Cause & Affect at Stealth, Nottingham

Nottingham is no doubt afar from our usual southerly based reviews, so I jumped at the chance to see Cause and Affect in action at the award-winning club Stealth. As always, a different place means different vibes. And boy can I tell you, the Notts crew certainly love to party!

Birmingham grown Cause and Affect are known for their pioneering work in the Bass and Jack House hybrid scene, following in the footsteps of heavyweights such as DJ EZ, My Nu Leng, Eats Everything, and Skream. They are currently signed to Dirtybird Records, an American based label curated by Claude Von Stroke, which has become synonymous with experimental releases and dance-floor fillers. Cause and Affect was originally a bass duo consisting of Chris Lorenzo and K.O Kane, releasing tracks such as the well known ‘Get to the Chopper’. Recently, however, the two have decided to split paths, with Chris Lorenzo touring and releasing on his own, and the latter remaining as Cause and Affect.

The club itself, Stealth, was smoke filled and intimate – just how I like it. Upon arrival we were greeted with a warm up set courtesy of the Stealth Resident DJ’s who succeeded in getting the main room at full capacity well before Cause and Affect had entered the building. This was a struggle at times, and at one point I found myself stuck on a lower floor unable to access the main room. This was no-doubt due to the addition of Rescue Rooms to Stealth to create a larger venue, but with little attraction to spend time in it. This issue was rectified after a while through the ‘priority’ wristbands available for advance ticket holders, but still was an agro that the night could have done without.

After a half-hour wait, we got into the main room a few minutes to one: just enough to grab a few drinks and head to the front for the start of the headline set. Cause and Affect certainly delivered the goods, bringing us a mix of old and new that went down perfectly with the crowd. The old being ‘classics’ such as ‘Stampede’ and ‘The Enforcer’, and the new being a sneak peak of ‘Spider’, a dirty, twisted new track forthcoming on Black Butter Records. ‘Spider’ has a new sound that paves the way for bass tracks whilst still sticking true to the Cause and Affect sound that we all count on to really get the night going.

For the second time that inSYNC has seen Cause and Affect they did not fail to impress. A night of hard bass/house music to keep the party going!

Venue – 7/10

DJ/Band – 8/10

Music – 8/10

Overall – 8/10