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Andy Weatherall vs. Ivan Smagghe

Getting deep down and dirty at The Nest

Last weekend, there was no escaping that a certain festival was taking place Somerset. In fact, there was no escaping that pretty much the whole world and his dog (probably on a string) was going there. Some of us, however, weren’t, meaning that we were even more excited about the prospect of taking to the severely depleted streets of East London.

The Nest in Dalston, formerly Bardens Boudoir, has been building in strength since it opened at the end of last year with mid-week and weekend line-ups taking in the best in house, techno, disco and bass sounds that go boom in the night.

So last Friday while Glastonbury (yeah, we said it) was dancing in the mud to tax dodgers and general has beens U2, DJmag were instead on hand to witness the ever popular pairing of Andy Weatherall and Ivan Smagghe.

Sporting suitably East End facial topiary, and facing a penned in capacity crowd, this was never going to be a set for happy clappy hippies with flowers in their hair. Instead what we got was the aural equivalent of a dark night of the soul, deep, disturbed and relentless, acidic beats and dissonant synths building as the pair gathered steam and offered their uncompromising take on the legacy of acid house.

There might not have been any mud, but it was dirtier than anything on offer anywhere else and a reminder that for gritty, noir house and techno, these two have no match.

www.ilovethenest.com