decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

Berghain/Panorama Bar – Berlin
Inside Berghain… http://www.funktion-one.com/Berghain_Germany_Mondo.htm

Hello from Berlin! We’re currently using the Internet terminals in a big shopping arcade called Arkaden, in Potsdamer Platz, just around the corner from the massive Sony Centre. We’re loving it here in Berlin, we’re well and all is going well. We’ve seen lots of sights, too many to mention! Have had a few tours, visited some WWII, and Cold War bunkers, and spent a day with Berlin walking tour guru Terry Brewer, visiting some different Berlin sights; the Olympic Stadium and Bell Tower, the Allied Forces War Memoral Cemetery (20 years old average age on the grave stones!), and a trip to Spandau (oldest area of Berlin) and visiting the Zitadelle castle/fort. And we’ve done a lot of clubbing!

The weather has been annoying, with rain just about every day at some point here, as with all of our holiday, apart from Barcelona, it’s been quite cold at times too, summer in Europe?

Techno friends, don’t hate us… Here’s where we’ve been and who we’ve seen since arriving in Berlin last Thursday… Minus Night @ Week12End (the 12th, 15th floors and roof top terrace of an office building) – Paco Osuna, Marco Carola, Marc Houle [live], Ambivalent [live], and Troy Pierce. We didn’t have a chance to see Magda, Rebekah Aff, or Richie Hawtin. We could hear Richie playing on the terrace (outside roof top) at Week12End from our hostel apartment’s balcony in Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Mitte, a couple of blocks away. He started around 8am! We knew it was Richie as it was all the same tracks he played at Awakenings. This Minus party was cool, but difficult to enjoy, as it was really hot and completely packed, rammed full, lots of messy people, call them ‘hype followers’. I bet 5% of the crowd actually know/buy any Minus music. Sorry to say I actually found Marco Carola quite boring, bland minimal loops, I was really looking forward to finally getting to hear him play too, he started at 5am! Troy Pierce was excellent though, lots of great tracks, interesting/different sounds, not the typical Minus sound. Paco Osuna played quite pumping techno, maximal not minimal. Infact a lot of the music we heard was more maximal than minimal.

We left sometime after 6.30am to go to Perlonized @ Panorama Bar (Berghain), which had Fumiya Tanaka… We got to hear an hour of him, and he played awesome deep-techno, some quite abstract stuff, very deep and spacious sounds. I finally got to hear Ame – ‘Enoi’ out too! He’s pretty rough on the mix though. Perlon’s Zip followed with some excellent ‘Perlon’ style minimal sounds, had we stayed until much later into the morning/day we would have also seen Sammy D. Panorama Bar was awesome, fantastic crowd, very friendly vibe, music lovers, space to move, amazing sound system, the best I’ve heard/felt, and such a unique venue, being an old power station, very industrial feeling. Felt very comfortable there, really had a nice time, made me forget how tired I was. Actually I feel very comfortable in Berlin full stop, all the guys have messy/long-ish hair, and facial hair is very popular here. Lots of 30+ year old people clubbing here. Lots of party animals! They party well into the next day, mind you, they don’t get to clubs until 4-5am, the time most of the clubs in Sydney are fininishing up!

The next night we went to the Poker Flat Night @ Water-Gate, another amazing venue, right on the river, over-looking the most amazing old bridge. We watched the sun come up, the sky starts to get blue/light at 3.30am! The top floor of Water-Gate has a fantastic light show, a matrix of multi-coloured, individually controlled LEDs in the ceiling, making for lots of cool patterns and effects across the rows of LEDs, check it… http://www.roomdivision.com/2006/02/10/club-watergate-berlin

We got to see Argy, Steve Bug, Guido Schneider, Martini Bros [live], Phonique, Martin Landsky, and Patrick Graser. Awesome music all night in both floors/rooms. Argy did a fantastic DJ set to warm things up, got a few track IDs from him too, nice guy. Steve Bug was awesome too! So much good music, and it’s all fresh/new to me! I really had to hold myself back from asking for Track IDs almost every track.

The track of the moment seems to be Simon Baker – ‘Plastik’ on Playhouse, we’ve heard just about every DJ play it, and it always gets a big reaction. Other new stuff getting many plays, the new Mountain People, new Rejected (Joris Voorn), new Jesse Rose – ‘Itchy Dog’ on Dubsided, and the Argy mix of the new Sascha Dive on Raum Musik. I’m missing Beatport and Juno to chase up track IDs. Have visited Hard Wax, Records In Mitte and Rotation record stores here.

On Sunday afternoon until just into Monday morning we went to this cool little party called Electronic Waves #2 @ Spindler & Klatt, outside, under sails on a dock by the river, later moved inside due to noise complaints and a police visit. Check out how stylish this place is! http://www.spindlerklatt.com very cool venue. We got to see Matt John, The Dose [live], Daniel Dreier and Marcel Dettman. Matt John is a bit of a party animal, he was also out on Friday at Minus, and later at Panorama Bar on Saturday morning. Joanne said g’day and got a photo, and a track ID from him at this party, she was very happy with that. Matt John played some cool minimal sounds. Daniel played a great set of minimal/techno, my fave so far, got quite a few track ID’s from him, hearing many of the popular tracks of the moment, and he was a nice guy to chat to afterwards. Lots of friendly people at this party, cool vibes, a fun day/night, great music. Was great to catch up with ex Sydey now London based friends Marshall and Lucy there too, who are holidaying here at the moment.

Ahh, before I forget… Love Family Park 2007 in Hanau (Frankfurt)… Richie Hawtin Vs Ricardo Villalobos… umm, kinda boring actually, lots of deep-house sounds, nothing that exciting, not much minimal/tech at all, nothing really memorable. We watched them for 2 hours. The ‘messy’ crowd was going nuts to really bland music, and really simple changes during tracks. They didn’t live up to the hype for me sorry to say, too ubercoolische? Luciano who played prior, was great, played some nice Cadenza label, latin flavoured minimal house stuff, and got quiet tough and techy as well, we enjoyed that more. Sven Vath was larger than life on his own stage, in the main area, great performer, good tracks, great vibes towards the end of his set, with friends watching the fireworks together. When LFP finished up around midnight we went to the LFP After Party @ Cocoon, and heard a fantastic set of deep, clubby techno from Andre Galluzzi, then Karotte Vs Dominik Eulberg Vs Andre Galluzzi, great sounds, Cocoon still one of my fave clubs. Thanks for all your help Andreas with LFP, much appreciated. Huge thanks to Iris for letting us stay in her apartment whilst we were in Frankfurt, much love.

One more thing… the night before we left Frankfurt, a Wednesday night, Iris took us along to a club called Hafen 2, to see surprise guest… Omar S from Detroit, he played lots of chunky, soulful, Detroit/Chicago style house/techno stuff, some old acid-house stuff, his mixing was pretty dodgy though. It was cool, but I wasn’t up for a late night, so we only stayed an hour.

Is that enough techno/minimal names yet?

Coming up we’re going to the Melt Festival 2007 on Friday, with Autechre, Onur Ozer Vs Matthias Kaden, Alex Smoke [live] and many of the Minus crew again… Magda, Richie Hawtin, Troy Pierce, and Marc Houle [live]… We’re thinking of only doing Friday at Melt now, as the Saturday line-up isn’t that good for us, and then we can then come back to Berlin to see… Daniel Bell @ Tresor! A good excuse to go check out Tresor! We’re also going to try see Dan Curtin, and Jeremy P Caulfield at a club called Maria the same night, and then end up at Berghain/Panorama Bar int he morning to see… Paul Brtschitsch [live], Ben Klock, Len Faki and Jesse Rose…

OK, I’ll shut up now, sorry for upsetting you all 🙂 This place is awesome! Having much fun.

Cheers D & J