Ultra + at The Custard Factory, Birmingham

12/08/2006

Hi there everyone, well, have you heard of this club yet? The Custard Factory is in Digbeth which should be well etched into your minds by now! This is the home of Air and The Sanctuary, two of Brum’s heavy weights in the dance club stakes. Its time to look out because here comes a new contender for the title - Ultra + at The Custard Factory, last week they presented Dave Seaman and Desyn Masiello along with some of the BEST Dirty house dj’s I have heard since this sound has taken its identity.

As soon as I saw it, I liked the Line up from Ultra +!!!!!  I don’t think we have enough Progressive house nights lined up - never mind quality one’s like this night. Ultra + mean business as they are not going to be one hit wonders, they’ve got another Renaissance dj lined up next month - Hernan Cattaneo. He’s playing on the 23rd of Sept, so look out for him if you’re a fan.

Back to this night then, I arrived just before midnight and made my way straight in as there was hardly a queue to speak of - strange considering the Line up, but new-ish club and lots of surrounding competition I thought it was probably about right. When you walk in past the door staff, who looked and behaved very professionally, there to greet you is a rather nice water fountain structure. Its actually pretty big as well as a smart design feature and fits well with the rest of the Club. In general the club is this kind of new urban look - two rooms are made almost entirely of glass, while the main room has dark black walls with the air cooling pipes and fans showing in a contrasting steel colour way above in the rafters. This is not dissimilar from the dark warehouse look of Air, which is literally just around the corner a few streets away. Air is a nice big super club and the main room of the Custard Factory has exactly the same feel as there main dance floor, if anything though it does have a little more to offer, Its got plenty of little raised stages on the sides and in front of the dj booth. This provides a quality surrounding effect if your in the middle of the main room. Plus there are two exits!!!! This is SO important if you don’t want people colliding with you when your stomping your stuff - eh!? At no point during the night did I have people in my way or irritating me by pushing past. Well done Ultra + for choosing such a big venue for these two top dj’s.

By the way if your not up to date on Desyn Masiello, then he has been around since the mid 90s, but the last 5 years have thrust him into the high racks. To date, Desyn has produced and remixed a handful of successful tracks, released his own Bedrock and Balance albums, toured with Digweed and has even done a Radio 1 Essential Mix live from Miami.

His set was quite good - he was very driving and uplifting in parts, I cannot honestly say much more as I couldn’t stay in the main room as I walked over across the water feature to the Dirty House room - And OH MY GOD - was it going Off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quality top tunes that I’d heard at Global a couple of weeks ago were ripping out and me and my mate Graham were just locked to the spot! Check the pics of the guy waving the walking stick in the air - that was one of the dj’s, better known as Lowie & Jack! What a fantastic pair and what a fantastic set - they really did steal a lot of the crowd from Desyn; this is 100% accurate as this room is surrounded in glass and it was quite a treat to look across the way and see the people dancing to Desyn. This made me smile to myself as I could see exactly When Dave Seaman would be on by the amount of people in there or making there way across - a handy little bonus I thought. However the music in here was just perfect and Lowie and Jack really let it rip! This was easily the most enjoyable set of the whole evening and was such a treat as im just getting to grips with this Dirty house sound and these guys can really play it. Having said this one of our very own members - Audio Dice is pretty special too, I saw him play at Hidden the week before and im hoping to see his latest mix on the website very soon! See UKCD live for all our DJ mixes across all the dance music genre’s.

You might be able to tell then that Dave Seaman was not as good as I’ve previously rated him!?!?!?!? What a bummer! He played fairly good progressive house that was his trend of break beat and powerful prog house, but Dave didn’t let rip or really build it up and blow it out like I’ve seen him before. Just a short while ago at the Gallery in London he was great - tonight he seemed less hard on the pedal im afraid. Me and company went over to the Dirty house room again to see what was happening there.

This time it was quiet, very quiet. The sounds were still very good and Russ Price and Myke Smith were making the best of it. This was the main crux of the bad part of the really nice apple - it was simply too big a club with so few people. There are 3 rooms, albeit the last one which I haven’t spoke about yet is quite small but elevated above the main room with a cool stair case and again more glass - hurrah! However it just needed a few more people to get the atmosphere right and get a crowd with enough bodies in it to really get it into top gear! Most people I spoke to, said they welcomed the space as it has been rammed big time before. I was glad to hear this feedback as on the whole it was a really good experience and worth while trip for me. I liked the club and I wasn’t disappointed in it one bit by the presentation and layout - which when you visit a new club for the first time, you always wonder how it will strike you. I will definitely go back and see what they have to offer in the future, especially in the Dirty house selection, my hat goes off to everyone at Ultra + for a brave line up and a great choice of venue, just get the Custard factory to fix that leaky roof will ya - it did drip a bit in the main room when it was raining!!!

Over and Out.

You can check out photos in the UKCD photo gallery.

Review by Paullifefit