When London club Fabric opened in October 1999, dubstep was barely a twinkle in 2-step’s eye, Daft Punk were just a promising French house duo, and nu-skool breaks was all the rage. 20 Years of Fabric, released to celebrate two decades of the club, isn’t a comprehensive guide to Fabric’s adventures since then. There’s no grime, little dubstep, and no Ricardo Villalobos, who seemed to be permanently stuck into an eight-hour set whenever I visited in the 2000s.
Then again, there’s simply no way of jamming two decades of London clubbing into 20 tracks, however well curated, and those oversights shouldn’t detract from what is a worthy—if occasionally dull—attempt to make sense of the decades of sleepless nights and millions of electronic beats that have gone into making Fabric such an enduring institution. 20 Years of Fabric (the album) says a great deal about the past 20 years of Fabric (the club); it also offers insight into a British club culture that balances reverence for the past with an eye for the future, and where commercialism and experimentalism go hand in hand.
The club has invited 20 artists who helped shape its sound to contribute new tracks to this compilation. Uncharitably, you might group them into those representing Fabric’s past (Sasha, UNKLE and Groove Armada), present (Anastasia Kristensen, Nina Kraviz, Daniel Avery, et al), and future (new residents IMOGEN and Mantra). The imperial march of house and techno dominates, as it does Saturday nights all over Britain; the genres’ reliability is a vaguely comforting disappointment. Tracks from Call Super, Margaret Dygas, and Kraviz suggest an alternative avenue for the 4/4 sound that is giddy, hypnotic, and laced with psychedelia, but they risk getting bogged down in the methodical efficiency of contributions from Marcel Dettmann, Sasha, and IMOGEN.
Drum’n’bass, which has played a crucial role in the history of both Fabric and British nightlife, fares better. The three artists here—Special Request, Source Direct, and J. Majik—may sail closer to the ’90s tradition of chopped “Amen” breaks and rave-induced paranoia than to the precision-engineered sonics of modern drum’n’bass. But there is a serotonin-loosening rush of nostalgic futurism to their cold-blooded atmospherics (Source Direct’s “Vigilante”), melodic sub bass (J. Majik’s “The Lost Tribe”) and borderline ridiculous rave cosplay (Special Request’s “Codename Turbo Nutter”) that reminds you how vibrant the genre was in its heyday.
From here on in, things get murkier. Shackleton’s “Drawn and Quartered” has the rambling mysticism, polyrhythmic ceremony, and live feel of his Tunes of Negation project, while Pinch & Trim’s “That Wasn’t It” rides a screwball rhythm and melancholic piano chords; the two songs’ utter indifference to the drop is a reminder of how far most dubstep pioneers have moved from the genre’s gothic bass pressure. Mantra’s “Embers” is equally uncanny, if slightly more danceable. The song’s stuttering breaks and rumbling bass suggest an experimental drum’n’bass track pitched down to -8, where it connects with the bubbling synth rush and euphoric vocal loop of an ’80s rave anthem.
It is a shame that the album then descends into the moribund closing duo of Groove Armada’s “Wesley Nightshade” and UNKLE’s painfully earnest “Catch Me When I Fall (Fabric Club Mix)”: Their dual blandness splashes ketchup all over 20 Years’ increasingly spicy second half. The club has been many things over the years, not all of them successful, but rarely is it as boring as these songs suggest.
Ultimately, if you want to experience the thrills of Fabric at 20, go to the club; if you want to explore Fabric’s historical significance, your first port of call should be the Fabric and Fabriclive mix CDs, whose monthly installments were essential in mapping out the electronic music landscape of the 2000s. But if you want a warts-and-all snapshot of modern British clubbing, jammed somewhere tedium and brilliance, 20 Years of Fabric will do you right.
