- Rebekah helps cut the ribbon at the city's newest techno club.
- BASEMENT, a new club beneath Knockdown Center in Queens, is New York's latest techno hotspot. It indulges its industrial heritage—Knockdown Center was once home to a door manufacturing plant—with dense brick and concrete columns dotting the venue, their rough edges left untouched. Flanked by massive Romanesque arches and small hallways that lead to nowhere, the space is dramatic, almost medieval, and the dimly lit, tunnel-like entrance added to the sense of mystery.
The dance floor, which easily outsizes other techno spots like Bossa Nova Civic Club, was lit only by red and white beams projected from the ceiling. On Friday night, the floor was foggy and sweaty, with a powerful, if slightly uneven, soundsystem, which grew louder depending on where you stood. A small ledge to the left of the DJ booth gave a behind-the-scenes view of the action. By comparison with the dance floor, the outdoor space, located next to a giant smokestack, felt strangely small, possibly roped off to contain noise levels.
The crowd, dressed mostly in black, shouted encouragement at the Brooklyn-based DJ Auspex, who seemed to enjoy building and releasing tension with drops and intense rhythms. The audience whooped repeatedly. As more and more people poured in, guys emblazoned with streetwear graphics slowly began outnumbering punters clad in leather harnesses. A solid contingent of mostly older dancers had come out to rave, thrashing about with wild abandon. But they were matched by a younger crowd who only seemed to want to smoke, stand around and take pictures against the concrete columns.
Details like this, plus $7 Modelos and a surprisingly intense security presence, meant that the club didn't totally nail the Berghain-style vibe it was going for. But then it will always lack the hedonistic abandon of partying in the depths of Kreuzberg because New York nightlife is fundamentally different. Overall, its dedication to a non-judgemental aesthetic, with low lighting and plenty of nooks and crannies to explore on and off the dance floor, felt like an improvement on most other legal spaces in New York. Musically, the DJs stuck to a steady four-on-the-floor thump all night—after three hours of unforgiving techno, I would have welcomed the levity of a breakbeat.
Rebekah, who closed, shook away my initial doubts. Filled with acidic basslines and breakneck transitions, her set channeled the high intensity of Berlin techno. It was fast, loud and industrial. The crowd responded in kind—gone were the half-hearted cheers as the dance floor filled with smoke and rumbled with movement. At its peak, her performance gave credence to BASEMENT's unrelenting techno mission.