- The trek to Stattbad Wedding in Berlin's north-west isn't an exhausting one, but it can be a little off-putting to the city's lazier inhabitants who live south of the river. Despite being a little harder to reach than the hotspots in Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, the Gerichtstrasse club continues to entice Berlin's clubbing community—a credit to the venue's management and strength of programming.
Stattbad, which is housed in an old public swimming bath, hosts regular parties from heavyweight promoters like Grounded Theory and Boiler Room, complementing its impressive in-house Stattnacht Saturday events. Tonight the Odd Fantastic crew were in control as they threw their first party of 2015. The Odd Fantastic team have become a highlight in Stattbad's calendar since launching a residency in November 2013, and they continued their great form by booking one of those lineups that was too interesting to miss.
Vancouver's Pender Street Steppers, joined by their Mood Hut cohort Hashman Deejay, supplied the night's early shift, opening the Boiler floor with a four-hour back-to-back set from midnight. One of the most impressive skills Pender Street Steppers have shown in the past couple of years has been their ability to build a groove that locks you in much longer than most DJs can. The duo's sets often start with track selections full of subtle rhythms, but on this occasion it seemed their bass was riding slightly higher than usual, especially considering only a handful of people were on the dance floor. But, in typical Mood Hut style, suddenly the dance floor was no longer empty and there was a full-blown party going on.
Idle Hands associate Shanti Celeste was up after Pender Street Steppers, displaying a confidence and rhythm that has seen her quickly break into the consciousness of clubs around Europe. Her sound is a warm, pure form of house that's most definitely her own. That she has been able to convey a distinct personality in a relatively short international career is one of the qualities that will ensure she sticks around for a while.
You might be forgiven for failing to find Stattbad's second room (the Bunker floor) very quickly, in part due to the building's array of tunnels that quickly become a maze after a few drinks. In here things were going off in contrasting fashion to the Boiler floor. NGLY played a live set directed less at your head and more at your body. Adam X, a regular at Stattbad, kept things heavy and tight, and by now each room was busy enough to really enjoy, without any of the grumbles sometimes muttered about too many people causing traffic jams in the mazes. There was even some bonus space to fling your arms around a bit. By 8 AM things were again sparse enough to feel it was the right time to crawl back out through the tunnels and face the Wedding daylight.