Deep house DJs are often unfairly pigeonholed as warm up DJs, such is the misinterpretation of the mellow brand of house music that they offer. What is deemed acceptable house club music too often nowadays is all about pumping rhythms well above 122bpm, drenched in throwaway vocal samples and showy production flair. This being the case, it felt like a blessing to not only have relief from this, but for the relief to be administered by arguably one of the best DJ/producers in the genre.

Terre Thaemlitz, aka DJ Sprinkles, has stated in various interviews how he does not enjoy DJing. The reason she gives for this is that the music she plays has become so far removed from the original context which birthed it, and in which Thaemlitz cut his teeth as a DJ, in transgender and gay sex clubs. Going to Butter Side Up last Friday, for me, was as much dosed with excitement for the night ahead, as it was some form of guilt that the crowd had the probability to exist of the ‘young, white, middle class, straight kids on drugs’ that Sprinkles resents having to play to.

Whether the experience was enjoyable for Thaemlitz was hard to tell, and frankly beyond the scope of this review, but nevertheless he went about his economically demanded task with finesse. The simplistically structured and tightly produced deep house Sprinkles is known for playing and producing under various monikers for his Comatonse Recodings label were handled seamlessly, with tunes such as his Over-Dub Remix of Will Long’s ‘Under-Currents’ playing out superbly on Wire’s Funktion One system, the scattering percussion and weighty low end almost single-handedly proving the reputation of deep house as ‘chill out music’ inaccurate.

After a blissful two hours with Sprinkles behind the decks, still-criminally underrated techno and electro-weirdness DJ Gwenan took over for the final two hours. She had her work cut out for her following the headliner, but she easily left many on the dance floor wondering why they hadn’t heard her name before with a seamless handover from Sprinkles and a series of unashamed bangers to finish the night off.

Sprinkles alternates gender pronouns, preferring this to conventional pronouns such as ‘one’ and ‘they’ because, to  quote Sprinkles, “gender is never neutral under the patriarchy”

Oliver Staton

Image credits: Resident Advisor