- It was around 2 AM when the line at Stattbad Wedding reached the end of the block, and not much later when it trailed around the corner. By then Ewan Pearson was finishing his opening set in the pool—Stattbad's biggest room, which re-opened for the season last weekend. The UK producer churned out sharp beats with ample energy—acid and tech house met with riveting basslines, a steady warm-up that set the stage for the arrival of Robag Wruhme at 3 AM.
It's not every night that Stattbad opens up the pool. The building itself—a converted swimming pool built in the 1930s—is something of a Berlin novelty. Its cavernous pool makes for some unique acoustics; every beat floats momentarily before bouncing off the tile walls, creating a feeling that's fittingly subaquatic. With the DJ booth nestled in the deep end, dancers at the back can still see up front thanks to the slanted pool floor, a good thing on a night when the dance floor is overflowing.
As for Wruhme? Eclectic is a word that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to the Jena-born artist, but in this case, it couldn't have been more apt: starting out with some chunky tech house beats, his set hit just about every mark from house to pop to techno. It quickly became clear that he was who everyone was there to see, and he knew it. That's not to say his set was too showy—in fact, his storytelling was surprisingly down-to-earth. At one point he built up to a climax before reversing into a loop of a verse from Beyonce's "Partition" (you know the one: "I sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker"). Later, under blue lights and a wash of smoke, he let the entirety of Charlie Chaplin's final speech from The Great Dictator play out before laying down a wet, heavy beat. Grounded in uplifting house for the most part, his set culminated in a version of Rhythm Controll's "My House," a moment that had people hugging, kissing and holding one another. The whole thing ended with a long round of applause from the crowd. His house, indeed.
Downstairs on the Boiler floor, the walls and the crowd dripped in dance-made sweat. The lights were low and red, the room filled with cigarette smoke. Parasol took over for the closing slot, delivering a back-to-back set of classic techno that saw the duo working together seamlessly. Choosing to keep the veil of mystery where their profiles are concerned, they let their mixing and their music do the talking. And if the end of the night's buzzing energy is any indication, it spoke volumes.