The June instalment of the bi-monthly night Instinct at brown alley was, for my first experience, a blinder. After being on the floor for a while I started to question why I hadn’t been before, and what was I doing that could possibly have been better than this? Who knows.
Upon entering the alley to the generously sized upstairs venue, my path was blocked by a massive garbage truck. I know it’s the city and I know that trash gets collected at any old time, but really… right in front of a club entrance? Poor form. Melbourne’s weather had also pulled out all the stops today: sunshine, rain, skin-tearing winds, and sleet at times – typical. The wind was in full effect as we doubled back around the block to the entrance where we were greeted by a clearly freezing bouncer and a door that, if I hadn’t known that there was a club there, I would have passed right by none the wiser. Feeling the air get progressively warmer as we trudged up the three flights of starts to the dimly lit club colourfully splashed with red and brown I felt immediately at home, the friendly environment was scattered with benches and was dotted with smaller rooms and a large outdoor rooftop smoking area.
I entered at about 11.30ish and had just missed out on Square One’s set. Quietly shattered I headed straight for the bar as the guys where handing over on stage. We decided to hit the bar early because the floor was only dotted with a few groups here and there, I guess it was fairly early though. Next up behind the decks was Jimmy Ryan, who I hadn’t seen before but damn he smashed out the tunes. A nicely-rounded selection of tech house, a light sprinkle of prog and some sweet bass breaks confirmed that I was now fully in love with Instinct. Their flyers don’t lie: “Chunky, Progressive, Barreling, Twisted, Dirty, Rhythm.” Everything I heard inside the venue could be neatly filed away somewhere within those pigeon holes. Smack bang in the middle of the set as I struggled to catch one of the bartenders eyes to shout my drink order at them, I lent back on the bar to see three jacket-clad police enter the venue, loiter for a few minutes and leave. Bet my Carlsberg felt safe.
Towards the end of Jimmy Ryan’s set he started mashing some more commercial joints in amongst some tech breaks. Hearing the fowl cry of ‘snnooooooop’ I could only imagine that some Snoop Dogg was about to be Dropped Like Its Hot, however just a few samples were looped on the CDJ1000 and I have to say it worked, and the dance floor rewarded him for it.
When I signed up to do this review I was excited to see three female jocks on the bill; honestly I don’t think I’ve seen that many girls behind the decks since an open deck night – superb. Jimmy’s set was closing and he was dropping the belters, some really nice pitched up tech house rounding off the last half hour. Concluding with a smashing mash-up of the Prodigy anthem Smack My Bitch Up, Freya was to scheduled next take control of the now comfortably packed dance floor. Before the handover I made a B-line for the bar, grabbing a beer and scampering back to my place on the floor. After a little sound glitch as she attempted to drop her first track, not sure what it was and it looked like no one else figured it out either; a slightly darker vision was cast over the now filling club.
Freya’s set was full of highs, lows and some awesome sweeps mixing up a fine selection of deep tech house and scary heart-exploding progressive. Having never been a huge fan of anything prog or techy for that matter, my fencesitting days were over: Loved the beats all night. Freya dropped tracks smoothly and frazzled some punters with mind blowing low and high pass sweeps. Not many commercial tracks to be found in this area, I honestly only noticed only one or two techy remixes here and there; they call this underground for a reason.
With the lockout now in full effect, the club’s entry was now locked and those punters who were in the club stayed in the club (there were lovely little white A4 signs dotted about the pace saying “No Passouts After 2am”). Yes, the lockout sucks. Gone are the days of an event peaking at 3am or later, back are the days of leaving a club for home early cause there isn’t much happening. The handover to Mich’chief was elegant and oh so smooth with the transition into some nice techy stuff catching my ear early. We headed out to grab some fresh air as rain started to spit through the open roof outside before jumping back onto the floor for a bit of a dance. Congratulations to the organisers and promoters, smashing job the night went really well and I can only hope that the next one in August is just as successful.
sacboy says...
Next Party is @ F4 on August 29th - should be fun!!