Surgeon in Barcelona

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  • FACT BCN's party with Surgeon had just about everything you could ever hope to find on a great club night: beautiful and cold-blooded bar staff, a glamorous club that gets seedier the more you look at it, and plenty of room on the floor despite a crowd that stays until the end. Above all else there was a trio of DJs who each excelled at a particular sound that together embodied what's best about techno at the moment. Javier Dokser's warm-up set was as seductive as a warm-up should be, digging deep into dub techno to set the mood while gradually layering more urgent beats as he went on. The only scare was perhaps the sub-bass that kept dislodging Eduardo de la Calle's needles as he prepared tracks, but he dealt with it patiently, and there was never any audible disruption to the mix. The way he played was patient too, slowly building and then destroying the intensity, as if following a long and elegant sine wave. His track selection also gave a good hint about how his upcoming album might sound: smoother classic tracks mixed with hard-edged new sounds and plenty of excursions into jazz territory to maintain a cerebral presence. If Eduardo de la Calle's set felt like a classic "journey," then Surgeon's was more like being kidnapped, blindfolded and abandoned in a maze. There were some moments of absolute mayhem, when juddering, abrasive peaks pummelled the room with no kick drum and only strobe lights. At other times the relentless, breathless runs of rhythm just seemed to build and build with frightening potency. Staggering out into the dawn after his set was a real shock to the senses.
RA