Review taken from Sandman magazine:

Vex’d / Ceephax Acid Crew

C90 @ Matilda Social Centre

At the top of Matilda St. lies Gatecrasher, a bastion of commercial clubland. Once upon a time, Crasher pushed music it believed in. Now it just peddles the same old mass market tracks that you can hear in any bar in any town. Sadly, Gatecrasher’s transitition from credible to commercial is just one instance of a general trend sweeping the land. Too many promoters want to make money more than they want to support music they love.

You either live with this or you fight it. On Saturday 8th October, C90 were fighting pretty damn hard. In sharp contrast to the Gatecrasher’s shiny box, the Social Centre is a massive brick building that is the perfect setting for an underground warehouse party. C90 have been through a lot of venues, with varying results, but this one fitted the music and the crowd perfectly.

The C90 boys were on warm up for the main acts. Covering everything from folktronica to grime to crunk to breakcore, they were eclectic to say the least. Needless to say, the dance for was filled up before they made way for Vex’d.

The soundsystem was hooked up to make Vex’d’s dubstep sound as dark and brilliant as possible. Even if you’d heard their album, Degenerate, you wouldn’t have heard them like this: they played off 10”s that were pressed on Saturday morning. All I need to say is that there was a small hole in the wall in the back of the room, which was physically shaking plaster all over the place. Everyone was smiling.

Towards the end of their set, Vex’d started to look a little confused when some guy grabbed a mic and started giving some laughable shout outs over their last tracks. But it was just the showmanship of Ceephax Acid Crew. Playing rave madness off an old Atari via a screen that looked like it was made in the 1920s, Ceephax was mental. Add some comincally bad mc’ing and you know it was mad fun. The sound of “come on you C90 rave crew” still rings in my ears.

The best thing about a night is when you trust the promoters. When you know that the acts will be quality, even when you’ve never heard of them. It was like that with NY Sushi back in the day, and like that with all the best nights I’ve been to. C90 has tried to get that for a while now. Finally, it seems they have achieved it.