Suffering from a lack of drum and bass nourishment over the New Year period, the tantilising buffet offered by the Operatives on Labour Day Eve was just too good to resist. Featuring a top class international line up of Marcus Intalex (UK), Doc Scott (UK), Kiat (Singapore) and Concord Dawn (NZ), this was sure to be a serving of the finest and tastiest drum and bass Melbourne had seen.

Arriving at any drum and bass event before midnight will always mean you’re walking into a near empty venue, and this was the case at Hi Fi on Sunday night. Reassuringly, the place was decked out in standard drum and bass décor. Cammo netting hung from the roof, and visuals were set up as a back drop behind the decks together with Hi Fi lights. It was a shame that more were not there to hear the goodness of Dust and Joe Seven, who continue to provide quality music to the Melbourne massive. Rolling things out back to back style, the pair eased their way through some deep tunes, drawing more heads on to the dancefloor and providing the perfect entrée to the main course.

Co-founder of the legendary Metalheadz label, and boss of 31 Records, Doc Scott appeared first on decks with a somewhat subdued opening track that featured a Twin Peaks style synth sound. Again doing things back to back format, the head of Soul:R, Marcus Intalex, slipped onstage and took over. It’s been a busy time for Soul:R of late with the release of the second in the DAT Music series as well as the upcoming release of the highly anticipated Lynx and Kemo album. As expected Marcus Intalex’s set featured tunes from faves Breakage, Lynx and Kemo tunes, and Calibre.

Throughout the sets a number of MCs appeared on stage, however their efforts seemed a little lost in the music, save for a few moments of general crowd hyping. Special mention to Trey for incorporating his undone fly into a freestyle rhyme and to Cypher whose efforts on the mic seemed to be the most consistent. Some punters genuinely do not like the back to back set up, and this is most likely due to problems of consistency between DJs. However with a pairing of such experience in Intalex and Scott, this was not a problem. Their performance was a complete journey, with peaks and troughs, older tunes mixed in with the new, ironically restoring that futuristic element of drum and bass.

Predominantly it was a darker, somewhat minimal tunes, with deep sounds-not at all a bombastic, yet still full of impact. I found it quite surprising to hear Marcus Intalex play such a dark set, though as I mentioned, there were a few bouts of his lighter tunes, it was a deep journey. Concord Dawn took control after the UK duo and he hit the ground running with a typically driving tech anthem. Spurred on by a patriotic crowd (thanks to the various MCs for drawing that out) the feast continued on. However, having had my fill I left the lavish feast of drum and bass happy and satisfied.