G-SHOCK takes the drum & bass pioneer around 419 metres below Eryri on 15 October, with the set broadcast live on G-SHOCK Radio.
Roni Size is heading underground in the most literal sense. On Thursday 15 October, the Bristol drum & bass pioneer will play a one-off set inside the abandoned Cwmorthin slate mine near Blaenau Ffestiniog in Eryri (Snowdonia), North Wales, in a chamber around 419 metres (1,375 ft) below the surface.
The night is a G-SHOCK Sessions event staged by the Casio watch brand to launch its new GDG-B100 MUDMAN, and G-SHOCK is billing it as an attempt at the world’s deepest underground rave. Organisers say the chamber is the deepest point below ground in the UK that members of the public can reach.
Getting there is part of the event. A small group of ballot winners will make a professionally guided descent with Go Below, through miners’ stairways, waterlogged passages and underground ravines, with scrambles, zip lines and abseils before reaching the dancefloor. Places depend on age, fitness, clothing and equipment requirements, and the public ballot on the G-SHOCK UK website closes today, 9 October.
The mine will also feed into the music. Vibration transducers will push elements of Size’s set into the surrounding slate, while geophones and hydrophones pick up how those frequencies travel through rock, mud and water. That response is then fed back into the live mix. “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,” Size said.
It is a fitting setting for an artist whose roots run through Bristol’s sound-system and rave scene. With Reprazent, Size took drum & bass to a wider audience on New Forms, which won the Mercury Prize in 1997.
For everyone not making the descent, the set will be broadcast live on G-SHOCK Radio via Starlink on the night, with the full recording to follow on Mixcloud.
One caveat: the record is not in the books yet. The descent and performance will be documented and the evidence submitted for independent recognition after the event, so the “world’s deepest rave” title remains a claim until that process is complete.
Further out, Roni Size & Reprazent return home for a New Forms 30th anniversary show at Bristol’s Canon’s Marsh Amphitheatre on 25 June 2027, with a full live band and support from Fabio & Grooverider. The Bristol Sounds date, promoted by Crosstown Concerts, closes a UK tour, with general sale opening today.
