- Despite a recent global upswing in popularity for hard techno, industrial and experimental music, fans of these genres have had a tough time finding them in New York as of late, unless you were willing to dig deep underground. But then New York has never been much of a techno town. There were explosions in the '90s with Frankie Bones's StormRaves and the Limelight, but the city has always shown allegiance to the sounds it helped make popular: disco and house. While these genres still dominate the bigger, more visible clubs, the more forward-thinking sounds are left to fend for themselves at smaller non-dance venues, lofts or warehouses.
Run by Lost Soul Enterprises and The Long Count, the Closed Circuit parties are one of several carrying the torch for techno. For their fourth instalment, the promoters pulled together their hardest lineup yet, with Headless Horseman and AnD both making NYC debuts, supported by a cast of locals that included Shawn O'Sullivan, Ciarra Black, Peter Fonda and residents Scallywag and R. Gamble. The party was held in an intimate loft, with a maze of corridors connecting the main room dance floor to a chill-out room, a second bar area and a roof deck. When I entered at 1 AM there were already plenty of people there.
Fresh from a month-long sojourn in Berlin, Peter Fonda sounded like he'd brought some of the German capital back with him, dropping rugged acid and hard techno via a live PA setup. O'Sullivan usually doesn't hold back, but he was in a more varied mode this night, leading with a K-Hand classic from the Warp catalogue and making waypoints in Random XS, Suburban Soul's "Citylife" and Regis before peaking with Trak-X's "Gravity."
Headless Horseman's live show came next. After first hearing him at last year's Berlin Atonal, his music made a different impression in this cosier environment. Rigorously modern and hard with flashy production touches and hints of EBM, the German artist touches on various eras of techno, processing them into a monolithic sound in line with peers like Ancient Methods or Traversable Wormhole. His trademark hooded robe, which covered his face entirely, added to the performance, cutting a spooky figure against the dim lights and fog. The music, though, easily stood on its own.
AnD followed, this time on the decks. The UK duo ratcheted up the tempo to 140 BPM, tilting the party into full-on rave territory. Classics from DBX, Robert Hood, Surgeon and Planetary Assault Systems slid in next to more obscure tracks from Stanislav Tolkachev and Binny. They stayed on longer than planned, clearly loving and feeding off the still-eager audience. Given the excellent sets and wicked crowd, the party felt deserving of a club setting rather than a rough-and-tumble DIY space. But before music of this strength can find a space on the circuit, New York's clubs will need to massively reassess their approaches.