Clubs

So what’s on then?
The opening night (Sept 19) features a headline set from James Lavelle’s UNKLE, with support from Late Of The Pier and frat-rock gonnabes Iglu & Hartley. The following evening sees Matter launch its Saturday club-night strand with an exclusive appearance from Carl Cox (with help from Yousef). The following Friday (Sept 26) is headlined by Reverend and the Makers, with Sasha representing house-world superbrand Renassiance on September 27. Canadian disclectro master Deadmau5 hosts his personal Mousetrap Party in the venue on October 2, and the following Saturday sees John Digweed celebrate breaksfest Bedrock’s tenth-birthday bashment. For the rest of the month, Matter will be hosting the brand new This Is NOT London festival from promoters Deadly People (more details below), which hands the venue over to Simian Mobile Disco (Oct 3), Southern Fried/Armand Van Helden (Oct 17), Moshi Moshi’s Tenth Birthday (Oct 18), James Murphy and DFA (Oct 24) and Justice (Oct 25). Each This is NOT London headliner will be responsible for booking the rest of the night’s entertainment too, so expect lots of very special guests and daft behaviour. Feature continues

And what’s going to be on in the far-flung future?
‘The only policy that we’re really subscribing to is that if it’s good, it goes on. We’re gonna do club nights on Saturdays, but the music for the rest of the week will be whatever fits best. And that’s gonna be really broad and diverse. It’s all about putting together the one show each month that is really unmissable. That goes for whichever kind of music you’re into – be it techno, indie, rock or anything.

You’re also announcing the launch of the new This is NOT London festival.
‘This is NOT London takes over all of October. We know the guys who are doing that really well, and they came to us with the concept. It’s a global event where they’re taking the idea of a festival and stretching it. So if you imagine that each tent at a festival is now a night in the month, that’s the way they’ve approached it. They’ll be hosting simultaneous events all over the world along those lines. It’s a bit like ATP for a younger generation. The idea is someone, a big headline act, curates the night, whether that’s Hot Chip or whoever, and they programme a night of entertainment around the live show that they’re the centerpiece of.’

Have the bands you’ve booked so far made plans to utilise the venue’s twenty-ninth century AV technology?
‘There’s not really anything like this system that exists at the moment. So everyone we’ve secured dates with, we’ve invited them down to spend some time with the venue and really get into how much we can actually do there in terms of the delivery of the show. It’s about delivering this real experience, rather than there just being a band on stage and a couple of support acts and everyone goes home. Pixel Addicts, who designed the visual system, will be working with us for the first year at least. We’re really trying to raise the bar of what people expect from their £10 or £15 entry fee.’

Which would explain why UNKLE are booked for the opening night, given their propensity for visual geekery…
‘Yeah, that’s one of the key points. They’ve always been really heavily influenced by art and moving image, and so their visual thing is amazing. So there were some really nice parallels between us, which is why we plumped for them. But it’s our opening night and we don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves. So we’ve got a great headline band that are really gonna do some damage with the sound system and the visuals, then Late Of The Pier are a newer, more sceney band, and Iglu & Hartley are really now and just blowing up. That was the thinking – to show the diversity of what we can do.’