Tag Archives: berghain/panorama bar

quarter time scorecard

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Well colour me impressed!

There has been an absolute shedload of amazing music – and great musical experiences – so far in twennyten. As there’s a finite amount of things I can review or write about properly, I thought I’d mash it all together into one post here. After considering and vetoing a monthly update (because I am way too undisciplined), or a general end of year round-up (I have a dodgy memory, and, generally, meh), I settled on every 3 months, to round up some of my favourite music and other things.

I’ve been astounded at the volume of quality music that’s crossed my desk/inbox/ears of late, and it makes me very very very happy to know that while the music industry wrings its hands and furrows its brow over its own uncertain future, that art and creativity continues to persevere, propagate, prosper. Proper heartwarming ish, innit.

Hessle Audio in particular is one label that has been romancing my ears this quarter with their three artist EPs. The Ramadanman EP was bloody great, Pangaea EP was amazing, and James Blake’s otherworldy The Bells Sketch EP still does funny things to my insides. Kyle Hall swatted away any scepticism I may possibly have had about him, with Kaychunk/You Know What I Feel, a very mature and understated effort.

Loops have had me in a spin lately, with lots of simple repetitious, sounds that have been hitting the sweet spot. The A-side of STL’s Things From The Basement has him doing what he does best, newcomer Childproof Man has some kind of mojo working on his chantlike debut for Spectral Sound (RA review coming soon), A Made Up Sound took me back a decade to the authentic early dubstep sound of Ghost/Tempa/Soulja with “Sun Touch” and to another rhythmic wonderland with the untitled track from the same Sun Touch EP , and Actress rustles up more of his vaguely industrial, cinematic bass music for his new Nonplus EP . Magic.

The new Bonobo album Black Sands is something quite special, and sneak peaks of other releases from Daedelus and Funki Porcini bode well for Ninja Tune for the rest of the year. Cannot get enough of Lindstrøm & Christabelle’s Real Life Is No Cool, and on a compilation tip the Cold Waves and Minimal Electronics collection and DBridge & Instra:Mental’s Fabric mix have both soothed the soul.

On nepotism tangent, I have some truly talented friends who are making me very proud. Jay Shepheard and Marysia Pawlik inked their new Retrofit imprint with their excellent #1 EP, of which “Add Arp” is the bizness. Miss Michelle Owen made her production debut with the summery delight “What’s In A Name” in collaboration with Dirt Crew, and Phillygran had me chomping at the bit over his unfinished, unmastered track “Bright Lights”. Duuude — hurry up and get this out!

Out & about, there’s been a few moments of pure dancefloor bliss. Legging it to London for the latter part of the Red Bull Music Academy program was well worth the ‘logistical issues’ with Ryanair on the way back to Berlin. Highlights of that week/end were Önur Ozer’s invigorating set during On & On…& On at Fabric, Giles Smith playing some truly delightful house at Secretsundaze surrounded by gobsmacking views from the 35th floor, and of course the wholesome, joyous fun of the Moodymann/HMD rollerdisco, which had me grinning like a loon the entire time. Back in Berlin, more wholesome, joyous fun from Kenny, in the most unwholesome setting of Berghain, dropping Yazoo, De La Soul and both sides (one right after the other) of Marshall Jefferson’s “Move Your Body” 12″ during a truly memorable set. Panorama Bar highlights include Jus-Ed toughing it up for Underground Quality, and Omar-S being his grouchy yet charming self. Other Berlin mentions include the M_nus Contakt film, which managed to remind me of the simple idealism behind the minimal juggernaut, my virgin trip to Horse Meat Disco at Tape, and the ever-reliable Retreat nights (best midweek party in Berlin. Fact.)

Downer of the quarter would have to be falling for one of Ryanair’s dirty tricks (thieves!), but that nasty memory is totally outshone by the #1 best moment: seeing my beloved supervillain DOOM/Vik Vaughan/King G live – the real deal, not an imposter -  sober, healthy and KILLING IT at Roundhouse. Even though the sound was shithouse, it was a real joy just to be there, and this was definitely the highpoint of the night:

Oh and one last honorable mention from 2010 thus far. This:

If anyone would still like to pay tribute to the late, great Alexander McQueen but isn’t sure how to go about making that gesture, can I suggest you do so by gifting me with this sublime fuchsia knuckle duster clutch from his Spring 2010 range?
It’s a win-win situation, really. Thanks a bunch.

girl parts/boy parts

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wo-man

A quiet Sunday afternoon stroll from Point A (my local fleamarket, trawling for 7″s. Malcom McLaren’s Double Dutch/She’s Looking Like A Hobo for €2, thankyou very much) to Point B (aggressive trolley dodgems with a million other hungry people in the only East Berlin supermarket open on a Sunday) leads down a quiet little street that happens to run down behind the rear wall of Berghain*.
I couldn’t help but smile a little as I was walking past, even slowing down my pace and taking off my headphones for a few steps to hear the primal thud-thud-thud. I could imagine the antics within, the steamy fug, the conversations, the first-timers, the regulars, the chaps-n-chains in Berghain, the love-hate assessments of the recent Panorama Bar renovations, its new floor, new soundsystem, and, inevitably, its new showpiece, a large-scale Wolfgang Tillmans artwork.
Pre-renovation, there used to hang another Tillmans piece, a HUGE closeup photo of a woman’s naked crotch, legs apart, totally exposed. Post-renovation it’s been replaced by an equally large and equally graphic image, this time of a man, bent over, pulling his butt cheeks apart. Personally, both photos are equally as confronting (and off-putting) to me, so aside from noting the new piece for the first time with some amusement during the recent Underground Quality night, I wasn’t particularly surprised by it – considering what was there before – or shocked by it, considering the environment. Berghain/Panorama Bar is a gay club after all.
I was tickled by the predictable discomfort displayed by some of my straight male friends, (‘I like the chick better,’ they said. Of course you do.), but I’ve been baffled by the general amount of griping this new picture has caused in the weeks since, and why many people – both male and female – are so offended by it that they’re requesting the return of its predecessor. I’ve tried asking a few offendees what it is that they dislike it so much, with responses tending to rest on the argument that the female photograph was more ‘artistic’. Being the art ignoramus that I am, I can’t argue on that point, but I suspect that alot of the discomfort has more to do with gender and implied sexuality, than composition and colour.
The artist himself addressed this issue several years ago, with a column he wrote during his guest editorship for The Guardian in 2004. Of particular interest to Tillmans is the inequality he perceives between how society views the male and female bodies, particularly in regards to censorship:

Why, however, are the naked people shown in newspapers and magazines never men? This is blatant inequality. If people are equal, why would the sight of a naked man be undesirable – or, worse, obscene?

and

For a man to experience the same level of exposure and commitment to the image as a woman posing topless, he must appear bottomless.

By Tillmans’ logic then, the only equivalent for a vaguely sexual image of a bottomless and exposed woman, would be a vaguely sexual image of a bottomless and exposed man. Makes sense to me.
In a way, Ostgut’s decision to replace the old photorgraph with the new one also seems like a statement of bolshiness on their part, something brash to counter the subtly welcoming changes that Panorama Bar in particular has undertaken in the last year (new loos, new floors, new balcony, new easy-to-navigate website). Something to keep a bit of edge amongst the international/heterosexual crowd who can literally and figuratively bypass the more confronting Berghain environment.
Of course the discussion about the giant a-hole will eventually subside, people will accept it, forget it, or least tolerate it, but it will be interesting to see if it will ever become as widely liked as the old ‘muschi’. And in the meantime, if it still really bothers you, here’s some advice: don’t look!

*for the uninitiated, read this