This month we're bringing you a very special Festive Fortified. To mark the last Fortified Session of the decade, we'll have at the forefront not one, but two major guests gracing the wan's & teu's. For those of you who are even remotely acquainted with Wild East Ragga-Breakbeat pioneers who shoot straight from the hip, then Shut Up & Dance should need no introduction, as they're pretty much the frontrunners when it comes to that kinda rude behaviour. The boys PJ & Smiley formed the Shut Up & Dance imprint out of an East London bedroom in the year of nineteen and eighty eight and in the process inked out the blueprint for the Jamaican Soundsystem and UK Rave culture crossover. Along with DJ Hype & DJ Daddy, these Hackney Soldiers operated the infamous Heatwave Soundsystem, often breaking into warehouses and jacking the electricity box to nice up the dance. Productions such as "£10 To Get In", "Dance Before The Police Come" and "This Town Needs a Sheriff" are seminal chapters in underground dance music history, but unlike most artists from that era, Shut Up & Dance have yet to call it a day. The SU&D imprint is still going strong, and in 2008 Martyn became one of the few artists other than themselves to remix a Shut Up & Dance production with his reworking of "Epileptic". Needless to say, Shut Up & Dance are a massive influence on the whole Electric Eliminators/Fortified aesthetic, so now it's time to get off yer horse pilgrim and drink yer rum & black. Next up is a young fella who has impressed us so much that this is the second time we've booked him this year. Oneman is an anomaly in the dubstep world purely for the fact that, although he has a slim volume of productions under his belt, he seems to be all up in yer guts. Ineed he is the only guest to appear on Mary Anne Hobbs show without releasing one single record.This has everything to do with his indelible skills when tickling the technics, as Oneman is one of the best DJ's this country has to offer right now. His sets cover classic Garage, Dubstep, Grime, Funky and you-bloody-well-name-it, and his appearance alongside Plastician at Fortified earlier this year literally rocked the rafters, not to mention sliding in a curveball number at the end (yeah, you know).
As ever B.A.S.S. will be on hand to ensure the party goes with a boom!
