Published on ShanghaiDaily.com (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/)
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200807/20080710/article_366206.htm


Fat bass beats heat up the party at Bonbon
Created: 2008-7-10

IT'S time to pump up the bass at Club Bonbon this month with two world renown bass-heavy producers coming to Shanghai.

This time around it's a left-right punch from "Batty Bass" founder Hannah Holland, who plays tomorrow, followed by Dave "Switch" Taylor of "Switch & Sinden" and "Bassline" fame at the end of the month.

It's all a great follow-up to Shimon's thundering set at Siesta's drum 'n' bass birthday bash last week.

Tomorrow, Club Bonbon dishes up some of the latest sounds at the core of the East London electro-fashion scene.

DJ Hannah Holland's trademark "Trailer Trash" nights have run successfully for almost four years, bringing together anyone with an itch to dance, creating a free-for-all atmosphere centered around bottom-heavy beats and an East-Ender attitude.

"It's a total mish-mash of music and people," Holland says.

"And the crowd's always up for whatever I play - it's wicked."

As club nights continue to evolve, reinvention becomes de rigeur and it's often the mashup of classic styles which emerges as something new.

But reinvention itself is not enough to drive a new style's popularity, and Holland points out that a key element to the success of "Trailer Trash" has been the constant striving to find new and unique places for one-off parties and events which complement the weekly events in Hoxton.

"Last year we threw a 'Trailer Trash' party in a 500-year-old prison that still had the torture chambers in it," Holland said.

"It was mad - there were strobe lights everywhere and trannies dancing in the cells. It felt like you were on some sort of ghost ride."

The ongoing success of the Trailer Trash parties has spawned a new event "Bastard Batty Bass" by Hannah Holland and Mama Shamone, who also fronts the party's rock-electro band.

The music, as the name implies, is all about bass.

"I play feel-it-in-your-pants music that you can get sweaty to," says Holland.

Getting there was no ball of wax, however, and Holland cites DJs like "Switch," (who is coming to Bonbon on July 25), as influences who have helped London's bassline house scene shed its bad reputation. In doing so, they have opened the way for a new breed of DJs like Holland who, with her signature Bastard Batty Bass sound, are prepared to take the core elements into new directions.

What is Batty Bass? Think of a mashup of Chicago Booty house and Baile/favela funk, with the rolling bass of late 1990s Speed Garage, yet having roots in Jungle.

"It's a sound which DJs such as Zombie Disco Squad and Tron and Johan of Radioclit are also pushing forward."

Holland's drum 'n' bass angle is a throwback to her South London roots, where she grew up listening to DJ Hype and Goldie.

She's sure to give Bonbon's Funktion-One sound system a heavy duty workout.

Curious for more? Check out her eight or nine mix sets available freely from apple.com, just search for "Hannah Holland Batty Bass" in the iTunes Music Store podcasts.

Her appearance at Shanghai marks the third LGBT-friendly monthly event at Club Bonbon with previous visits by Larry Tee, who is Ru Paul's producer, and Parisian fashion set founders of Kitsune's Gildas and Masaya in May.

Holland is capitalizing on the emergence of the new sound and has established her own independent record label "Batty Bass Records."

She is currently working on a number of releases including a track with Johnny Woo.



Club Bonbon, Home of Godskitchen China

Address: 2-3/F, Yunhai Tower, 1329-1331 Huaihai Rd M.

Website: www.clubbonbon.com

Reservations: 133-2193-9299








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