- Each year, almost 100,000 revelers descend on Miami beach for Art Basel. If you're a well-heeled art collector, your trip to South Florida is imbued with a sense of purpose, but for most of us, it's about seeing some art, enjoying the weather and Uber-ing through the balmy night in search of a decent party. Luckily for clued-up music heads, the nighttime scene that starts when Art Basel shuts includes increasingly heady electronic bookings. Theo Parrish, Floating Points, Young Marco, Danny Krivit, Ron Trent and Jennifer Cardini all played during the 72 hours I spent in Miami.
The art fair itself, the centrifuge around which all this spins, draws top galleries from all over the world to the Miami Beach Convention Center. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol slot in alongside younger artists like Cory Arcangel. Avant-garde Tokyo galleries run up against established NYC outfits like Gavin Brown's Enterprise, and octogenarians in expensive shoes walk next to kids in Supreme hats taking iPhone photos. For musicians and promoters, the hope is that this freewheeling environment will spur on a party scene where artists, DJs and people of all ages and backgrounds can come together and let loose.
Life And Death's's 12-hour party took place on Thursday night at Little River Studios in Little Haiti, with 20 artists spread across three stages. The event was plagued by spitting rain. When I got there, Young Marco was repurposing second summer of love classics like Sha-lor's "I'm In Love" for a soggy crowd that seemed primed for emotional tech house breakdowns. They got just that with a live performance from HVOB, who mixed synth pop with slo-mo trance progressions that were about as subtle as a slap in the face. Dorisburg's live set, on the other hand, was a beacon of classy restraint. Âme and Job Jobse played simultaneously in adjacent rooms, indulging in big room fare that felt appropriate for the hour, but it was Rødhåd's charging, functional techno that finally got the main room going. Later, models, playa techno types and Miami kids traipsed through the rain as Radio Slave played Traumprinz's "2 The Sky" to a thinning crowd.
Friday night began at a high-end furniture store in Miami Design District called Natuzzi Italia. The private party boasted a wicked lineup, with Sound Signature affiliate Ge-ology DJing and a live set from Boobjazz member Lars Bartkuhn. By the time I got there, the open bar had already done its damage and only a couple people were watching Ge-ology spin disco records through an excellent soundsystem. I settled onto an Italian sectional that probably costs what I pay a year in rent, taking in the odd scene.
Nearby, Bardot and The Electric Pickle hosted some of the best parties of the weekend, in no small part because they took place in intimate, on-the-ball clubs that run regularly. Bardot resident Jeremy Ismael nailed the Beats In Space vibe, setting up Tim Sweeney with DJ Koze's sumptuous edit of Låpsley's "Operator." A bride in her gown was stalking the crowded dance floor. Sweeney went the populist yet heady route, mixing up cosmic bits and swinging house with Quando Quango's "Love Tempo" and the Spanish mix of Raze's "Break 4 Love." Over at The Pickle, which had teamed up with New York's Bossa Nova Civic Club, Jacques Renault kept the late-night crowd in good spirits by playing disco stompers.
The music at Look Alive Fest, about 15 minutes north at the divey Churchill's bar, wasn't quite as friendly. Florida noise act Horoscope found an ear-splitting middle ground between power electronics, minimal synth and pained screams. Psych band Destruction Unit, the most forward-facing act involved with Arizona's Ascetic House collective, sounded like The Stooges channeled through seminal Arizona hardcore band JFA, and they had the crowd riled up from the first moment.
When I walked into Gramps at around 5 AM on Saturday no one was manning the door. The outdoor patio area hosted what might have been Basel's happiest DJs, judging by their ear-to-ear smiles. They're also the most well-respected. Ron Trent and Danny Krivit had been going back-to-back for hours, Krivit dropping disco classics like Rose Royce's "Still In Love" while Trent, all dreadlocks and white teeth, played soulful deep house. The crowd was the most diverse I experienced at Basel, a handful of black and brown people watching a couple of legends play a laid-back set outdoors just before the sunrise. Around the corner, 2nd Avenue buzzed with vehicles and pedestrians despite the hour.
At their best, these parties managed a strange alchemy, combining the moneyed sheen of the art buying world with the great number of creatives, musicians, night people and hangers-on who, in some cases, had travelled great distances to be there. This coming together of people would have made for a lively atmosphere anywhere in the world, but in Miami, a city that already fosters a weird, diverse and beautiful culture, it threw up some particularly memorable moments.
Photo credit /
Tasya Menaker
When I walked into Gramps at around 5 AM on Saturday no one was manning the door. The outdoor patio area hosted what might have been Basel's happiest DJs, judging by their ear-to-ear smiles. They're also the most well-respected. Ron Trent and Danny Krivit had been going back-to-back for hours, Krivit dropping disco classics like Rose Royce's "Still In Love" while Trent, all dreadlocks and white teeth, played soulful deep house. The crowd was the most diverse I experienced at Basel, a handful of black and brown people watching a couple of legends play a laid-back set outdoors just before the sunrise. Around the corner, 2nd Avenue buzzed with vehicles and pedestrians despite the hour. At their best, these parties managed a strange alchemy, combining the moneyed sheen of the art buying world with the great number of creatives, musicians, night people and hangers-on who, in some cases, had travelled great distances to be there. This coming together of people would have made for a lively atmosphere anywhere in the world, but in Miami, a city that already fosters a weird, diverse and beautiful culture, it threw up some particularly memorable moments. Photo credit / Tasya Menaker