This past May, we made our first trek to the sacred ground of Fabric London in the famed neighborhood of Farrigndon, amidst our European tour, and needless to say, we were forever changed by their limitless approach to electronic music. It’s a standard of audio excellence that combines a state of the art venue, with (and here’s the clincher) two historic nights that provide an infinite reservoir of trend-setting and taste-making musical talent from around the globe.
The club has intelligently sculpted two separate brands for their Friday and Saturday evenings, showcasing two different domains of electronic music in each. The Fridays bear the FABRICLIVE namesake, while the Saturdays go by the now-fabled title, fabric. It’s a natural split that features the more progressive strands of dubstep, future, UKG, D&B and proper electro to kick-off the weekend, while the more prototypical, more timeless, strands of house and techno close it out on Sunday morning. By looking at the artists in their weekly listings, you can probably identify the distinction in plain sight.
In 2001, Fabric immortalized their two weeklies into two separate mix series bearing the same two titles, which you can explore for yourself by way of their conveniently laid out catalogue. Now, 10 years later, they’re well past their gold jubilee release (the latest release being #59), and both of the aforementioned mix platforms have ultimately succeeded in conveying to the world what is relevant in these two realms of EDM. Stemming from the contrast between the club’s Friday & Saturday events, the fabric collection proceeds to take a much more traditional approach to the classic pillars of electronic music, while the FABRICLIVE collection is granted license to stray all over the electronic map.
The latest edition of fabric (number fifty-nine) features perhaps the biggest name in house music at the moment, Mr. Jamie Jones (pictured above), who manages to sift through a number of his Jones Fly edits and some of the finest items from the Hot Natured, Crosstown Rebels and Visionquest families for this one. The mix unofficially kicks off with Metronomy’s rendition of Sebastien Tellier, and from there negotiates every corner of both contemporary and classic deep house, in sublime fashion.
For us, the FABRICLIVE series hit an identifiable climax back in March, when Ramadanman aka Pearson Sound aka Maurice Donovan aka Maurice Ramasound (pictured above) graced the hallowed catalogue in its fifty-sixth installment. Emblematic of all that is constantly fluctuating between the semi-permeable walls of house, funky, garage, warehouse & techno, the co-founder of Hessle Audio effectively laid down 30 tracks that, to this day, have left us speechless. Drifting effortlessly from his multi-alias personal works, to those by Levon Vincent, Elgato, Marcello Napoletano & more, it becomes increasingly apparent that this kid is the future of the music, regardless of the sub-genre — kudos to the folks at Fabric who apparently recognized that.
Well, that should suffice as an abridged introduction, and the most presentable way to conclude this piece would be to look to the future, and we’re incredibly proud to announce that the 60th edition of the FABRICLIVE series will feature our good friend, and superstar Frenchman, Mr. Louis Brodinski (pictured above). Really could not think of a more versatile name to live up to the lofty list of FABRICLIVE artists. Stay tuned for that, and stay tuned for more in a long series of segments featuring the going-ons at Fabric.
