The iconic London venue well and truly leans into the world of UK electronic music.
This night confirms RIZ LA TEEF‘s status as the best DJ operating in the UK right now. If his iconic Boiler Room Bass and Percs set back in 2019 put him on the map as a force in dance music, tonight’s show stands as all the proof necessary for such a statement.
At around 11:30, the Jazz Café is bouncing, the bar is thronged with clubbers, three or four deep in places. The split-level nature of the venue feels both glamorous and fraught with a sense of potential danger, no-one appears to know where they’re putting their feet.
At this point in the night Richie is on decks and things appear to be moving along nicely. The music has got up to around 140bpm, where it will stay in one form or another for the rest of the night. Crowds gather, the bar clears out (it will stay resolutely empty for the rest of the night) and everyone’s remaining drinks are uniformly being spilt on the floor.
Midnight rolls around and Riz and Just Jane arrive in the booth. The energy intensifies consistently, one tune stacked on top of another as the two DJs slug it out, back-to-back for over an hour. Just past 1AM, the unmistakeable sound of ‘RIP Groove’ can be heard through a wall of beats.
Towards the end of their set, the pair start mixing in Garage. It neatly takes the frenetic energy down a notch to get people actually dancing rather than furiously skanking and welcomes the arrival of Bullet Tooth and Oldboy’s back-to-back set.
This last hour and a half marks like a slow, continuous wind-down. In truth it is a welcome respite. UK Garage is usually a crowd mellower, and this set does just that – very necessary after the sonic onslaught of the night to that point.
Seeing The Jazz Café host electronic music in this way is not necessarily unusual. However, there is a sense, right from the start, that this night heralds somewhat of a break with the old. Even advertisements for the night allude to the ‘out with the old, in with the new’ ethos on display here.
The Jazz Café is a historic venue, it has played host to some of the most electrifying live music artists around since 1990. On this night, however, the ravers have the place to themselves, and a celebration of UK dance music takes place on hallowed live turf.
imagery: Alice Palm (Defected Publishing)
