Out of time and lost in Space

The terrace at Space in Ibiza: a universe of its own

I've just returned from Ibiza, where the peak of dance music history seems to have been permanently etched on the island's landscape, like those erratic, angular hills which crisscross its terrain.  Idealistic impossibilities seems impossibly easy in Ibiza; take, for example, the gravity-defying ease with which its club scene seems to have sustained the idealistic highs of Balearic rave, nearly three decades after the fact.  And that is despite the influx of new blood, new ideas and new music that's flooded it every summer since the original Summer of Love.  That's quite a feat.

Everywhere else you go in the world, time seems to move on restlessly, leaving its golden moments in the dust to chase after the possibility of something shinier around the next corner, buying what's newest at the cost of what was best.  Ibiza meanwhile, has found its single idyllic moment and is content to stay stuck in it forever.  Thank f*ck for that.

Back here in Germany, the restless change-junkie of Time is keeping everybody on their toes by pressing the question of whether we should keep on going with the current flow or reject and redirect the tide carved by mis-channeled money.  The Blockupy crew in Frankfurt barricaded the European Central Bank today, physically damming the tide of damaging cuts to social services, jobs, health insurance and education across the EU to pay off various debts.

End of the line for austerity?

But the Blockupy barricade is just there for a day or so: it's up to the rest of the public to dig in and make the changes that will put 'humanity before profit'.   For centuries, 'profit' was a symbolic concept that used numbers to illustrate how well a group of people was doing.  But for the past few decades, people have been starving, going homeless and destroying their environment just to make those numbers look good for the investors.  Blockupy suggests that maybe it's the concept of 'profit' itself itself that needs changing.  Money doesn't need to eat after all, and people do.  Also, people can't eat money no matter how much of it there is stashed in offshore accounts and bank vaults.  I've heard that the rich taste pretty good with a pinch of salt and some sauteed onions on the side, though.  Mmm.       

If you're looking for a pre-or-post-protest party that merges a bit of ravey idealism with a dash of resistant realism you may want to check out Kili Lounge tonight (Wiesenweg 7-9 near U and S-Bahn Frankfurter Allee).  The UK's Dead Silence Syndicate will play what has been decribed as "blistering, eardrum-perforating Drum'n'Bass thrashed on real live instruments" while Ugly Funk crosses the spectrum of bizarre techno sounds from the squatty London underground.  What better way to put a bit of disco into the weekend's discord?

Stay tuned to Unscene Berlin's facebook page for more updates.