- This was billed as a festival. London's Winter Techno Festival. And, I guess the reason it was less than full was that most people conventionally expect a festival to be more than one night, and most people don't expect to pay £35—on the door—for what was, in effect, an extended club night. Rabid promised five arenas, covering everything four-four, from tech-house to proper techno, via dubstep. Bringing together five London promoters, Trailer Trash, Lost Souls, Ketoloco, DJ Mag and Wet Yourself, and with a line-up that included the likes of Umek, Peter Van Hoesen, Scuba and Matthias Tanzmann, Rabid deserved attention. But SEOne, the venue in Southwark, is a big old beast of a complex, with a capacity in excess of 2000, and when half-full it feels cavernous, and noticeably empty.
That's no criticism of the individual promoters involved. But there were some strategic decisions that didn't quite pay off (such as putting Ketoloco in the back room space that felt decidedly like a private area, with access tucked behind the speaker stacks of the main room), and London being a city of such diversity in music that competition is always sky-high.
The event as a whole might not have delivered what it promised, but it was more than compensated for by the musically adventurous attitude of one set of promoters involved and the popularity of the Wet Yourself main room. The uncompromising Lost Souls brought a line-up of talented contemporary DJs and producers that offered up a night of unrelentingly good techno and dubstep that—in comparison with the sound of clicky, hissy mainline minimal in the biggest room—was the definition of raw techno.
To wit, the end of Scuba's set provided a tough, mechanical stance for what followed from Peter Van Hoesen. The Belgian DJ and producer played deep, hard and perfectly proportioned techno, ending on the classic sound of Dettmann's "Lattice." Berliner Mike Dehnert followed, and drove things into an unremittingly flowing set of, again, proper techno. Clipped, harsh Ostgut sounds were the order of the night, and although the dance floor was less than rammed, the musical integrity and being able to actually dance freely for once in London more than made up for this.
Wet Yourself's main room, which by this hour in the morning was the only other one still open, was sporting the back-to-back antics of Tanzmann and Paul Ritch. It had a slightly disappointing sound-system, topping out repeatedly and not delivering the necessary depth for this kind of minimal to work. That said, the crowd in this room remained till the end, lapping up the infectious and eminently danceable breed of minimal presented here, creating an atmosphere of enduring hedonism and enough energy to keep the party in SEOne going well into the early hours.
Daylight was threatening outside, which meant home time. This would have been the sensible option. Instead, this reviewer opted for the bacchanalian delights of the Lost Souls after party, which is where the proper "oh god it's lunch time and I should be at home, but I'm still dancing" party occurred. And what an afterparty.
Fabrizio Maurizi, Jamie Jones and Seth Troxler (the latter two playing back-to back), were set up in Cable, a venue with a sound system of pure pleasure, and the whole room danced their tired little socks off till well gone midday. Warmed up by the superb Lost Soul's resident Rossko, with a perfectly pitched track selection (no mean feat at this hour of the day), Maurizi's set of clipped house and minimal set things off very nicely for the exceedingly enjoyable Jones and Troxler game of "drop the deeper tune." Both won at various points throughout the morning.
That's the thing with an after-party of this calibre and flawless organization: Time stands still. Outside, the day is halfway done, and the rest of the world are eating lunch and contemplating a lazy Sunday in front of the television. But, inside the darkened confines of a south London railway arch, a bunch of people are refusing to let the real world back in, and for this time, they win. The day can stand still. What happens outside has no meaning in here, and for a blissful five hours, normality is left at the door.