Words and photos by [Mechanoise/Breaks FM]

If you are going to start a successful breaks night in London, you need to get a few of the basics right. It helps if your one of the "bright new stars" of the scene. Both labels responsible for this night, Acetate Ltd and Kilowatt, are. Both of these young, fresh labels have a desire to push the boundaries of the breaks scene. With tunes such as "Low-Life" by Fatliners on Kilowatt and "Gyromancer" by PMT (Can you call a tune a "classic" so soon after its release?) on Acetate, both labels have set their stalls out.

Secondly, you need a club with the reputation and vibe to draw in the masses. Your average breaks fiend would go to a breaks night in any run down piss hole of a venue. But the punters want a bit more. Turnmills has it. The reputation of being the club which has always loved it’s breaks from the days of the Chemical Brothers and Jon Carter, through the excellent Bedrock nights to this. It’s a venue with a reputation second to none. It feels like a real clubbers club, rather than the kind of überclubs where vibe takes second place to T-shirts with the venue's logo on it. Save that for the tourists.

If I have a gripe with the whole event, it was the sound system – surprisingly. It just didn’t seem loud enough, it could have with a bit more "oomph" (stop me if I get too technical) A lot of people I spoke to noticed it. Breaks need to be played LOUD.

Thirdly, you need kick ass DJs representing the labels. And they did. I arrived with a breakbeat posse of usual suspects after a couple of "light ales" to catch the end of Kilowatt Big Cheese DJ Hyper’s set and the place was already rocking and about half full – not bad considering it had only been open about 45 minutes – people were there to get into it. I knew that if that was the quality of the "warm-up" then we were on for a good night. He was followed by Chad Jackson (who released the excellent "The Fire" under the pseudonym Marcus on Acetate last year), Terminalhead who have recently signed to Kilowatt, another massive coup for Hyper, and Jody Wisternoff from Way Out West. The mixing right across the board was superb, the range of tunes surprised me, not only for the consistency of quality but also in their diversity. Big basslines, tight beats and catchy hooks with a little funk, a twist of house and a malevolent moodiness that makes the breaks scene in the UK what it is. They also found an MC who managed to hype the crowd up without ever being annoying…

Fourthly, possibly most importantly, you need a willing crowd. There was an excellent mix of label people, DJ’s, breaksheads and clubbers and a lot of the friendly faces you see around the London scene at the moment. Almost every breaks label in London was represented by at least one person in the club. Some even from outside. All we’re digging the music and excited that this was a breaks night in a venue big enough to pull in more than just the dedicated breaks followers. Everybody there was there to get into the music.

I managed to catch a few words with Hyper who enthused about the ideas behind the Twister nights. "It’s about bringing the breaks scene together. There’s too many people arguing within the scene. We want to bring them together, light and dark, progressive, funky etc. It’s all good." Indeed it is.

Twister - Breaks with a twist of house
Monthly Thursdays 10pm-3am
TurnMills, 63b Clerkenwell Road, London EC1
http://www.turnmills.co.uk

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