Matthew Levinson

Southern Steppa @ the Abercrombie Hotel (3/11/05)

Published on 06/11/05
by matt

After drinks above a shop Crown St with friends, we skipped seeing Grand Salvo and Kes at the Hopetoun and instead drove down to the Abercrombie Hotel on Broadway. There’s been a resurgence of pubs in Sydney, I’m not sure what’s inspired it, but joining the evergreen Cricketers Arms, the Hoey, the Judgie, these days you’ll find regular music nights at places like the Sly Fox (Enmore), the Clare and the Abercrombie (Broadway). So the newly cool Abercrombie, whose luck turned when it was bought out by the guys behind the Clare Hotel down the street, has played host to plenty of gigs lately, the Popfrenzy crew are doing parties down there on Sunday nights with bands like Pivot, and a bunch of other regular nights including the indie night Purple Sneakers. Thursdays sees Inhale invite a different crew of Sydney beat makers every week, last week it was Southern Steppa.

We walked in to the corner pub to quease-inducing bass from Steppa-operative Eli Murray. I’ve known about Eli for ages, I even asked him to DJ at the TINA festival in 2004 when I organised the gigs up there in Newcastle – though a squashed lineup and a few last minute technical hassles meant we just ended up hanging out – so all I’d heard before was his killer mix CDs. Playing in the club he was tight, dubstep’s not the easiest sound to mix, the rhythms are deliberately off-kilter and jerky, but Eli has it locked down, the moody sounds flowed perfectly, well as perfectly as can be while still being uneasily funky. I’ve been off the planet as far as these sounds go for ages, but there was a lot of DJ Hatcha and Horsepower style dub-heavy beats with middle eastern melodies and whip-crack beats.

Southern Steppa’s schtick is dubstep, in case you didn’t guess. Well dubstep, grime and whatever other microvariations are coming outta East London, Germany or any of the other places the viral beatscience has appeared. And being more of an eclectic music lover, I have to admit I’d prefer to see these guys get a bit wider spectrum – any style gets a little boring after too long – so I was feeling a little skeptical as a quiet, wiry kid with a shaved head and a tight jumper flipped up his laptop next to the decks. I needn’t have. As part of the Garage Pressure live crew Moving Ninja, Jabba’s recorded for labels like Vertical Sound. But where that group got their name for ‘robo-grime’, Jabba was dropping something a bit deeper via an Ableton-enabled laptop. Heavy and flavoursome wobbly sounding dubstep action that despite the odd computer malfunction sounded tough, later it even developed into grimier IDM-flavoured riddims ala Maxximus. The beats underpinned by a stark, skeletal dub and electro base, like screwed & chopped down drum’n'bass. A small but appreciative pub audience vibed off the music in a mish-mash assortment of Melbourne style second hand lounges. The Steppa cats brought in extra sound making the bass wobble extra. It became properly evident when Kodama stepped up to add some sounds to Jabba’s set at one point. It was dark and minimal, with an occasional burst of light, such as the dark Zinc-style track featuring some seriously cut-up Missy Elliot vocals.

After Jabba left the stage, to a crowd of adoring backpack sporting guys, Kodama and Zerodub kicked right in with a CD jacket full of up to date dubs and a box of records. Their tough, hard dubstep had the building crowd nodding their heads and a bit of a crowd who were borderline dancing. Plenty of Zinc/Bingo style beats and sirens. The constant chatty buzz, relaxed mood and top shelf underground music reminded me of the Cricketer’s Arms of old. And damn, I miss the regular nights there.

Kodama – Mixed Peas (hosted by Southern Steppa)
Eli – Outbreak Vol 1 (hosted by Southern Steppa, sorry it’s WMA)

Moving Ninja – Alien, Soma, Antigen, Shellcode, Lost Tribe, Murky (hosted by Moving Ninja)

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