Since launching in January, Lodown, the latest addition to the Friday roster at Chinese Laundry, has been going from strength to strength. The night relies on a winning combination of a friendly crowd, upcoming and established acts, and a music policy that aims to provide something not really experienced on a Friday at the Laundry in a long, long time: proper house music in the main room and the more big room electro/nu-rave sound in the Cave. Having been a regular at Laundry since the Salt Shaker days (who else remembers that?), I was really excited by the prospect of spending a night in the main room of the club for once, rather than taking that almost ritualistic left-turn into the Cave like I always do.

As I arrived, newcomer Unjay was about to cue up his first weapon in the Laundry. It wasn’t quite proper house, but it was rad nonetheless. Someone said it was fidget, but I don’t think so (unless my understanding of fidget is severely warped). Whatever it was, I liked it: jackin’, funky and one for the booties. Unjay’s set stayed on a similar vibe to his opening tune, with a few deviations into some chunky breaks courtesy of NAPT and a couple of big, bassline-driven tech house cuts.

YU/Soho/whatever it’s called now resident Matt Nukewood was up next. Matt was a surprise package, at least for me anyway. I’ll be totally honest and say having heard he was a resident of YU/Soho/whatever it’s called now, I was expecting some pretty big, commercial music. I was proven very wrong. It was straight up proper jackin’ house, occasionally broken up with some more mechanical, glitchy grooves and the odd rolling prog tune towards the end. His mixing was also definitely on-point: there were lots of long, smooth mixes, great programming and a few clever effects and EQ tricks. Plus he played the new Reset Robot release, so bonus points for that.

New Zealand’s Daniel Farley was up next, and he continued on from Matt with ease. Opting for a more new school, contemporary take on house, Farley’s set was full of funk, groove and fun. Opening with Christian Smith & John Selway’s Move was a brave choice, but it definitely paid off: plenty of the older crew in the crowd gave him that nod that says “mad, I used to love this track back in the day”. Move set the tone for his whole hour and a half, and Farley’s set never strayed too far away from straight-up enjoyable, rolling grooves. The simplicity of the tunes was offset nicely by clever mixing and effects, with Farley preferring a more techno-style approach to mixing that featured plenty of cuts, EQ work and layering.

Meanwhile, the Cave had been pumping all night. It felt a little weird to have spent almost my entire night in the Laundry given that the little spot next to the fire exit in the Cave is basically my home within the club, but a few short trips into my beloved sandstone box satisfied my withdrawal symptoms. Redial and then Doctor Werewolf (two-thirds of The Impossibles) were holding it down well throughout the night, going for a more big, bass-heavy sound that meandered between old school electro (whoever played Aux 88, I salute you), nu rave, a bit of booty house and weird-noisy-kinda-disco-but-not stuff.

Much respect goes out to the Lodown crew for pushing some proper house music, Friday night took me back to my first couple of trips to Laundry where being in the Cave was an after-thought rather than routine!