Roska was playing too early if you wanted to avoid the most busy times at the door, so i arrived for Instra:Mental, was a bit surprised by the styles, i was wondering where that vibration all over your clothes you sometimes had when entering sub:stance went, this clear difference from other berghain parties. was no problem, i was just surprised by the technoid sounds, remembering last year when Scuba was recommending Instra:mental for halftime 2step etc. it took me all of this set to properly arrive in the place, take a walk around, wondering where all the regulars happen to stay, getting used to the new look of the lower toilet bar, paying a quick visit to panoramabar etc.

then for the late peaktime there was breaks and dubstep by distance. ben klock upstairs was no competition today for me, since i saw him play often downstairs and sometimes upstairs and this time i was not surprised by his style (downstairs i was sometimes blast away by the unexpected sounds of dettmann or klock, i mean i am not oldschool at all and stuff like green velvet sounds, including green velvet playing himself, i was introduced to in berghain for the first time).

i don’t want to sound as not satisfied by the not so typicalness of sub:stance in comparison to other dubstep parties (where there is this usual wobble stuff etc), because that’s why i go there and not to the other parties: to see the interesting experimental stuff. just saying that sometimes before i also felt having fun observing crazy londoners doing nerdy dance styles to ultra-wobble generating body pains. but not this time, and in the end, when Scuba picked up all these loose ends and celebrated an experimental techno set with morphing bass lines, i was in that all happy, all excited sub:stance mood and stayed until the end of his set.

for me it was one of the best sub:stance parties since some time, just it somehow was more serious and not this entertaining clash between the berghain regulars and dubstep tourists. maybe that stuff happened earlier when roska played, can’t tell. instra:mental was a comfortable welcome, the rest was as expected and scuba took it exactly to the right point, made me feel overwhelmed.