CLUBS

Rory Gibb gets UK funky’d up for Crazylegs’ next outing at Blue Mountain.

A couple of years ago, it looked as though the emergent sounds of UK funky were set to take over the charts, with tracks from the likes of Crazy Cousinz and current mainstream squeeze Katy B making waves well outside the usual underground circles. Although it never quite made good on that promise, its fusion of grime’s intense energy with the syncopated flow of house and broken beat still causes shockwaves on the dancefloor.

Rinse FM’s Roska, one of funky’s pioneering producers, returns to Bristol this weekend to headline Crazylegs in its recently adopted home of Blue Mountain. “I love playing in Bristol,” he grins. “It’ll be pure party vibes, I’m definitely going to give people a night to remember.”

Roska’s early releases were stripped back almost to nothing, heavily percussive tracks that contained little but drums and elastic bass. As the scene developed then slightly diminished during 2010, his sound remained the same – energetic and hypnotic – but became more spacious, adding vocals and a subtly pop-friendly edge. His upcoming second album continues that trend. “It’s the same thing but more advanced,” he explains. “It’ll be half vocal and half instrumental, with some tracks with Jamie George and a few other vocalists.” Though the funky scene has thinned over the last year or two, his sets have broadened in scope, and a couple of recent tracks have seen him up the tempo further – expect an intense, genre-blurring set.

The rest of the night’s line-up promises Crazylegs’ usual variety of sounds. Untold’s snaking grooves and stammering percussion continue to blur dubstep’s boundaries. Opening the night is Deep Teknologi’s T Williams, whose harder-edged house is indebted to early funky, though streamlined and given an extra coating of grit.

In the middle of the bill, Bok Bok and grime legend Slimzee work heavier sounds. As head of Night Slugs, the label and collective which last year attracted a mass of attention thanks to their floor-filling fusions of funky, dubstep and house, Bok Bok’s sets have a reputation for ignoring genre boundaries. While pure UK funky has become rarer, the mutant strains pushed by his label have offered proof of its ability to infect other genres, infusing them with a percussive skip largely lacking from grime’s aggression or dubstep’s eyes-down trudge. As with the rest of the evening’s DJs, he shows off both the past and future sound of London.

CRAZYLEGS WAS AT BLUE MOUNTAIN, BRISTOL ON THUR 21 APR.

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