Oh Hello! was a little empty when I hit the Friday night dancefloor. The local DJs were banging out the edm trap classics, which, well, when the night’s called Trapped, whaddya expect? Actually, something different was precisely what I came for, although I was probably one of the few. Sydney producer Ribongia has been putting together a wild fusion of sounds from, literally, across the world: UK garage to US footwork to -most importantly- an insane cavalcade of different dance styles out of Africa. Be it batida, kwaito, of Shangaan electro, Ribongia has heard it and his doing his own take. That could be a recipe for gimmicky, cultural tourism, but in Ribongia’s hands it’s a whole recipe book from which he chooses carefully and creates sounds which are both unusual and tasteful; ‘world fusion’ shouldn’t always be your cue to head for the door.  

Ribongia’s recent Escapisms, is his most astute collection of cuts yet. EDM trap is the dance sound du jour and Ribongia is career focussed enough to give the kids a little bit of what they want, but it’s spliced with -as I said- an almost endless list of other styles and they blend more seamlessly than ever before.

That was how his set felt at Oh Hello!, smooth. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’s banged out this lot a few times before, I think you can find a lot of the tracklist on Thump’s website where it was posted back in late 2014, but gosh it works and he gives it a nice live twist by bringing his own xylophone, hammering away at the bars on stage.

The crowd started grow a bit as they warmed to unfamiliar sounds - which was nice to see. Interestingly they seemed less interested in the trap, but when the couple of footwork numbers kicked in some of the kids went ballistic; Chi-town reprazent.

It’s quite hard to sell sounds from several continents away to floors full of people who only want to hear what everyone else is hearing. I turned out to hear one of Australia’s most interesting producers (I don’t even care how much of a disgusted snob I sound like) and I got exactly what I wanted.

- Chris Cobcroft.