I arrived at the end of Jeff Dread's set. It's very bass heavy electro-dub with a good groove and very fat beats. There's a live percussionist. The dance floor is sparsely populated, most people up in the stands gently swaying back and forth to the throbbing bass. Over in the back room, ITM's own DJ Semper Fi is playing some drum'n'bass, but we quickly retreat from this room, without the crowd there isn't the vibe there; and personally I'm much more of a roots sort of guy. Sub Bass Snarl are on in this space next; they tell me that although the room was slated for drum'n'bass they didn't bring any, opting for the true form of dub music instead.

Back in the main room, Nasty Tek Sound System start their set, encouraging people to come down to the dancefloor and pack it up for the Mad Professor. Nasty Tek are three members; two seem to swap the role of MC and Selector-Mixer and the third appears to plays the role of Selector-In-Chief and occasional button presser. This Nasty Tekker is Brent Clough, whose ABC Radio National show I previously misidentified as being named after his old 3D-World column, his show is actually called Other Worlds and I urge you to check it out! They play a great mix of dancehall and dub style, mixing it up with sampled mayhem and MC'ing, the cut'n'paste sound system style that a those accustomed to the smooth mixing technique of your average house or techno DJ might not appreciate. This is what I love about the selecta-styling; working with a lot of music in short song form coming off seven inch records, and with a style of music in which tunefullness, playfulness, and the personality of the artist haven't been banished to the outer limits, means you get more of a cut-up, jerky feel than a homogenously blended spectrum. After all, that cut-up jerky feel is found both within the beats of dancehall as well as in its DJ-mixing style. There's lots of great tracks, Tony Rebel's "Royal soldier" and Buccaneer's "Tink it a joke" in particular because they use the "Top A Top" rhythm formerly from Destiny Child's track "Jumpin Jumpin". With a lot of neo R'n'B I like the musical backing but can't stand the saccharine singing and this is a real cure for that by utilising the best bit and replacing the shite bits with the real roots. By the end of their set the dance floor is packed out.

It's now nearly 10 pm and everyone is hanging for the dub creator himself, Mad Professor (Neil Frazer). I'm surprised to see a female MC -- MC Sushi -- this time instead of the male one (Nolan Irie) I saw with the Mad Professor in Newcastle two weeks prior. MC Sushi works real well with the Professor, of course being one of the artists on his label Ariwa Sounds, and in this better venue with a better sound system before a bigger audience it really works excellently.

Mad Professor's live set-up consists of an ADAT 8-Track digital tape machine (it uses video cassettes), a big rack of effects, and a mixer to tie it all together and which is the instrument that Neil "plays". The music that you hear is constructed by mixing together the bits of the tracks that are laid down on the 8-track and effecting them, filtering and EQing them live. It's like a DJ using 8 turntables at once, only in this case there's no need to worry about making the turntables all play in sync with each other, the 8-track does that for you; leaving the Mad Professor to concentrate on the mix and effects. His working method appeared to be to give us a glimpse of the track as you might find it on the record, then to really dub the track up going wild with the mix and getting it real crazy. MC Sushi would both MC to the crowd and harmonise to the music.

Musically his style tonight is mostly in the roots tradition of dub, although having worked with so many different artists over the years we hear a wide and varying selection of dub influenced styles from some with more dancehall influences to overt drum'n'bass. Speaking of drum'n'bass it was interesting to hear at his talk up in Newcastle that an early name for the dub "version" of reggae songs was bass'n'drum! The set consisted of both old and new tracks, some from as early as 1982. I loved the heavy dub of "Africa" and "Ghetto Living", as well as the more sweetly arranged "Peace and Harmony" (one of Sushi's own tracks produced by the Mad Professor), with its melancholic horns. The Lee Scratch Perry track "Techno Party" is also featured early in the set. By the second half my body had truly given itself over to the rhythm, so I recognise less of the music as a more primal part of me takes hold and pulsates to the sound. There is an excellent Aisha track called The Creator. One of the encores is a freaky piece of year 2000 prophesising by Lee Perry in which he foretells the WTC disaster, it's not just bloody spooky, but musically extraordinary as well. A beautiful weaving two hour dubbin' it up of a set later, we head off into the cool night air for home.