We’ve all heard the story of the three pigs and how the wisest one uses bricks to build their house.
But how about the wise DJs who use Bricks to build Anything But House?
Confused? You won’t be in a moment…
On Friday August 7, 1 More Thing is about to huff and puff into London for our next club collaboration. It’s at Bricks, in Brixton, and it’s in collaboration with a brand new concept – Anything But House.
That’s where the pun stops, and the fun starts…
Anything But House is the invention of Noizfiend and our good friend Jawrs, one of our two Mixmas winners last year.
“We wanted to capture the multi-genre-ness of the night. Something that was a bit kind of in-your-face, a bit cheeky, but something memorable,” explains Jonny Jawrs, a DJ who, if you recall, absolutely blew our houses down and burnt every hair on our chinny chin chins with his very memorable multi-genre Mixmas mix in December. “We were thinking, ‘What music are we going to play? Well, Anything But House.”
Sumukh Noizfiend laughs remembering the moment it landed: “One of us just said it, and then the other person was like, wait — what if that’s just the name?”
Now it’s more than a name. It’s a reality. A reality that’s packed with in-your-face, cheeky and memorable DJs. Joining Jawrs and Noizfiend is an on-point rollcall representing London’s sharpest and most forward-thinking new generation DJs. Many of whom have connected through the city’s thriving open decks events, especially ones held by Faded Society. A kindred spirit who we’ve been really blessed to work with in the past, her Back 2 Back Battle concept has been very successful and the parties have been a lot livelier, rawer and closer to original club culture than many mainstream big ticket events you’ll find in the city. They’ve showcased an immense array of new talent currently active in London and this is how they’ve connected.
“These are the people who we’ve resonated with,” says Jawrs who actually met Noizfiend at one of Faded Society’s events. “These are the people who all have awesome sounds. So it’s just a really nice way to give something back to that scene and create something from it.”
A level up from grassroots open decks, they skipped the sticks and gone straight for Bricks and they’ll be joined by these big bad upcoming wolves…
Alongside Jonny and Sumukh is the exciting and equally wide-armed vibes of DJ / producer / promoter Tasha MP4, the incredibly talented Positive_Con (whose music we released on our Incandescent VA in the form of the hectic bass bomb Delirium) the ridiculously sharp DJ/finger drummer Eossi, New Zealand multi-genre wizard BIDOIS, hard dance / bounce Queen Margella and champion genre splicer DJ LeeLoo. All of them paired up in interesting and forward-thinking b2bs.
And if that’s not enough, representing 1 More Thing is myself NoDave and another Mixmas alumni Fireworks Factory, fresh from his recent release Pretty Rave Boy / Plasmoid. Like everyone else, we’ll also be playing b2b. And, like everyone else, we certainly won’t be playing any house music.
“I want to emphasize we’re not shitting on house as a genre!” laughs Jonny. “More that it’s become the poster genre of these nights that are quite washed out, and they’re quite commercial and are playing it very safe. But you don’t push the boundaries if you play it safe.”
A message after our own heart. Jawrs has summarised everything we stand for and believe in with that last sentence. There’s no doubt a whole thesis that could be written about these type of events reflecting the homogenisation and dilution of raw club culture that we’ve seen across so many genres and movements. But we’ll save that for another once upon a time.
What’s most important for this particular rave fairytale is for you to know that Anything But House is happening, it’s a wicked showcase of a new generation of open minded eclectic artists who are supercharged by the original spirit of rave and pure misfit energy and with everyone playing b2bs, you can guarantee you’ll be hearing genuinely creative and unrehearsed DJing as everyone responds to the crowd and to each other – enhancing that connectivity all the more.
“I think for me, the whole idea of raving and those kind of underground nights is about discovery,” says Jonny. “Things that people would never have heard of, and putting them together in really creative, interesting ways. That’s what it’s all about for me.”
“One genre can kind of be a gateway drug into another, too,” agrees Sumukh who – like Jonny – originally came into electronic music through metal. “You come to a drum and bass night, there’s somebody playing dubstep, you hear things you might like — now dubstep has a new fan.”
Come August 7, with any luck everyone on the line-up will be winning over new fans on the dancefloor as we give the city what it needs… And not what the commercial machine thinks it wants.
Anything But House lands at Bricks on Friday August 7. Expect to hear every genre… Well, almost.
Tickets & Info
