- Pre-rave, it may have been par for the course for a given DJ to play a whole night at a club, but in our multi-choice, ADHD 21st century party culture, what used to just be a regular evening's work now comes with the rare and mythical tag of "marathon" DJ set. With DJs and club-goers used to a ceaseless turnover of tracks, trends and timecodes, it takes a special combination of artist and audience to make an eight hour DJ slot really work in London in 2010.
Accordingly, it was a pretty much a no-brainer for the promoters of A Night With... to kick off their new series of parties with pastel techno's most charismatic dandy, Michael Mayer. Kompakt may have pulled back its operations from its mid-'00s prime, but whether as a label head or a DJ, one thing you could never accuse Mayer of is lacking in diversity—even if his more populist inclinations have, on occasion, disappointed and even enraged those who seem to wish he'd remained in some Immer-era carbonite time freeze since 2003.
Photo credit: Rob Low
Arriving just an hour after doors, Mayer had already settled into some gentle four-four pulsing, and there was a semblance of shuffling bodies on the floor. Arctic temperatures—it was a warehouse, after all—made it one of the few occasions where dancing in scarves was justified, but the lachrymose strings of Moby's "Home" provided at least a modicum of warmth. By midnight, however, both the crowd and the musical intensity had started to throb. Redshape's roughly-hewn remix of Markus Enochson's "Red Coffee" fired off the night's first round of whooping, and Mayer accordingly shifted into a tougher, more ominous tone.
Before we knew it, the place was packed, and Mayer was firmly in buzz-mode, firing off one high-octane anthem after another. Perhaps reacting to the industrial rawness of the space, he kept it fairly heavy for what seemed like a long, long time, yet peppering things with the odd neo-disco slammer (Mugwump's "Ignored Folklore"), totally-not-ironic-in-any-way-whatsoever chart smash (Gat Decor's "Passion") and lovably pompous Kompakt chest-beater (Baxendale's "I Built This City"). Oh yeah, and some electro. And some Nu-Groove style house. And some more gnarly Speicher stuff. But despite the tangents, there was a ravey intensity to proceedings that kept rearing its head, leading to a few murmurs of discontent among those who'd hoped for a bit more leftfield action.
Photo credit: Rob Low
In fact, it was still thrumming along at full pelt come 4:30 AM when the almost inevitable "Two Of Us" dropped. But happily the crowd had a little more room to cut loose by then, and Mayer headed for the final furlong with a much-welcome mini Italo session that peaked with Mr Flagio's "Take a Chance" and Lindstrøm's peerlessly comfy "I Feel Space," before heading lush-wards with Gui Borratto's Massive Attack remix. In true Mayer style, the borderline-dodgy finale of Phantom Ghost's "You're My Mate" baffled as many people as it entertained, but to acolytes, that's the appeal. Mayer may famously have defined the Kompakt approach as "taking it seriously, having fun," but neither the label nor its most garlanded ambassador ever permits the former part of that clause to supersede the latter.
Whether or not the long set concept spreads into wider British club culture remains to be seen, and some of the proposed guests at forthcoming A Night With... parties may struggle to keep the attention of a city that's perhaps more used to two hour soundbite sets. But with the support of one of the more responsive crowds I've experienced in London, and an inaugural masterclass, the event couldn't really have hoped for a better kick off. And as for Michael Mayer? On tonight's evidence, he's most definitely still "got it"—the question is, have we?