Unscene Berlin

Man, I'm already tired and there's still an entire itinerary of parties to check out today.  First off: at 14:00 we have Fruitfly, a free open air party in Treptow Park featuring Cocoon/Sisyphos and assorted other cool DJs.  Later, we'll be heading to Neukölln for #gHashtag vs.  The Future Was Now , which will be a witchy lil' night of sleaze, cross-dressed genres and tumblrpunks (I dunno what they are either, but I have a feeling I'm going to find out). Whatever energy we have left after that will take us to The Empire Strikes Back free party in Subland, in east Friedrichshain / west Lichtenberg. There will be two rooms: drum n' bass in one and techno in the other.  Techno room's gonna be hosted by Circuit Breaker , a break-dancing, punk-rocking breakbeat producer from da streets of everywhere in Germany, it seems. I've got to sign off now if I'm gonna be able to get enough coffee in me to make it through the rest of the day & night.  E

Something big is happening but nobody's talking about it. The weather follows no longer follows any discernible pattern; species are being deleted like environmental-protection expenditures from a budget sheet; the environment is being eaten away at the edges while our gaze is fixated on one media spectacle after another.  This Saturday, a mass of people will silently dance their way through the streets of Berlin to draw attention to the fact that climate change carries on, whether we talk about it or not.  It's strongly recommended that people who go to tomorrow's Silent Climate Parade (which will feature DJ sets played silently to a headphone-wearing parade) bring placards, banners, or broadcast their climate concerns in another way to make sure they're 'heard' loud and clear.   We wouldn't want the message to get lost on all the car drivers the parade will hold up... car drivers whose activities contribute so much stress to the natural systems of the

When one is trying to choose from the endless selection of electronic music festivals that take place in Berlin-Brandenburg each year, it's easy to forget that the city does not actually own the patent on cheap, anything-goes, 72-hour techno expeditions to the Champs D'Elirium . I was reminded of that fact last week, when I found an ad for the Underground Music Festival taking place in Sussex next weekend. Shame I can't be there. Despite having one of the least aesthetic acronyms of all times, UMF promises to deliver roughly seven parties' worth of crusty chaos for the price of about three London club tickets. But unlike a London club, the £60.00 entry fee includes accommodation (on-site camping if booked in advance) as well whatever food and drink you can smuggle in from Netto (yes, Netto exists in the UK as well, never fear). The names on the extensive line-up of performers and DJS make up a mini who's-who of underground festival and free party faces fro

Contort at Mindpirates in Kreuzberg is really coming into its own. For the past six months, this Golden Temple of sound, which comes complete with its own Mexican-style altar, has been hosting an irregular Sunday afternoon chillout session of high-integrity, electronic experimentation. You can check out a more detailed description of the last Contort here . Mindpirates is an intimate space with lots of seating spread across three floors - basically, a complex of chillout rooms like the ones that used to be mandatory at all the big underground clubs but, strangely, enough, have become nearly extinct. Mindpirates is set up to encourage intimacy and casual conversation with your neighbours, and puts everybody on the same level as the artists playing, who tend to skip back and forth between the 'stage' and the audience. This weekend, Mindpirates will be letting big names Cristian Vogel and Milton Bradley loose in Mindpirates' sonic sandbox without any of their favourite t