- I carried a burden of expectation going into Friday night. Earlier this year, I caught Patrick Russell on ferocious form in Detroit at the singular No Way Back party, which runs annually during Movement week. As a Midwest rave lifer, he's long held a stellar reputation among in-the-know techno heads in the US, and his set back in May was fittingly incendiary. Friday, though, was only his second time in the UK, so I was curious to know how he'd fare away from home turf.
DARKROOM, a side venture of London promoter Make Me, chose a venue well suited to an artist of Russell's profile. (Full disclosure: Make Me and DARKROOM are co-run by RA employee Nic Baird.) The Waiting Room, a 120-capacity space in the basement of a pub in Stoke Newington, is endearing and unfussy, with a dance floor that takes up the whole room. Up front is the DJ booth, flanked by a sunken bench on one side and a raised platform on the other, while towards the back is the bar. Punchy sound dominates the space, which was about three-quarters full throughout Russell's set. Punters could writhe about freely, and every reaction from the floor was audible.
Russell elicited a lot of cheers. He set out his stall with spacey numbers, giving each cut a healthy few minutes of airtime. Within half an hour he'd significantly upped the tempo and began shortening the time between mixes, layering skeletal cuts with a fluidity that totally masked the joining points. Watching him work up close—which, given the intimate surroundings, only required a few steps forward—revealed an interesting style: he'd crouch low to get the EQs just right, before straightening up, tearing off his headphones and riding the transition with full-body motions.
Early on, a curious friend leaned over to me and asked when the anticipated acid rippers were due to arrive. They never did. Instead, Russell focused on unnerving alien jams built on swarming synths and throbbing basslines. For about two hours I recognised almost nothing he played, save for some Mono Junk—which checks out, given his avowed love of Finnish label Sähkö—and a few glitchier tracks I'd wager came from the Rephlex stable. This combination of unpredictability and unfamiliarity only added to the fun.
One of the night's key moments unfurled close to 3 AM. As the strobing, blood-red lights overhead faded to near black, Russell took things in a sparser, dubbier direction that reminded me of foundational Tectonic acts like Pinch and Silkie. He built out of this with some rowdy breaks, used Grungerman's tub-thumper "Fackeln Im Sturm" as a bridge into some hi-NRG synth pop, before a return to even more intense techno as the end of the night loomed. On a technical level, he was flawless from start to finish. Bigger venues surely beckon as the word spreads.