Live at the Heavenly Sunday Social [4th Sept 1994]

Weatherall once again showing that whatever others were up to at a given time, he could do even better. The UK sound of “big beat” by the late ’90s would become a thing of clunking cliché, but in 1994 it was still new and riotous fun — a rowdy, eclectic offspring of the indie-dance explosion of 1989–91 — and its epicentre was the Sunday Social run by Heavenly Records. Weatherall was already in a breakbeat frame of mind at this point, as The Sabres Of Paradise’s second album Haunted Dancehall showed. But where that was deep and eerie, this DJ set is non-stop party heaters, even as the tempo remains low. Hip hop old (The Fearless Four) and then-new (Craig Mack), re-edits of The Clash, early Chemical Brothers (then still the Dust Brothers before confusion with John King and Michael Simpson forced the name change), gurgling acid, James Brown cut-ups all flow into one another to create absolutely monstrous fun.