Cambridge’s Most Eligible Bachelor: Week 3

Cindies new DJ set –  Review by AfroDJZac

Yo watsup  my hip contemporaries, ZBH (AKA AfroDJZac) is back again, and this time I’m reviewing a new night I stumbled across in Cambridge.  

Personally I am an avid aficionado for the deep house, so when I heard there was an exciting new DJ set at Cindies last Wednesday I felt compelled to check it out.

When I say ‘deep house’ I’m not talking about lite, chart-topping house that’s been described as ‘deep’ by some clueless hipster blog or a misguided scene kid who used to go to Take That concerts but now promotes for Bestival. The kind that before coming to Uni only knew ‘MD’ as being their Dads’ job title, yet now drop bombs faster than a B-Rabbit at the Shelter.  The type that hear the phrase ‘Dirty Dutch’ and think of Vam Bommel in the world cup final yet deliberately share YouTube videos with minimal views just to appear seminal. 

No, I’m talking about the sensation that is Chez and Ron’s steamy ‘Morning glory Factory’, or any of WetDream 2 Science’s potent concoctions. The kind of dope tracks that speak to your soul, not just your sole.

For you see, deep house is more than just deep, it has depth. 

It’s blissfully barbaric, nauseatingly nascent, yet both spiritual and sexual. But there’s more. There is the cosmic depth which is so deep it’s actually bottomless:  celestial harmonies from the outer edges of our galaxy, where Abacus fly’s freely around MARRS. Then there is subterranean and even subaquatic deep house: Twilight-zone house. This is so deep and murky that we haven’t even described most of the creatures that inhabit this space. 

But there’s still more. Take the preeminent Smallville crew from Hamburg for example. They don’t just make TV-dramas; they excel in a much more earthly and not so super-human brand of deep house, often coming in under overcast skies morally above the Soundclouds. 

But what I discovered at Cindies was certainly NOT deep house.  And even though the club looked like one, there was no Garage in sight.

Generally I try and avoid being too pernickety when labelling artists. Bandying signifiers around with vexatious abandon and indecorous genre blanketing is a real plague on emerging music and upcoming DJ’s. But even if I tried, I couldn’t label what I discovered on Wednesday. 

It was too abstract. So progressive that most people didn’t even realise the significance of the magnum opus they were hearing. 

At points I heard some Kendrick Lemar. But I’m not talking about the corrupt conformist spiel he churns out these days. I’m talking about the proto pioneering early stuff like “Time to grow” and “It’s Not That Easy”, listening to which endeared me greatly. 

And although I didn’t really enjoy his latest venture back into film with Anchorman 2, hearing a snippet of Ferrell Williams’s “Happy” made me just that.

Minaj’s new single Anaconda also surfaced briefly amongst the ethereal depths of the set, but although it’s an enjoyable and powerful piece, I do just feel like it’s just a rip of Mix-a-Lots “Baby got Back”, which meant I felt guilty when joining in the mass twerking that was happening all around me.  

As the night developed, all these tracks melted effortlessly into an Oasis of post-modern noughties classics. Yet remarkably, and possibly the greatest strength of the performance, was that despite the pre-modern focus, the vibe was still maintained as quintessentially post-Yeezus.

To even limit this masterpiece to a traditionalist system of star ratings is to do it a gross injustice. But given I am compelled to do so I owe it nothing less than full marks.

For reference, article inspired by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_music, and http://www.synonym.com/