Border Community at The End

Border Community at The End

21 July, 2008
by: Dan

The End is one of London's more pleasant nightclubs. It has plenty of space, good air conditioning and a nice sound-system. What's more, on nights run by labels like James Holden's Border Community, it is filled with soft, washed, gently yielding bodies that you can push your way past without getting a champagne flute to the jugular. Border Community makes techno in a very polite, English sort of way. Some of its stars, like mellow synth purveyor Nathan Fake, like to pose in scarves on windswept lanes for their photo shoots. Much of the music bowls along with a wistful air: a pining for those days of cream teas with nanny at the Vicarage, if you like.

Perhaps because of this, Border Community's appeal lies chiefly with well-brought-up middle class children who have slogged their guts out at university only to wind up with a faintly disappointing job. They are 23-hour party people (early night on Sundays because there's work in the morning). They liked indie rock at school, flirted with hip-hop and homosexuality for a year or so – the two are surprisingly close – and have now wound up... well, they're not really sure. But at least there's Max Tundra to play jester. His typically eclectic selection in room two fluctuates between banging rave and MIDI karaoke versions of songs like 'Video Killed the Radio Star'. People don't know what to make of it, and Tundra must hold the record for both clearing and filling a room the most quickly, and frequently, during a single set.

Of a more serious bent is Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, a versatile and musically literate DJ. He mixes Border Community records with various sorts of house and techno, plus more adventurous bits and bobs; the most inspired mix of the night being a Delia Gonzales & Gavin Russom track over a bouncy click-house rhythm. At a recent Border Community soiree, Hebden got a bit too clever and did people's heads in somewhat by throwing a Battles track in there, but thankfully tonight remained math-rock free.

In room one, Apparat is the main attraction. He's similarly wistful, but more Euro (need an elegant metaphor? Try the disappointment one feels when holidaying in Slovakia and finding the country has been carpeted with Tescos). His electronica takes its cue from a lost era of wild Berlin raves, mimicking the rises and falls of a conventional techno set, but enveloped in clouds of dry ice and soaring, heartstring-tugging chords. It's dreamy stuff and the End crowd don't know whether to sway gently or jump for joy. The set peaks about ten minutes before it finishes; a couple of plodding tracks bring us back to earth with a thud. Holden himself is on next, to round off the night, but our path lies towards the exit and a wait for the night bus. By all accounts, what he played was 'a bit trancey'. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Why not go to the next one and make your own mind up. It'll be quite enjoyable.

Dan