In 2019,
Fabric
celebrated two decades of being London's most on-point nightclub with numerous special events as well as this double album of exclusive cuts by regulars from throughout the club's history. The first part focuses on Fabric, the club's Saturday night showcase for various permutations of house and techno.
Marcel Dettmann
and
Cassy
provide more driving, propulsive tracks, while contributions from
IMOGEN
(a new Fabric resident, as of the disc's release) and
Call Super
are more spacy and abstract. Minimal techno innovator
Margaret Dygas
takes a lengthy journey far beyond peak time, with dubby echoes and noodly keyboards floating on top of an unperturbed beat. On an entirely different energy level is
Steffi
's "Ankertje," a heart-racing electro gem laced with sinister vocoders. Closing the disc is "Comet Chaser," an appropriately epic construction from progressive house legend
Sasha
, which builds a stirring melody up from a busy array of choppy, crisscrossing voices.
The second half of the compilation is dedicated to Fabriclive, the club's showcase from drum'n'bass, breaks, grime, dubstep, and any other form of experimental, bass-oriented music. It leads off with the set's hardest track, a thoroughly ecstatic darkcore stormer from
Special Request
titled "Codename Turbo Nutter." Following a rare appearance from the much-missed
Source Direct
,
J Majik
appears with a mystical roller called "The Lost Tribe."
Shackleton
's psychedelic gamelan excursion "Drawn and Quartered" is the release's most out-there selection, yet its heavy, locked-in percussion and sense of elevation provide the type of momentum that makes it ideal for club play. Representing the grime scene, "That Wasn't It" pairs a squeaky, bugged-out beat by
Pinch
with brash, reflective lyrics from
Trim
.
Daniel Avery
spikes up the intensity with the furious acid electro track "Whilst We've Got Metal in Our Blood," then tracks by
Mantra
B.Traits
deliver choppy, drama-filled breakbeats. Two mainstays since the club's inception,
Groove Armada
UNKLE
, round out the release, the former bringing a loose, celebratory party vibe, and the latter going all in on moody soul-searching, punctuated by an eerie voice calling out "We've come a long way." Such a statement is all too appropriate for
, which has witnessed the coming and going of numerous scenes and styles, and survived a closure after authorities revoked its license in 2016, reopening a year later following extensive campaigning. Considering just how much the club has gone through and the sheer number of artists and DJs who have played there, narrowing down the compilation's track listing couldn't have been easy, but the end result befits the club's legacy. ~ Paul Simpson