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FRESH/LIVE
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“If you’re old enough to smoke, put your lighters up,” hollers the MC, leaning out to soak up their heat in this cellar under Glasgow’s railway tracks. The elder heads are joined by a mass of youngsters, but they all obey. God-father of the Breakbeat Kaos label, DJ Fresh has managed to recast himself as the sound of d’n’b reborn, and here he brings his new Fresh/Live show to the feverish new generation.
Set up to one side of the stage like a pharaoh inside a pyramid of fluorescent tubes, Fresh hammers the keys and takes the wild cheers which come his way with a modest fist in the air. These are tracks which suit the full live treatment, from the joyful electro breaks of ‘Gold Dust’ to the huge, crunching dubstep wobble of his Adam F collab ‘It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop’.
Singer Fleur’s voice is radiant and soulful on ‘Lassitude’ and ‘Hyper-caine’, and drummer Kodish adds a layer of tightly rhythmic volume, though little of guitarist Richard de Rosa’s playing is audible above the crunching bass. It’s a work in progress, but surely one of 2012’s festival hits was born tonight.
