Toolroom Knights in London

Toolroom Knights in London
Ministry of Sound
Saturday 21/12/2009

soonnight.com/london/photos-ministry-of-sound-toolroom-knights

It’s been in existence just three short years, but Toolroom is already a byword for quality house music in the UK. Tonight, they celebrate their birthday at Ministry of Sound with a packed club of ravers, and a solid line-up of DJing talent. For fans of the label, it hasn’t come soon enough: “Let me iiiiiiiiiiiin” screams one stiletto heeled brunette as she pushes past and toward the muffled beats coming from inside.

Entering the huge main room for the first time is quite overwhelming: it’s packed already; smoke billows all around and the beats are consuming. Dave Spoon, Mark Knight, Martin Ten Velden, Funkagenda and D. Ramirez are ALL in the booth together, hustling about, ducking to search through record bags and vibing off each other between selecting some fire-starting, big-room house sounds which keep the floor moving. It’s no surprise said moving floor is rammed out: it’s not often you get to see the Knights doing a 5 hour back-2back show involving 4 CDJ’s, 3 mixers, 2 laptops and a whole world of FX.

Looking back over 2009, the DJs in the booth have been some of the major players. Funkagenda’s production prowess just won him a Best of British award from DJ Mag, and those skills he is pushing tonight as he launches his debut LP. Dropping his ubiquitous remix of Garnier’s ‘The Man With the Red Face’ sends the pretty, dressed up girls, and trendy, preened boys into a hand shaking, hip wiggling outburst, as it doubtless has done on floors all over the country this year. With the beats as crisp as they are, the blasts of smoke, flashes of colour, and wooping floor make for an atmosphere as tight as any.

As things get only more frenetic on the dance floor beneath splintered lasers and projections of the Toolroom logo, we slip off into the bar to catch Grammy Award winning house producers Dirty Vegas. Live shows always make for even more energetic performance, so as one half of the duo pounds the drums, the inebriated audience bounces in time. This packed second room also sees Paul Thomas launching his own album on the ‘Leaders of the New School’ a new sub label of Toolroom which intends to showcase new talent. He weaves slinky electro cuts with undulating house funk and the bar crowd respond in all the right places, suggesting Toolroom’s sub label is starting strongly.

In a year when the piracy debate has raged and the recession has lingered on, there have been perpetual rumours of the demise of record labels in the face of struggling sales figures. But for a label of such tender years, Toolroom flies in the face of the zeitgeist. A close-knit community of DJs, a distinctive, party-assed take on house music and the ability to through events like tonight all mean Toolroom are as strong as ever.