- The line between "party" and "show" at Make Mistakes 04 was blurry to me. Art was literally in bloom, punctuating the large, open loft above Theory and Practice in Denver, Colorado, with a few dim trumpet-shaped floral light installations, which grew slowly from the wooden floorboards, fully blossoming by late morning. The arrangement of the space was effortless and inviting, an ideal gathering place for techno lovers and hippies alike, a place for strangers to become friends. Love was getting passed around like it was free, aromatic incense wafted through the hallway at the entrance and hula-hoops circled around faint figures in the dark corners of the room.
The volume of conversation around me rivaled DJ John Templeton, who commenced the evening with subdued beats. He was followed by Time for Trees (Joshua Smith), co-founder and co-organizer of the event, who ignited the dance floor, and made music the centerpiece of the room by midnight. He set the stage for the evening with wide, reverberating bass underscored by dreamy, synthetic rhythm. His set never deviated from sophisticated fun.
Alka Rex was next, and his live set was the highlight of the evening. The space was too small for his solidly produced bass lines, but that was a very good thing. The conversations around me which before were so prevalent faded into white noise. Rex easily deconstructed long, electronic riffs spliced together by heavy, lucid beats, seamlessly flowing into Konque, with the addition of David Last. Apparently they're from Brooklyn, NY, but on this night they seemed to be from outer space, and not just because of their costumes.
The intergalactic wall of sound they created around the dance floor sounded more robotic and complex together than what they did separately. I stole a few glances of people actually doing the robot. The sound seemed to fall on me in a few places throughout, but I couldn't quite catch it. Nevertheless, their momentum carried me back to planet earth for David Last's solo set, which was more groove-driven than his predecessors. Last turned up the funk: Bold trumpet blasts perfectly complemented his minimal melodies. Everyone was moving in truncated wiggles, taking up as much space as they pleased to act out what they heard.
Attentat (Thomas Kamholz), co-founder and co-creator of Make Mistakes, zipped up the night but didn't let all the air out, and even though his computer stopped responding briefly at about 5:45 AM, the crowd didn't. He presented us with a streamlined set that was one part dark, two parts mesmerizing. They say that utopia is a journey and not a destination, and Make Mistakes is proof of that. The only mistake I made was not getting work off the next morning.