- Max Pearl swings by a New York party staple.
- Warm Up has been running on summer Saturdays for 20 years, longer than any New York nightclub listed on Resident Advisor. Looking through past lineups is like leafing through a historical archive of all the DJs that have defined the zeitgeist at different moments. Making it happen is not an easy job. The party is a money-maker for the MoMA system and the curators are expected to sell out the 3,000-capacity courtyard while maintaining the brand's risk-taking tastemaker status. This often makes for a funny kind of cultural dissonance—I'll never forget, a few years back, seeing a woman in the crowd plugging her ears, face contorted in confusion and horror, because she was clearly expecting disco but first had to sit through an hour of harsh noise. The grab-bag aspect of the bookings is part of the fun.
When the party's really pumping (like when they land a big-ticket headliner), Warm Up can feel oversold. The dance floor expands until the crowd is squeezed against the metal barricades, leaving little room to do anything but bob up and down. Last Saturday's edition was slower than usual, maybe because of the storm clouds rolling in, or because this year's bookings are less star-studded than previous seasons. It was also the best Warm Up I've been to in years, with an adventurous, house-heavy lineup, lots of true freaks dancing down in front and more than enough room to move around.
In a clever curatorial turn, the organizers broke up the DJ sets with a live performance from the Brooklyn band Innov Gnawa. Using metal castanets, repetitive vocal chants and a low-string instrument called a sintir, they play a style of Moroccan ceremonial music called gnawa. The audience rippled with curiosity when they emerged from the back of the courtyard, castanets clicking in triplets, and made their way up the long wheelchair ramp to the stage. It was loopy and hypnotic, a bit like techno, and while nobody was quite sure what the right dance moves were, a lot of people went for it regardless.
London DJ Josey Rebelle was the evening's clear MVP. She dropped her first needle on Soul II Soul's "Back To Life"—a great way to begin any party—which transitioned into "107 Acid" by Luke Vibert, a breaky acid belter that chugs along at 107 BPM. That pairing set the tone for the rest of the set, which weaved between R&B and the weirder side of UK rave, with quick, elegant mixes to connect the dots. There were some risky choices in there, such as Actress's "Hazyville," which is noisy and extraterrestrial but also a dance floor bomb in the right context.
The rain started halfway through Maurice Fulton's set, just as the last few orange stains faded from the sky. He was pulling no punches, working the filter to great effect on synth-y '80s bangers like Yello's "Bostich" and Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Firecracker." Umbrellas came out and started bobbing above the crowd, who didn't budge despite the the wind starting to howl. Things peaked with Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)," which sent the crowd completely wild—a small sea of different-colored ponchos jumping and spinning. It captured the wholesome, smiling, unpretentious vibe that you look for in Warm Up.
Photo credit /
Brandon Polanco