Answer Code Request Album Launch Party

Berghain, Berlin | 9 June

As Crack wrote a few months ago: “You can’t win at the door in Berghain”. At 7am, the sun is shining, no queue and with a spot on the guestlist reserved for us to review Answer Code Request’s set at 8, we’re feeling quietly confident about our chances of being granted entry to techno’s forbidden city. We are of course punished for our arrogance. Maybe, having just had a good night’s sleep and cycled across town, we looked all together too fresh faced. Isn’t getting up early to spend the day in Berghain THE “Berlin” thing to do? The looks of disdain from those bomber jacket clad doormen said otherwise. Only a few minutes of utterly deferential bouncer negotiation prompted them to check the list. After the demonstration of who was in charge was complete, we were allowed in.

Pariah’s set was in full swing as we crossed the Berghain floor, becoming accustomed to the feeling of jet lag that was washing over us. We got a beer, and got stuck into the closing hour of Pariah’s performance- a well measured blend of lighter melodic tracks, and darker stuff one might associate more readily with his work as part Karenn.

Answer Code Request opened his set with one of his own tracks, Odyssey Sequence, from his new album, four minutes of drifting rave tinged ambience, somewhat in the vein of V/Vm’s The Death Of Rave. This confidence gave his set a momentum that was patiently built on throughout it’s duration. Answer Code Request’s style seems perfectly suited to the “big room”. Combining a hard and heavy style with an ear for groove and melody that’s never cheesy, but is incredibly invigorating to listen to, and provides plenty of hands in the air moments. Watching the Berghain resident perform it’s hard to keep in perspective that, just a few years ago, Answer Code Request was simply Patrick Gläser, a DJ with few production credits to his name and relatively unknown outside of Berlin.

Meanhile, upstairs Phil Keiran, and later Italo Johnson, were playing the kind of unabashedly fun, disco infused house that one might expect in Panorama Bar, but as far as we were concerned, this was more of a distraction, an opportunity to take a breather. We stayed with Answer Code Request for almost the entirety of his set and applauded with the rest when it was over.

Randomer took over the Berghain floor at midday, starting hard, and playing heavy stepping techno into the afternoon. The sun was still shining when we left, and it was hotter outside than on the still heaving dancefloor we had left behind.

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soundcloud.com/answercoderequest

Words: Thomas Painter