater is behind the decks, instead he chooses to vary the mixing style up, often ‘melding’ the melody lines of two tracks over a short 8-bar passage, creating a snappy cross-over yet maintaining a very seamless feel. His first 30-minutes was filled with unreleased tracks and remixes, my faves being JT Donaldson’s remix of White Lotus Society’s Space Cadillac, Bryan Jones’ remix of Damon Trueitt’s Stormy Days, and Melbourne DJ/producer Anyo’s stomping monster Housekeeping.

Slater then tested how rough the crowd liked it, dropping a piece of teched-up Digital House by way of Claude Von Stroke’s The Whistler. Apparently we weren’t much of a rough bunch, as whenever he would venture back into these waters he made sure he selected techy sounds with plenty of warmth; DJ Sneak’s groovy bassline in his remix of Green Velvet’s Shake and Pop being an example of how he was able to incorporate this digital sound without losing the ‘funk-loving’ crowd. Personally I was hoping for some rougher sounds, not so much this emerging digital sound but more so the dirty and dubby acid sound that I’ve heard him play pieces of in various live recordings. That’s not to say I wasn’t happy with the music. On the contrary, I enjoyed plenty of moments of attitude-filled jackin’ house – I didn’t leave my spot on the dancefloor for over an hour and a half.

Another aspect of Slater’s DJing is to not only vary his mixing techniques, but also to vary the musical intensity in a consistent fashion. If there was an equalizer displaying a graph of the set’s audio dynamic range, it would be as wobbly as some of the basslines he was playing. 15 minutes of high-octane jackin’ house, immediately eased into 10 minutes of jazz-sampling smooth house grooves, then straight back up again. There were two main benefits of this technique, the first being it creates trust, and hence patience, within the crowd – “I’ll give you plenty to dance to, if you allow me to play some of my more subtle favourites”. The second, probably unbeknownst to Slater, was that the down periods gave people an opportunity to explore the somewhat virginal entrance to the back room. This room constantly hosts a lineup worthy of its own club-night. During one of Slater’s said periods of plateau, I burst through to discover a world DJ Mo Funk was providing the soundtrack to – a bustling room full of happy people, both dancing and relaxing on the sofas. Mo’ is one of Sydney’s most respected DJ’s, and after 10 minutes it was easy to see why – he cuts, juggles, and scratches like a DMC champ, and plays everything from perennial U2 through to pioneering LL Cool J.

Quite tired by this stage, I chose to spend the rest of Slater’s set relaxing and chatting. The music seemed to match my mood, in the background some of my favourite cruisy tracks such as Chuck Love’s contemporary classic Back in My Life, and Tommy Largo’s gloriously melodic Robbing and Stealing, were keeping one ear pricked. The final DJ of the night was Synik. I rate him as one of the most talented DJs I’ve ever heard; he takes the time to understand music structure, and learns his records well. This bit of homework, along with a good ear for sounds, allows him to put together clever and seamless mixes. It wasn’t long before he got me back on the floor for a final dance, and even rewarded me by playing Santiago & Bushido’s remix of Andrew Phelan & Origami’s We Carry On, a track he knows I like and knows I probably hadn’t heard out before – a nice gesture indeed. Synik didn’t play quite as hard as his last Monkey Tennis closing set, perhaps due to the fact that the drinking crowd were running out of energy. As a result, Synik was able to explore some deeper sounds, and the crowd was more than happy to vibe along with him. My phone battery had died by that stage (and my brain long before that), so I can’t provide you with many snippet’s of his track selection, but I do know he closed with one of his favourite ‘songs’, the beautifully subtle Pepe Braddock remix of Iz & Diz’s track Mouth. A rather lovely end to what was overall an inspiring night of music and mixing.

Wait… what was that? You want more?? Yep, that’s right, quite remarkably the dancefloor wasn’t done yet, with demands of “one more” echoing around the club. Monkey Tennis’ Gary Broadband did the honors, appeasing the crowd’s aural appetite with the classic Alan Braxe track, Intro. Which segues nicely into my ‘outro’ – ciao, hope to see you next time at the refuge for lovers of quality house, Monkey Tennis.