When Skream agreed to curate a season's worth of music at London club XOYO the DJ faced an enormous task; first cutting his teeth as a dubstep prodigy, the producer is now better known for house anthems and a real disco fetish.
Pulling favours and unveiling surprises at every turn, the regular Saturday night slot has continually enthralling. This week, though, Skream is set to return to his first love – dubstep. “It's a celebration,” he smiles, before adding: “the line up is not leaving my lips through this conversation!”
“Obviously, dubstep was a massive part of my life from, well, before it was called dubstep up until I stopped playing it,” he recalls. “It was easy for me to pick the line up because it was like picking who to invite back to a party.”
Continuing, Skream revealed that he accidentally sent the cream of dubstep on a wild goose chase. “I sent all the DJs the wrong date," reveals the producer. "Up until ten days ago everybody thought it was in ten days time!”
“It came together really easily. It's just picking all the people who were in my life constantly during that period of time. It's going to be fucking special! That's all I can say. People know I'm going to come with a good line up but I don't think they're going to expect something this good.”
Sadly, the huge strains Skream's touring life placed on his kit mean that the producer won't be able to bring out his old dubplates for this special celebration. “All my dubplates are fucked!” he laughs. “It was supposed to be the busiest gigging schedule of my life during that time. It would be stupid of me to think I could pull 'em back out and they'd sound good."
"But I know some people are. Some people are coming and playing vinyl-only sets. And dub sets. So that'll be cool.”
Piecing together his dream line up, Skream aims to re-capture some of the atmosphere which surrounded dubstep's innovative, enormously exciting opening phase. “There's a lot of names on the bill. It's going to kind of be back to how DMZ used to go – everybody playing has their own style and sound."
"It's just going to be like old times," he says. "Almost house party vibes, people just spinning tunes and everybody having a drink and just having a thoroughly good time, really. Everybody I've spoken to has been super excited about it.”
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Skream Presents: 2001-2005 takes place at XOYO this Saturday (February 21st).
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