It's 9:15pm on a Friday in Fabric and it’s almost empty. By my side is a bright-eyed 24-year old from Brighton with an Ace Ventura-style quiff and a multi-coloured shirt decorated with exotic fruits; his name is L-VIS 1990. He makes a type of bass-heavy dance music which he calls his “hyper bass sound”.
“I am from a Drum and Bass & breaks background”, he tells me. “A lot of the breaks DJs are only just getting into the electro thing. I was into it when it first started to emerge but now it’s completely tired.” What about bassline? “Bassline is on its own really, I don’t want to class myself within the bassline scene although I am a big fan. It is a really good scene full of energy, but most of the DJs are not really breaking out or crossing over on to the London club circuit. However, a new sound is emerging, and a new crew of DJs and producers is coming together to do something fresh and new”.
He tells me his club night Night Slugs, which was set up with Alex Bok Bok from Faggatronix, was set up because there was no night in London playing this bass-heavy sound. Prior to this, his club night in Brighton, So Loud, marked what he saw as an “official funeral” for the new rave of old. As he recalls, “we painted a banner in blood that read “New Rave R.I.P.”, that was the turning point for me, the return of bass.”
This reversion back to "bass" has produced a sound that fuses the aggression of bassline with the slickness of Ed Banger; it combines rave melodies, electro bleeps, jacking techno beats and the wobble of dubstep to create a sound that, as he asserts, is made “only for the dance-floor”.
“My sound has plucked all the goods bits that I have found in the last ten years of listening to dance music. I’ve put them all together – it’s like drum and bass, Detroit house, jacking ghetto house, grime, dubstep and garage all into one. What I want is for everyone to enjoy my sound. Whether you’re into dubstep, garage or electro, you can all get together and enjoy my sound.”
What L-VIS shrewdly avoids is sectioning his sound off; his music is not too dark or oppressive, but it certainly packs a punch. Plus it has a sense of humour; his sample of Al Green in ‘Stay Together’ is a cheeky nod towards the lack of girl-friendly elements that his music appears to be lacking.
“I’m not one for melody. I’m not musically trained – I make tunes that I think will go down well on the dance floor. Girl-friendly doesn’t have to be about female vocals or Spanish guitars. (Laughs) My music is girl-friendly in the sense that it is fun and that you can dance to it.” He’s not wrong. Three hours later, Room Three at Fabric is by no means short of girls, laughs and, of course, terrorising bass lines.
L-VIS 1990's E.P is out 21st July:
A1) Apple Bass
A2) Change the Game
B1) Mr Wobble
B2) Black Snax
Words: Adam Saville
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