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LOOSE SOUND X TEMPLE COLLECTIVE AT LOST HORIZON - REVIEW
LOOSE SOUND X TEMPLE COLLECTIVE AT LOST HORIZON - REVIEW
Still Got it? The beauty of music bridging the gap between generations.
Even at the ripe old age of 23 (supposedly somewhere near the peak years of reckless stamina), I found myself genuinely asking: have I still got it? After a 12 hour shift, the sensible option was obvious. Go home, collapse into bed, convince myself there’ll always be another dance, or another weekend.
But Bristol has a way of pulling you out regardless, especially when your mates are throwing something built on love. So I got on my bike and headed down to Lost Horizon for the Loose Sound x Temple Collective night.
Walking in, thoughts of tiredness dissolved, as I was encouraged to be in the moment rather than surrender to the fatigue. Friendly faces immediately surrounded me, some close mates, some strangers you somehow trust instantly because they’re standing in the same warm pocket of sound as you. It felt cosy in a way nightlife often forgets how to be, even somehow more comforting than my own bed.
After getting my bearings, I walked into One Step Beyond blasting through the room and instantly felt at home. Two sound systems sat opposite one another; one controlled by Jess (JPEG), while the other was run by Jess’ parents Iain and Lucy. Before anyone even explained the concept, the setup said everything: generations sharing music side by side, with any separation, like my tiredness, dissolving. At its heart, this was just people playing records they genuinely loved.
And that became the defining feeling of the night, genuine love for music.
At some point early on somebody shouted ‘BANGER!’ from somewhere in the crowd. Then someone else did it twenty minutes later. By the middle of the night it felt like every tune played was met with unanimous agreement from the room. Banger. Banger. Banger.
I kept thinking about a playlist I’ve got saved on my phone called Makes My Heart Feel Warm. It’s full of tracks that are physically incapable of making you miserable no matter what mood you’re in. Loose Sound and Temple Collective somehow managed to turn that exact feeling into a full-night musical journey. Nina Simone floated into James Brown. Monie Love rolled through the room while breakbeats crackled underneath soulful selections. Then suddenly New Order’s Blue Monday arrived and the whole dancefloor became one giant singalong before seamlessly swerving into squelchy electro.
That’s what made the night feel so refreshing. There was absolutely no anxiety around genre. No sense that anyone was trying to protect a particular scene identity. One minute everyone’s screaming the words to Electric Avenue at the top of their lungs, arms around each other like the world’s sweatiest family reunion, and the next minute the room is fully locked into jungle.
A lot of modern club culture can feel weirdly rigid, scenes boxed into micro genres, DJs worried about playing something too obvious or too fun. This night, however, understood something simple but important: if a tune works, it works. Whether it came out in 1973, 1997 or last month it doesn’t matter when the entire room reacts powerfully together.
One of the beautiful parts of the night came through Ozzy and his dads sound system, which powered an open decks section curated by Temple Collective. The Stacks of the system were built by Ozzys dad 40 years ago and the subs and tweeters were where built by Ozzy in the same style. Crowd members were invited to bring down records and share something tangible and personal that they loved with the room.
Bringing a record to an open decks session feels fundamentally different to arriving with a folder full of MP3s. It means somebody stood in their bedroom flicking through sleeves deciding this is the tune they want to contribute to the night. It carries memory and attachment physically, as well as intention. If you have a tune on vinyl it’s because it means something to you. It’s because it reminds you of a time of life that’s worth owning physically to transport you whenever you wish.
My favourite moment of this came from my mate Molly, who brought her Four Owls album, probably something she’d owned since she was about fourteen years old. It represented a specific time in her life and for some of the crowd too. Whether you knew the tune or not, it gave her a moment to share a small snippet of her life with everyone. For me, it instantly brought back memories of growing up in Brighton and put a smile on my face, that shared experience attached to a tune. When it dropped everyone reacted… still a banger. There was something so lovely about seeing somebody share a piece of their personal musical history like that.
The collaborative spirit between Temple Collective and Loose Sound felt incredibly natural, too. Both collectives clearly understand that nightlife doesn’t survive purely through lineups, but through environments. The event’s core idea: parents and children, old heads and younger selectors going tune-for-tune in a soundclash-inspired format, felt sincere and thought through.
The clash element also worked perfectly because nobody was taking it too seriously – while also completely taking it seriously at the same time. There was this playful energy with each side of the two collectives trying to outdo the other, but really it just became an excuse to let great records breathe. It felt rooted in excitement and shared appreciation, the kind of back-and-forth that reminds you music culture is supposed to be fun, rather than rigid one-upmanship.
You could see that sincerity everywhere. In the openness of the crowd, In the way conversations happened between strangers. In the way people danced without self-consciousness. There were selectors sharing decades of knowledge and younger DJs bringing fresh and old energy, but neither side felt elevated above the other. The whole night operated on mutual respect.
And maybe that’s what the title Still Got It? was really getting at.
Not just whether the older generation can still shell a dance - which, for the record, they absolutely can, but whether club culture itself still has the ability to create meaningful shared experiences across age, taste and background. Or whether nights out can still feel personal rather than transactional.
For one night at Lost Horizon, the answer felt pretty obvious – yes, completely.
This was the kind of night where exhaustion disappears the second you walk through the door. The kind of night where parents and kids exchange tunes across sound systems. The kind of night where soul, electro, jungle and singalong classics can coexist perfectly. The kind of night where someone bringing an old Four Owls record becomes as important as any headline set.
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