Unscene Berlin

It's March and I'm too tired to stay up all night, aren't you? That's what makes winter & spring such a great time to explore Berlin's afterhour scenes... Same Bitches @ OHM DJ Handmade plays regularly at Same Bitches @ OHM Each time the door cracks open it admits some light, along with a few bodies from the huddle by the cash desk outside. Their shadows quickly dissolve into the dark sound chamber, wading into the music like ducks into water. Tiled walls and low ceilings gleam with damp in the retired bathhouse, making each watery analogy I dream up seem even more appropriate: people don't come here just to listen to the music, they come here to swim in it. The rhythm of the waves is being controlled by DJ Handmade who's playing sublime banging mix of techno, tribal house, hard house, acid techno, acid house... Far from sounding like a mishmash, though, these tunes are lined up with an intuition that makes them all seem part of a single...

Credits as per photo, via R19 Facebook page Club R19 is closing. Another phenomenon of the Berlin party scene is vanishing, leaving us grappling to describe exactly what it is.  Or w as .    The problem with R19 is setting yourself apart from whatever is happening there for long enough to describe it.  Stop for a second and someone / something will grab you and drag you along for a ride. Usually, I just show the place to people and let them decide what they t hink it is .  Their reactions vary from wowed to wary but they're u sually closer to the 'wow' end of the spectrum . I’m a big believer in taking party photos ( taken responsibly and with permission ) but I’ve never had time to think about taking a pic in R19 .  T ime or space.  Anything that you do that isn't part of the present seems to leave a palpable vacuum that the people around you pick up on, zero in on a nd try to fi ll ....

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...

For people who come from anywhere other than Spain, waiting for clubs to open on a Friday or Saturday night in the winter can feel like Chinese water torture.  Things start late .  How late, you ask?  Imagine the time when you'd go home from a typical club back home and well, that's the time when you'll be expected to arrive at a club in Berlin.  And if you want to be there when the party is full-on, in some clubs it's better to arrive around the same time that you'd normally be waking up .   In the summer, there are glorious tree-filled green spaces to while away the endless pre-club hours by basking in the sun, drinking Sekt, flying kites, riding unicorns (at least, I thought it was a unicorn), but in the winter, there is nothing but bitter cold and bitter, bitter Berliners to fill the vacuum between dinner and dancing.  It's like waiting for Godot: an existential exercise in riding out an alien & arbitrary nightlife rhythm that refuses to adap...

The day had begun with the freakish spectacle of summer arriving in October. The sun was shining and we headed out to sip prosecco and beers in Treptower park where people were grilling; boats full of tourists were sailing; and an openair party was happening under a nearby bridge, just like any other Tuesday in summer. We hung around the free tunage for a while until we realized that some sort of fairground sounds were coming from an enclosed garden nearby where the Wilden Renate crew were holding some sort of birthday party. Carnival music suited the scene we saw as we stepped into the place around 10:00 p.m.  A bouncy castle was slowly sinking to the ground as whooping party-goers flung themselves around inside of it. Hammocks and a boat swayed lazily in the air, suspended from the yard's sturdy trees. On top of the main doorway, a sculpture of a lady dressed in jester's clothes reclined like a magnanimous hostess. Was she inviting us to chill with her... or ...

East of Ostkreuz and south of Frankfurter Allee lies a white-washed shanty-town of factories, cobblestone streets and rubble-strewn sidewalks. It's a blank spot on the map, sandwiched between Friedrichshain, Lichtenberg and Rummelsberg. Lately I’ve been trying to think of a new name to fill in that blank: Ostenberg? Frankenkreuz? The area might not have quite the same exotic catchet as Kreuzkolln (another trendy Berlin borderland) but it does have its own niche to pull in the crowds: after-hours clubs. Frankfurter Allee and Ostkreuz S-bahn stations mark the eastern boundaries of Friedrichshain. They are the last exits to clubland for partiers who simply cannot face going home yet... and if the solid afterhours scene in this area is anything to go by, there are more people who can't face it than there are who can. Salon Zur Wilden Renate (which I have already covered here ) ://about blank, KILI Lounge, K-Pax and a few more ad hoc venues are located a few minutes' ...