Unscene Berlin

Aside from the red Ganesh banner hanging over the decks, the bar in R19 is indistinguishable from the bar of any other after-hours club I've been to; think Sisyphos or Ritter Butzke at 1:00 p.m.  It's sultry, red-tinged and smoky.  The crumpled leather sofas and armchairs are full of grinning, blurry people swaying and resisting the call of gravity to assume a more horizontal position. A DJ is casually manipulating the atmosphere from an inconspicuous spot in the corner.  Tech-house beats slouch along at a sedate pace and drawling vocals are slowed to the speed of dark, cool treacle.  I am far too awake for this type of after-hours club but, luckily, R19 has an alternative variety on offer. A quickening pulse pulls me along the hall, away from the bar and into a second, bigger room.  Entering it feels like stepping into a hard trance all-dayer from the mid-nineties.  Everyone is on their feet in a fluro-washed darkness that's bubbling with spacey riffs...

Forget summer: in Berlin, the dead winter months of February & March are when the really silly season begins. At this time of year, you can see what a big part of the city's identity clubs are... and how tenuous they are, too, much like that identity (wow, how deep is that?).  When I check out the optimistically long listings on the party sites each winter  weekend, I can't help thinking that some of these places are just throwing out regular events with increasingly stranger names out of sheer bloody determination to exist and legitimize their own ephemeral, moonlit presence on this landscape.  Same goes for some of the pale & gaunt regulars who trek through the snow and the daffodils (thanks again, climate change) to get there.  In the summer, it seems all too legitimate to try and stay in Berlin all year, seeking your fortune and infamy in this city's party scene.  But come the winter, that self-assured sense of permanence goes away... taking...