P DEX

Caught two sets by DJ P Dex last night, one of hardcore band Enter Shikari's crew. He plays a 30 minute set merging raucous drum and bass, hip-hop and dubstep before the band takes to the stage, and it's amazing to see how he hypes up their crowd pre-showtime. Especially as the very same crowd, at least at the Mean Fiddler show last night, booed off support band An Albatross, whose manic thrashcore sound is so much closer to Shikari's own.

His secret is a mixture of showmanship - unlike so many d&b DJs, he actually looks like he's having fun - impressively dextrous scratch skills and, above all, having the balls to play a populist, accessible set of well known bangers rather than a succession of cool, yet-to-be-released dubplates.

Skipping from record to record with the impetuous nature of a hyperactive five year old, he somehow manages to shoehorn snippets of Prodigy, Beastie Boys, Daft Punk, Goldbug-doing-Zeppelin (as sampled on Andy C's unreleased 'Screamer' classic) into crashing beats from d&b scene stalwarts like Jonny L, Dillinja, Distorted Minds, Chase & Status and Pendulum.



After the Fiddler show, it was onto The Borderline for an aftershow refreshingly populated by faithful fans rather than (us) industry types. There, and with Shikari singer Rou adding occasional MC input, he went on another multi-genre rampage which started with NWA's 'Straight Outta Compton' before taking in more soulful d&b, then gabber techno, classic rave and most points in between. As this blogger headed off home to see whether Obama had won the election yet, this ludicrously dumb (in all the right ways) house anthem by Steve Mac, 'Paddy's Revenge', followed me home in my head.



Does anyone recognise the tune? It's actually by 80s ambient/world music loungers Pengiun Cafe Orchestra, although it never quite sounded like this before.