Unfortunately I missed seeing Rosie Brown and band, but I did catch Dom Servini and Simon Goss djing excellent dance inducing sounds, including a brilliant run of three tracks — Marlena Shaw ‘Woman of the Ghetto’, The Lions version of ‘Think’ (from the new excellent and DJ friendly Choices EP on Ubiquity), and DJ Shadow’s awesome ‘This Time’, a tremendous 7” from last year.

Umlaut & Stitch came on with Polarbear rhyming. His vocals with deepest Midlands accent sounded excellent and he sported a rucksack while on stage. Well-90s. Jamie Woon featured on a couple of tracks, and without question he has an amazing voice. I’m not quite sure why he needed a big picture of himself on the screen behind but his vocals continue to impress. ‘Wayfaring Stranger’ worked well and I much preferred this live version with a band to the strictly vocals as you may have heard at the Worldwide Awards or on the forthcoming Brownswood Bubblers Two.

Chris Goss djed between Umlaut & Stitch and Scrimshire, playing a splendid set. Hip hop/beats beginnings then journeying through boogie with the incredible ‘Buttercup’ by Carl Anderson as the standout track.

On came the 10-piece Scrimshire band, with lots of familiar faces from Monday nights in Camden at My Favourite Things. The gruff powerful singing of Rob Hynd began the set. Then as Inga-Lill started to take charge vocally things really blew up! Sounding clear and crisp, Inga-Lill energised the band and delighted the by now sweaty crowd. ‘Warm Sound’ sounded fantastic, a standout track from the new Wah Wah 45s compilation. Adam Scrimshire showed his versatility as performer alternating between Fender Rhodes as well as band leader/arranger.

A highlight of the set was a monumental conga solo from percussionist Mark and, in true My Favourite Things style, Jake ‘the sax’ Telford pulled out a beautiful soprano sax solo. Keyboard supremo Jessica Lauren joined the band for the encore displaying fantastic Rhodes-work as the show, which concluded with a percussive feast of djembe, congas, rimshots, crashing cymbals and plenty of cowbell.

Ryan Hunn took over on the decks, beginning with one of my tracks of the year Moodymann’s ‘Technologystolemyvinyl’ which sounded incredible on the improved Cargo system, and following a long evening the night before at CDR it was time to leave…

Links:
Wah Wah 45s
Cargo
Umlaut & Stitch
Elia Rulli
Scrimshire
Ryan Hunn
Choices Vol.1 (Ubiquity)