The global clubbing brand is back and better than ever. Nuria Haering reports from the excitable Renaissance dancefloor.
Throughout London, disused warehouses, parking lots and storage rooms are constantly finding a second life as music venues – it's one of the charms of the capital's nightlife. Not even a year old, Cable in London Bridge is the latest – and one of the better – examples of how the vastness underneath railway arches can be turned into an atmospheric club. Visible tubing, ridged walls and dark corners lend the space an industrial feel that works rather well with tech-house nights such as Renaissance, whose launch I'm attending on this wintry Saturday night.
The similar ambience between Cable and the night's previous home, the now-defunct The Cross (where they had a twelve-year run), is one of the main reasons the night's promoters chose the southeast venue for their new London residency (the brand, originating in the UK, hosts nights all over, including Europe, Ibiza and South America). With a capacity of 1,000, it's intimate without being cramped – a perfect setting for seeing a headliner like Gui Boratto.
The only drawback, I soon realise, is that club is poorly heated. The long corridor adjoining Room Two with Room One is downright freezing (which on top of being unpleasant is very sobering, making it hard to get any mileage out of a £5 vodka-coke). Thankfully, it's a packed-out night so there's enough body heat going around to defrost my limbs and put me in the mood for dancing.
In Room Two, Berlin-based UK veteran Ewan Pearson is pumping out an eclectic set of dark-edged techno with sombre vocal samples and metallic riffs. It's not the kind of stuff that instantly incites me to move, but it's sonically interesting and the sound system is ace. Unfortunately, the room's proximity to the club entrance makes it feel more like a foyer than one of the main dance floors.
I wonder if the club's layout would've been better served by placing Room One and Room Two adjacent. Instead, there’s a transition space between the two where the speakers are hooked up to Room One; inevitably, the crowd overflow concentrates here, leaving Room Two looking sparse. It feels like a disservice to the DJs billed in Room Two, who, given the credentials of a night like Renaissance, could well be headlining their own night somewhere smaller.
There's a bigger reason, though, why Ewan Pearson is failing to set the dance floor ablaze: Gui Boratto has already started his set! It's only 2am but I’m told the Brazilian crowd-pleaser has already been on the decks since 1. It's actually rather astounding for a top name to start his set so early, so I'm a little peeved.
I gently elbow my way past an excitable crowd to catch the last hour of Boratto’s richly-textured tech-house set in Room One. Along with Deadmau5, he's one of the more solid names to emerge on the club scene over the past few years. Borrowing from both house and techno, his style is fresh, colourful and never relies solely on loops. Hands wave in the air when the beat kicks in after a breakdown and everyone seems genuinely there for the music. An initial scepticism about the predominance of glammed-up girls and guys in polo shirts abates – oh, the power of collective revelry!
After Boratto, nothing can quite match up. Berlin babe Heidi serves up some fast beats in Room Two. Female DJs always have an edge of coolness, and the mop-haired Get Physical recruit is no exception, but I find her set too scattered. Subtract a few misplaced old-school vocals, lower the BPM rate a little, smoothen some of the transitions and it would be top-notch. Still, she's a definite up-and-comer and I take to her set more than I do to Hector's, which is tearing up Room One. His stream of tribal tech-house is not my cup of tea but it's safe to say that the one-time employee of the Phonica record shop in Soho has totally earned his place on the London club scene.
All in all, the night has lent itself to some good spurts of dancing. I wish I could've seen the full two hours of Boratto's set (I have images of him leaving the club in a helicopter, rushing to make it to some secret afterhours VIP party) but I'm still glad at having had the chance to see him at all. Renaissance have proven that they have what it takes to yet again launch a popular, forward-thinking residency. Indeed, for their next instalment on the 27th February they’ve bagged none other than Berlin outfit Tiefschwarz – trust it to be a riot.
Image by Merlijn Hoek.
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