Berlin round-up: Surgeon

Arrived in Berlin on a Wednesday night, didn't do much, just hired a bike and mooched about a bit. Friday night saw me have a couple of beers at various bars and then go to the club Maria Am Ostbahnhof for a night called Electrodes & Wires. Got there about one but there wasn't much happening, just some bloke playing overly aggro techno so i sat and had another couple of Astras. T++ did a live set at 2, he's a name I know, but not really his music. It was good, Berlin techno minded dubstep, so I started my solo disco dancing to his set. It's a pretty big place but never got overly busy, which is fine by me. I just found a dark corner and got into it.
Surgeon was up next, the first I heard of him was his remix of LFO's Nurture on the Warp 10 year compilation (i just realised that's 10 years ago as they've just released the 20 year anniversary stuff... Time flies), it's a great track but most of his other productions have been a bit too heavy for me, I've never made it through one of his mixes, such as the one pictured above, but theres always something I like about them so I thought I'd see how it worked on a big system. It was as punishing and physical as I expected, but really supple in its rhythms and sounds, switching lightfootedly between boom boom boom 4/4 industrial techno and more complex dubstep beats, and then back into psychedelic acid workouts. Very good indeed, but still definitely not home listening music. As he describes himself on his entertaining blog "I play music at people". My body admitted defeat at about 5 and I weakly cycled back through the dawn to Friedenau, only getting lost once.

Funny that I come to Berlin and end up in a club dancing to a dude from Northampton.