You’ve heard about raves that are tough to get into, but this one is on another level. On 15 October, drum and bass pioneer Roni Size will descend 1,375 feet beneath the Welsh mountains for a one-off G-SHOCK Sessions inside the abandoned Cwmorthin slate mine in Eryri, North Wales, in an attempt to stage the deepest underground rave in history.
A limited number of ballot winners will join Size underground, navigating dark stairways, waterlogged passages and ravines before tackling zip lines and abseiling down sheer rock faces. The journey ends in a vast chamber deep inside the mountain, transformed into a dancefloor for one night only.
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Paying homage to the roots of rave culture, when sound systems took over unexpected and often hard-to-reach spaces, the event takes the connection between music and location a step further, turning the mine itself into part of the performance.
Using specialist field-recording technology, elements of Size’s set will be driven directly into the surrounding slate through vibration transducers, while geophones and hydrophones capture the frequencies travelling through rock, mud and water. The mine’s unique acoustic response, measured using convolution reverb techniques, will then be fed back into the live mix, creating a seismic signature shaped by the mountain itself.
The resulting performance will capture the literal sound of the underground, with G-SHOCK Radio broadcasting the experiment via Starlink from Cwmorthin Quarry on 15 October. The full set will subsequently be available on Mixcloud.
For Size, the setting marks a return to his underground roots. Emerging from Bristol’s sound-system and rave scenes, he helped shape the early sound of jungle and drum and bass before bringing the genre to wider audiences with Reprazent, whose debut album New Forms won the 1997 Mercury Prize. At Cwmorthin, he brings that experimental spirit back underground for a performance unlike any other.
“Back in Bristol, we’d put on a party wherever we could, and some of the sounds came from what we called happy accidents, playing a track at the wrong speed, hearing something that sounds new but still works. Raves could take place in some crazy and unexpected places, on someone’s front lawn, down in tunnels, but what I’ve always done is play to the environment, and the crowd. The set is a living, breathing thing that reflects the people there with you.
That’s the spirit I want to take into Cwmorthin. By the time we’re 1,375 feet underground, everyone there will already have shared an adventure. And how much more could you reflect the environment than by pumping a set into the mountain, hearing the sound travelling through the slate, rock and mud, and bringing it back into the mix. It’s the most underground of underground raves ever.”
– Roni Size
Places for the event will be allocated through a public ballot at https://gshock.casio.com/uk/mudman, with entries closing on 9 October. Successful applicants will join a professionally guided descent led by underground adventure operator Go Below, subject to age, fitness, clothing and equipment requirements. The descent and performance will be documented as part of the world record submission.
The event also marks the debut of G-SHOCK’s new £200 GDG-B100 MUDMAN, with those completing the descent becoming the first to get their hands on the watch ahead of its wider release. Designed for extreme environments, the new model is shock, dust and mud resistant, water resistant to 20 bar, and features a high-contrast MIP LCD, red LED backlight and Smartphone Link.
