October 15, inside an abandoned slate mine. Ballot closes October 9.
Roni Size is taking drum and bass back underground, literally. On October 15 he plays 1,375 feet beneath a mountain in Eryri, North Wales, inside the abandoned Cwmorthin slate mine near Blaenau Ffestiniog. G-SHOCK is staging it as an attempt at the deepest underground rave on record. The mine opened in 1810 and shut for good in 1997. Getting to the dancefloor is the show. Ballot winners go down with Go Below, through miners’ stairways, waterlogged passages and ravines, then zip lines and an abseil, into a chamber that becomes a club for one night. Size has a set written for the room. Transducers push the music into the slate. Geophones and hydrophones record what comes back through rock, mud and water. G-SHOCK Radio sends the set out over Starlink. “It’s the most underground of underground raves ever,” Size said. To get a spot for the event, you must enter via an online form, open now, closing October 9, at gshock.casio.com/uk/mudman. Age, fitness and kit requirements apply. Anyone who finishes the descent is also first in line for the new £200 GDG-B100 MUDMAN, ahead of the wider release. So yes, it is a watch campaign. The room is still a slate chamber a quarter-mile down, and the DJ is Roni Size.