Heard in Berlin, Spring 2010

Heard in Berlin, Spring 2010

15 April, 2010 | 9.11AM

• Written by: Dan Cole
• Filed under: Music News: dj charts, heard in berlin

Berlin has recently begun to emerge its ugly, industrialised head from the big freeze that is winter. As the snow began to melt the leaves started to return to the trees and all the trash and dog shit that was stuck to the sides of the road began coming back into the periphery like it had always belonged there. 

With an upturn in temperature and overall mood, signalled the return of the docile raver, who had with a sensible inclination hibernated during the chilly months. On this weekend’s agenda, a visit to the techno Mecca, known to the locals as Berghain. The techno temple that surrenders its floors four times a year to the dubstep night known as Sub:Stance.

Now in its second year, Sub:Stance is one of the biggest dubstep parties in Europe. One of the secrets behind its success has been its ability to fuse styles of techno, dub and the occasional jungle DJ.

Friday’s line up was a cross section of contemporary two step and featured a diverse cross section including Skream, Untold, Peverelist, Tayo and Scuba’s debut live performance.

From the offset, Bristol’s Peverelist was warming up the floor with his style of deep, techno-driven dubstep. With a set braised with new cuts, promos, and dubplates, one of the main tracks to stand out was Addison Groove’s 2010 anthem ‘Footcrab’ (digital release date anyone?), soon to be dropped on Swamp 81.

This new style that the new kids are calling ‘Juke’ was apparently all the rage at this year’s BLOC festival (or so I heard). Slotting into the set was a myriad of UK funky and tunes from Peverelist’s own label, Punch Drunk, including the infectious, ‘Clunk Click Every Trip’.

Next up was Hotflush Honcho and resident DJ Scuba with his debut Ableton live performance. Mixing together tracks from his previous album ‘A Mutual Antipathy’ with his latest LP, and former Beatportal Album of the Week pick’, ‘Triangulation’, Paul Rose interspersed familiar crowd pleasers such as ‘So You Think You’re Special’, with rarities such as the often forgotten ‘Negative’ on Naked Lunch, with driving, bass heavy techno beats and added effects.

Following from the Berghain friendly techno malaise was Croydon wonder boy, Skream. Never before had the floor seen so many young girls baying for the DJ’s attention, such is the new found status of the dubstep kingpin. Breaking from the norm, the set kicked into the massive Skream drum & bass remix of ‘Riot Music’ on Digital Soundboy Recordings.

Eventually dropping the tempo to 140, the crowd began lapping up the choice London rave cuts, as unknown dubplates were sliced up with classics such as Tes La Rok’s ‘Up in the VIP’ and Major Lazer’s ‘Hold The Line’.

With many expecting a more techno influenced set, especially with the producer’s recent offerings on Autonomic, there were several teasings of techno with NonPlus tracks and unreleased Instra:mental offerings.

Come Saturday it was apparent springtime in Berlin was in full swing and what better way to get in the mood than Floating Points at Club Horst? Floating Points was one of the talking points of 2009, especially with his deep, spacey release ‘Vacuum Boogie’ released on his own imprint, Eglo Recordings.

With all the generous hype heaped onto his shoulders from the likes of Resident Advisor and XLR8, Floating Points became the man to go to for remixes in 2010.

Taking on the heaving mass of sweaty, disco ravers Floating Points, aka big bang leader, pharmacologist student and label manager, Sam Shepherd took with him a big bag of disco and soul to the delight of many. Like a white, much younger Theo Parrish, the crowd were treated to soulful, disco bangers with added phase manipulation and regular EQ sweeps.

Spreading his range of sounds from contemporary funk, such as ‘Barely Breaking Even’ by The Universal Robot Band, through to big soul classic ‘You’ve Got That Something’ by Logg, Sam moved from one style to the next, passing through many genres and decades in his set.

As night time moved closer to day time Sam Shepherd pulled out all the stops and reached for those records with the big room appeal. Isolee’s ‘Beau Mot Plage’ was dropped and lead straight into Juan Atkin’s and Cybotron’s ‘Clear’.

With a set that spanned classics from every decade and styles ranging from the deep through to the techier side of house, Sam stepped down and made way for Move D and your intrepid raver called it a weekend.

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