- To see Substance and Vainqueur doing a live performance would always be an interesting proposition, but the chance to see it at Berlin’s Berghain was an exciting prospect indeed. The recent releases from Peter Kuschnereit (Substance) and René Löwe (Vainqueur) on their new Scionversions label leave no doubt that the metallic, deep dub of nineties Scion still have currency, and the definitive Chain Reaction sound could have no better setting than the stark, concrete box that is Berghain.
The 1950s coal and steam power station that is Berghain has a fittingly foreboding atmosphere, and the dimensions and sound system make it, apparently, the loudest club in Berlin. The main floor is not huge, but it’s cavernous, with concrete walls and an 18m high ceiling. The big Funktion One dance stacks in each corner have made the space renowned for incredible clarity of sound, especially at sub-bass levels. Perfect.
At around 2 a.m., between the street and the dirt-and-chain-mail-fence entrance, I walked against the notorious tide of the rejected. The closer I got, the thicker they came: I passed more than sixty people. I wondered if the event had been cancelled. Fire? Bomb scare?
Neither. But the queue was much shorter than usual.
Inside, Marcel Fengler was warming up the main room with classic Detroit sounds. He played a functional set with lots of acid that included a long mix of Plastikman’s ‘Alpha Rays’. The crowd of a hundred and fifty or so was divided neatly into sections: bare-chested, sexually uninhibited men on the left (close to the dark corners), drinkers on the right (near the bar), and everyone else in a sweaty mess in the middle.
When Substance and Vainqueur uncovered their gear, the room started to fill with palpable anticipation. By the time Fengler finished up, the number of people on the floor had doubled.
Just after 4 a.m., the duo started in with slow washes that gave a taste of the pure sounds to come, and then added low, luxurious bass that rolled on for several minutes before the pace picked up. They launched into beats with ‘Emerge’, the first ever Chain Reaction record released back in 1995. Apart from the remix/reshape Tresor album in 2002 (‘Scion Arrange and Process Basic Channel’), Emerge was their only release until the new label Scion Versions was launched last November, though they have toured in the intervening years across Europe, the U.S. and Japan, refining their sound.
With a mixer that dwarfed them, their two Macs running Live and a couple of small MIDI controllers, Substance and Vainqueur built the excitement to ecstatic levels over the next hour. Enormous beats and great storms of silicone metallic sound washed around the high walls, creating verticality that stretched from the sub bass that pulsed in deep explosions from the bowels of the power station, to the top details that ricocheted so clearly around the room you could almost see them.
After an appropriately huge version of ‘Immersion’, Scion pulled the plug, letting the sounds slowly drain away, layer by layer, until there was nothing left. And despite long and loud protests from the crowd, they closed their laptops, smiling and shaking their heads. It was an unforgettably intense hour; the perfect convergence of Scion and Berghain.
Then Shed took over. He was the perfect negative foil to the main attraction: from the moment he started everything sounded flat. The Berlin producer is well known for lush Detroit-esque productions, but there wasn’t much evidence of them in his three-hour live/DJ set. From the first record, he transformed what had been a glittering echo chamber into something utterly shed-like, and Berghain took on an unbecoming grimness. Thirty minutes in, Shed mixed in ‘Radiance’, but with the comparative loss of dynamics in the sound even Basic Channel couldn’t save him.
People retreated from the hammering beats, leaving the floor half-filled with jaw-clenchers marching on. Some went upstairs to the Panorama Bar for deep house (Kai Alce); others headed for real Detroit at Weekend in Alexanderplatz, enduring a three hour plus queue for the Transmat/Cadenza party; still more headed to the Minus party.
Back in Berghain, Fiedel of Elektro-Club fame took over a scattered floor at 8 a.m. and struggled valiantly for over three hours. Upstairs in Panorama, Jamie Jones kept revellers glued in a tight mass and the party continued on until well into the afternoon.