- It was 12:05 AM. Autumn Street Studios, AKA Bloc., had been open barely an hour, and the guy to my left was already topless. From the way he was dancing—both arms by his sides and with little enthusiasm—it was almost as if he'd made the move too soon. (The room, low on bodies, was chilly.) The next time I looked his way, he'd been joined in semi-nakedness by a taller friend, which appeared to put him more at ease. As the DJ, Helena Hauff, set about crafting the night's first moment, piercing a sludgy, ravey breakdown with thumping kicks, the two men cut shapes as if they were the only ones in the club.
In reality, Bloc. was half full by this point. About an hour later, it hit capacity. Tickets for the latest edition of Darkroom—a party, incidentally, co-run by RA staffer Nic Baird—had sold out several weeks in advance, which, given that it was originally scheduled to take place at the considerably smaller (and now closed) Dance Tunnel, speaks to Hauff's popularity right now. This was her fourth time playing for Darkroom. At seven hours, it was the second longest set of her career.
Several things came together to make Friday one of the best parties I've been to in London in ages. Hauff was fantastic, and so were her crowd. She might be more in-demand, even trendier, than ever before, but she still plays spooky, esoteric dance music that isn't to most people's tastes. So instead of the usual mix of casual clubbers and die-hards, you had a mixed, majority young audience for whom the music was the primary concern. When Hauff played tunes like Egyptian Lover's "P.E.L.F." or The Exaltics's "NGC 253," they got the deafening, visceral responses they deserve. Even that most sought after of rave ideals—the dance floor as single, synchronised entity—could be felt at points.
Another long-forgotten rave ideal—the DJ being secondary to the crowd—was also a factor in the night's success. With Hauff playing from start to finish, no one fretted about set times or was forced to endure jarring changeovers. You could go out for a cigarette and return to the rave at your leisure, ready to pick up where you left off. Every record fitted into a wider narrative, whether it was by Professor X ("Professor X (Saga)") or Sarajevo's Borgie ("Quadropoly"). Some, naturally, stood out more than others: around 4 AM, Hauff dropped Vitalic's "You Prefer Cocaine," a slice of slamming, emotive techno that I imagine only works if the DJ has the dance floor totally onside. She did, and it went off.
There was a stint during the final two hours when I felt my legs and ears getting weary—Hauff was playing the hardest she had all night, hammering out acid techno at 135-140 BPM, with no sign of slowing down. Then, out of nowhere, came the ecstatic synths of Drexciya's "Unknown Journey IV," jolting me back into action. Several tracks later, with the room still pitch-black and gently heaving, she pulled off another classy mix, plunging dozens of BPMs into Arpanet's sultry remix of Sébastien Tellier's "Kilometer." It was the party's best and final record.