- The power of a venue where everyone behind the scenes is invested in the same vision can make the difference between a good night out and a great night out. Few clubs right now are a better example of this than Amsterdam's De School. The venue's aim to be regarded as a multi-disciplinary arts hub, rather than just a club, shapes the layout of the space. The former cafeteria wing has become a high-grade ethical café. One gymnastics room retains its original purpose, while another is used for art exhibitions and live performances that are tailored to suit the space. There's a cinema that doubles as a chill-out room in the early hours, a vegetable allotment and a smoking area-turned-intimate outdoor concert spot. It's exciting that what's on offer seems to change every time I visit.
The character of the building's architecture, strikingly pretty when daylight filters through it, is transformed after dark: the same charming tiles that pattern the entire upstairs floor are blanched of colour and become imposing. As with all the best clubs, you get a ripple of excitement from just walking in the door. The downstairs dance floor reminds me—and perhaps only me—of Goldeneye's Basement level, except pitch black and thick with smoke. The judicious use of lighting around the DJ booth is a welcome touch. An occasional flash illuminates the room during big moments, and that's it. Everything is geared toward elevating the experience.
De School could be thought of as the successor to Trouw, so comparisons are inevitable. It bears many hallmarks of the former Amsterdam favourite, and De School has carried over a class of talented residents, though the burden of expectation has, 18 months later, been shaken off. If anything, De School is more adventurous than its predecessor—the smaller size perhaps affords more creative freedom. Plus, with programmer Luc Mast's thoughtful dissections of the monthly bookings, there's a real clarity of purpose.
This confident booking policy was on display last month with a Friday night triple-header of Xosar, Parrish Smith and Robert Bergman. This was a bill that deliberately eschewed big guns. I arrived around the tail end of Bergman, a well-loved local DJ and sometime member of the Rush Hour All Stars. He was dicing up Haruomi Hosono curios with cuts off his own label, Brew. After a spiky and tightly-controlled live set from Xosar came the surprise package of the evening. Smith's set was like an attack on the strictures of techno: it was danceable and pulsating in a way that I recognised, but also arrhythmic and primal. The rushing white noise that often comes with cresting peaks was replaced by anguished howls puncturing the darkness. Whether it was his own original material or dredged up no wave and post-punk experiments, I couldn't place any of it, which made it all the more captivating.
The music dovetailed nicely with the onsite presence of the Dutch writer Arnon Grunberg, who was in the middle of conducting a 24-hour reading and living session alongside 50 hardcore fans. Intermittently, he'd venture down into the basement club. Mast, a fanboy, had booked him after reading Grunberg's newspaper column, in which he'd made an off-hand remark about a marathon literary session. The sight of an acclaimed author side-by-side with resident Interstellar Funk, both furiously nodding their heads to leftfield dance music, felt like a great example of what makes De School stand out from the crowd.
Photo credit /
Sarah van Rij