Berlin review: Friday 11 January, Watergate

Berlin review: Friday 11 January, Watergate

16 January, 2008 | 10.25AM

• Section: Music News Topics: Berlin
• Written by: Ben Raven

A sonic earthquake shrieks from the speakers of Watergate’s waterfront floor.

Behind the booth a girl holds her hands to the ears, her face in shock as the rest of the room screams with serotonin flushed glee.

Paul Ritch is about to leave the building and as his parting shot after a set of pant-wetting techno, he cuts the night in two with a cacophony of noise that eventually mutes to silence. 

For a 24-year-old fresh faced Frenchman on the techno scene, Paul has quickly mastered the art of scooping a dancefloor into the palm of his hand. 

His last track notches the adrenalin to eleven when it finally kicks in and the girl behind the decks drops her hands from her ears to loose it on the dancefloor.

It’s a Friday night in January at Watergate.

In most other cities that screams “you might as well stay in” from a flyer, but tonight the club is jumping.

Upstairs, Redshape is crafting a taught laptop set that has echoes of progressive house laced through the records while afterwards Konrad Black pastes the main room with a set of typically edgy techno (check out one of the big tunes from his set Heckmann ‘Silverscreen’ if you don’t already own a copy).

But tonight the main event has been the bottom floor’s underdog, Paul Ritch.

Since leaping into contention with his 2006 dancefloor essential ‘Samba’, Paul’s been releasing a slew of killer EPs.

His ‘Winter Ceremony’ and ‘Summer Ceremony’ set of EPs on Resopal Schallware were a masterclass in peak time techno and it’s no surprise he has got future records on the slate with some of techno’s most renowned labels.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Paul Ritch may have left the building but he’s about to enter the techno bigtime.

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