Ballantine’s and Boiler Room have been committed to showcasing the best of underground music for several years now, reflecting the constant development of the underground music scene and putting emerging artists centrestage. Following on with this tradition, this year they launched the first edition of the Boiler Room No Headliners festival. Bringing together a carefully curated selection of new artists across four genres, the festival ensured that the walls of Peckham would shake over the span of its four day run.

Ballantine’s co-presented Boiler Room’s bass night of the Boiler Room festival, with the shared ‘no headliner’ vision. Across the festival, Boiler Room carefully curated a selection of new and legendary artists across four genres, ensuring that the walls of Peckham would shake over the span of its four day run.

Ballantine’s bass night of the festival brought to the crowd an immersion into the UK born and bred genre of bass music. If there’s one thing that the underground community can commonly agree on it’s probably the fact that bass is impossible to label. Originally a mixture of dubstep, house and grime, the genre has quickly become an experimental playground for artists bringing in more and more external influences. Electro, trap, skank, afro-house…. there’s a familiar rhythm for everyone when listening to bass, which might explain why the genre was able to grow so easily within the international club scene.

These blurred lines around the frontiers of bass, as well as Ballantine’s dedication to promote “borderless music”, showed through at the Boiler Room Festival. From day one, a quick stroll through the different sets was guaranteed to offer a variety of different energies and atmospheres. From the rumbling percussions of Ahadadream and SNØW to the grime-infused set of Oblig – not forgetting the impromptu dancehall session of Jamie Rodigan and the easy skanking of legendary Aba Shanti-I – we were in for a true multi-genre experience. Halfway through the night, it was hard not to take a minute to relish in what had become an inevitable fate: bass veterans and curious newbies feverishly coming together in the damp atmosphere of a South London basement, allowing themselves to instinctively move along to the music.

It was yet another successful party for Ballantine’s and Boiler Room, making us eager for what’s to come in the wake of the next phase of their True Music partnership, which aims to “collaborate on a grassroots level to ensure local music scenes thrive across the globe”.