Bassix - a night that initially ran between Singapore and Melbourne decided to extend it's wings. And KL clubland was the destination. Described as a "drum n bass awareness project from joint-venture of few major collectives across Singapore, Malaysia and Australia", Bassix had their first event at Union Square on the 14th of February. Their gig at Bilique (the haven for those who want he music sans the downtown traffic) was to be their second.

Fresh from the Beatmonkey launch, many had hoped the impression of Bilique as broken beats central had found its way into punters heads. With the sudden cancellation of Tempo's Regenerate In The City, this Loops Collective and Morph Media venture night was set to see a 'brighter' night. On the local front, the Beatmonkey crew were to take on the decks for the night while 'representing' Singapore were djs Invid, Rawn and Mc Sam.

The early crowd were mostly happy hour loungers - a typical sight at Bilique. However, it is usually highly inaccurate to gauge the night's response before 11pm. Nevertheless warm up must go on and DJ Eush of the Beatmonkey crew laid on a good dose of breaks to kickstart the night.

Shortly after that familiar faces and regular bass heads were seen merging from the double doorway, and if the night ever neded a sponsor Adidas would be glad to know it had shoes on 90% of feets that night. By then DJ Rawn was already on the decks feeding the growing number of punters with a punishing dose of drum n bass. And to add colour to the set was MC Sam, egging more new arrivals to hit the floor with his rhythmic vocals.

However, despite the generally good vibe it seemed that the ghost of technical errors wasn't going to let the night carry on without at least a single glitch. Working his way through the set, DJ Rawn was met with multiple technical errors ranging from mysterious silencers to disappearing sounds from the monitor speaker. Nevertheless the night wore on and it as time for Invid to take the dancefloor to the next level. By now, the dancefloor saw a healthy number of stomping feet. Taking over from DJ Rawn's jump up interspersed set, Invid decided it was time to inject a dose of the dark and wicked. No complaints from the crowd there.

Taking time out from the reverberating set, we managed to pull a punter or two for some comments. When asked for a view on the Frequent 'leftie' nights at Bangsar these days, budding drum n bass producer Irwan aka Audiotrixx had all that was positive to say.

"We are really excited about the support for drum n bass right here in Bangsar. People are dancing and it's not trance that's playing. There are no posers here too!" he says.

This one half of the crew that displayed the famous Spacebar banner at Kent choice: Elevation in Genting last August also hopes that after this drum n bass won't be just another passing phase in KL fickle clubland.

Despite the size of the location and the seemingly small turnout one thing remained true - by 3am there wasn't a single punter who left without sweat on their foreheads and blisters in their feet. And given the relatively small proportions of the venue and event, the night was a definitely encouraging sight. If only all Malaysian-Singapore ventures were this encouraging. So when will we see the third installment of Bassix? We will just have to wait and see.

-Kathia