Accidental Meetings Bring DjRUM, Skee Mask and More To Bristol's Strange Brew

George Ward

Freelance journalist and online editor for CLUNK. Can be found out and about in Bristol, finding cheap records or having a pint on King Street.

Led by a legendary B2B set from Skee Mask and DjRUM, Accidental Meetings’ Strange Brew event was a huge genre-bending night

On Saturday, Bristol label Accidental Meetings curated a night of electronic music, split across two of Bristol’s best venues. Strange Brew was the hub for the night, with the venue completely transformed; a black curtain parallel to the bar and the venue rotated 90 degrees, the DJs played on the left side of the crowd rather than on the stage. Just across the road, The Island’s smaller basement club hosted darker, moodier sets.

Despite lengthy queues leaving some ticket-holders stuck outside the venue for a while, the night kicked off strong in Strange Brew, with Shy One dropping a grime set. This set the tone for the night, with a dark energy filling the room as the crowd slowly filled. The set went hard, especially when vocals were mixed in, these tracks hitting harder than the grime instrumentals.

A thoughtful touch to the night was the back room of Strange Brew, with Under Heavy Manners keeping a chilled vibe going to escape from the chaos, fans spread across the floor on beanbags. Having a room like this is always such a great move at club nights, especially when the music is as relentlessly hard as it was.

After this peaceful interlude, we headed back to the main room to catch DjRUM B2B Skee Mask. Playing a chunky 3 hour set from 2am to 5am, we settled into the crowd for the long haul, ready to watch two masters of the game play one of our most anticipated sets for a while. Of course, this did not disappoint. With the the crowd now packed and the bass finally loud enough to rattle through me, we were immediately hit with acid house to kick things off.

As the set progressed, it was hard to keep track, and as soon as you were bored with a genre, you were thrust into something entirely new. Dubstep moved to drill and bass moved to disco house and though it sounds like a mess on paper, every transition made complete sense.

During straight-up techno moments, the duo shone, with the melodic bass sounding impossibly heavy and each track breaking down into purely percussive sections; rhythmic, glitchy, so hard. The sound was excellent from where we were standing, with rolling DnB snares sounding sharp and tight and acid techno bass sounding sufficiently squelchy: “Toads would play this in the swamp,” I wrote in my notes app.

After a while, we headed over to the second venue, The Island for the rest of the night. Quickly, it became clear why the queue situation was a little chaotic. Due to cramming in the bigger names in one venue (the bigger one in fairness), it left the other venue fairly quiet. Luckily, as DjRUM and Skee Mask drew to a close, the Island became inhabited and we locked in for Beau Wanzer’s set to take us up to the 6am close.

Stickers were placed over phone cameras on entry, which led to a refreshing lack of phones/photos on the floor: a trend I’d be happy to see take on elsewhere. Under The Island was the perfect venue for this set; the dark, smoky basement was soon filled with sinister, dingy four-to-the-floor techno. Beau Wanzer read the room perfectly, with rapid tempo changes always feeling deliberate and never random. The mix of genres was experimental and fresh, with distorted sidechained guitars feeling as at home as moody acid house. Keeping a crowd interested this late into the night isn’t easy, but for those who stuck it out, it was more than worth the wait.

Listen to ‘Under Tangled Silence’ here: