12 years ago, something miraculous happened. No, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead to feed people fish and bread rolls. No, the Cleveland Indians didn’t win the World Series. No, Lassie didn’t manage to get little Timmy out of the well. God, it’ll just be easier to tell you: Chinese Laundry was born. And it was at that exact moment that things got awesome. Since its inception “the Laundry” – as it’s come to be affectionately known – has been host to a list of international and local talent longer than a Mexican’s surname, and provided chinstrokers, partygoers, veterans and young’uns alike with many a memorable night. Last Saturday was no different from previous Laundry experiences, except maybe for the big “12th Birthday” written on the flyer. It’s not that reaching 12 years isn’t an achievement worth celebrating or commending, it’s more that that’s always been the way Laundry has done things: no fuss, no bullshit, just quality artists and a cool vibe.

Speaking of quality artists, MDX was on warm-up duties in the Cave. It’s been quite some time since Mark has played any earlier than about 1AM., so it was a nice change to hear him in a different context. He handled his duties with enviable ease, working his way through deep, rolling tech house such as Namito’s Zorro, wobbly, squelchy aciiiiiiieeeeed house, and a little bit of progressive thanks to Mortlock, who has just been signed to Mark’s label Long Distance Recordings.

Canberra’s Scott Fisher was up next. Having played a great set the night before, I was keen to see Scott in action again, and he didn’t disappoint. He got deep for the first part of his set, laying down some well funky tech house rollers before hitting his stride with quality proper tribal house that was tough enough to keep the crowd dancing but stripped back enough to make sure Paolo Mojo had plenty of room to move. His mixing was fantastic too: he would layer tunes together for several minutes at a time and used just the right amount of effects and tricks to keep the set entertaining without going overboard. I suspect Sydney will be seeing more of Scott in the future. And if we don’t, I’m going to go on road trips.

As Scott dropped his last tune, Paolo Mojo, fresh from a disco nap to relieve a nasty migraine, arrived with a cheeky smile and a wave to the crowd. Mojo has been to Australia every year since 2006, playing up to three gigs in Sydney each time, so there’s certainly been no shortage of opportunities to catch him (or if you’re like me, stalk him), and each set has always been different from the last. Saturday was another example of this versatility he displays every time he visits. His last performance in Sydney was characterised by dark, hard techno, whereas Saturday’s effort had more of a peak-time progressive and tech house feel: lots of tribal drums, badass basslines and floaty melodies. I wish I could track ID the set for you, but the reality is I can’t. There was just way too much unreleased material in there. All I can say is he opened with Carl Craig’s remix of Stoned Autopilot by Martin Buttrich, dropped his new track Lauda about half-way through, and finished with a re-edit of In The Trees by Phaze Action. Technically, this was one of his most forward-thinking sets, with Mojo using a combination of CDJs, Traktor and a midi-controller to mix traditionally but then also add in lots of loops, edits, samples and effects to construct a set that was far greater than the sum of its parts.

Meanwhile, France’s Don Rimini had been asking questions of the speaker stacks in the Laundry with some seriously heavy bassline-driven electro house. It was hard to spend a lot of time watching him knowing that Paolo was doing such a terrific job in the Cave, but what I did witness was very cool: lots of old school rave tunes remixed and brought up to date, big breakbeat sections, the aforementioned heavy basslines, and a tongue-in-cheek, fun attitude to the music which was a nice change from the uber-serious feel that so much electro house seems to portray, which just makes no sense given that it’s meant to just be fun party music. Thumbs up to Don for keeping things fun.

Aussie export Jaytech closed the Cave with a set full of deep, thunderous basslines and sparkly melodies that had the crowd doing spirit fingers like they were going to have them cut off the next day, especially during his latest track Metro. The Anjunadeep poster-boy did Australia proud that night, showing that not only is there still good progressive house being made, but the best of it is in our backyard.

At 4AM the crowd slowly stumbled out of the venue, some hanging around to wax lyrical about the night (or perhaps other random things), others fighting for a cab. As I drove home the first thing that a friend in the passenger seat said was “oh, Laundry is technically in its 13th year now, 13 is unlucky”. I seriously doubt it will be for them.