Jumping at the chance to get ‘leis’ (read: laid) on a much needed vacation courtesy of Sydney’s sweetheart of breaks Bass Kleph (his new record label Vacation Records was having a launch party), we arrived at The Chinese Laundry in time to catch the tail of WA export Micah. Although the out-of-towner’s suitably placed warm-up set was filled with well-mixed breaks goodness, his track selection consisted of those well-known-but-not-old-enough-to-be-classic tracks and it almost became as tedious as an over-played 2003 Kid Kenobi CD, particularly because his MC counterpart sounded just a little too much like MC Shureshock.

Bass Kleph: the man, the myth, the master-artiste. I’m pretty familiar with Bass Kleph’s work, having secured my very own copy of his latest remix on MP3 courtesy of inthemix (take that Limewire!), so I was very eager to see what he had in store with his record label. Now, I’m not going to get into the debate about the death of vinyl, or whether Bass Kleph is aiding and abetting this with his ‘digital download only’ policy or merely a counterpart of technological change, but this I will say: whatever he’s doing, he sure can rock the party.

The Chinese Laundry seemed empty in comparison, to say, an over-hyped international act, but nonetheless he confidently stepped up and loaded his pre-flight speech allowing any cautious passengers the opportunity to retire for the night via the nearest exit, and forewarned the remainder to buckle up as he dropped the first of many high quality breaks tracks for which he is known: and for once that night the dance floor was filled.

After flying through the first few offerings on the label (including his own remix of Gotye’s Learnalillovingin and fRew’s Shake With It), he soared with the gods themselves with his set of electro-breaks brilliance. Then, as a final salute to the Breaking Point tunes of yesteryear he rendered a mashup of old favourites Fucking the Groove and Fucking the Synth. Bass Kleph looked like he could have gone on all night (as could we) but as I was reminded by a good friend who I ran into that we had other matters to attend to: Phil K.

Having only known the heavy breaks DJ from his Y4K mix CD, I was a little hesitant standing at the back of the cave as his mixing so far wasn’t all up to par – well, wasn’t up to Bass Kleph’s par – so why was I wasting my time when I could be being ‘Klephed’? I didn’t know, so I waited, and I was pleasantly surprised. The man can mix! And very well indeed.

Now don’t get me wrong, I loved seeing Bass Kleph get the dues he deserves, but man can Phil K perform. Where Bass Kleph relied heavily upon track selection and crowd favourites, be they known or not, Phil K was more than happy to spawn a third arm and use the built FX on the mixer to spontaneously create break-downs and build-ups on the fly, stretching every squelchy bassline to the last juicy drop – like sauce out of a squeezy bottle.

I don’t usually go on about the technicalities of a DJ when they mix, but Phil K was something else: his mastery of the FX was astounding (kind of like when Neo plugs himself back into the Matrix and does all that karate and shit with one arm – yeah!). This style of FX mixing is not as rare in the modern age, but where your average James Zabiela seems to forget he’s actually entertaining a crowd, Phil K managed to keep most people firmly grasped in the fingers he was twiddling furiously. Getting into the groove about an hour into his set, from there it was quite a display. His mammoth closing set was only compounded the fact that he seemed to be re-using and compiling sounds on the fly, and although I had to get up early the next morning I couldn’t tear myself away, but when he finally dropped UK producer King Roc’s King of ENV (the kind of stuff that dark twisted electro dreams are made of) I knew it was a going to be a long fall from grace, albeit progressively.

In conclusion: Dear God, please bless mommy and daddy and Phil K and Bass Kleph.