FRIDAY’S MUST-SEE MARATHON RAVE FOR MUSIC CONNOISSEURS, HEDONISTS AND SYNTH FETISHISTS
Friday, November 6, is mandatory for Copenhagen’s music enthusiasts. Detroit techno legends Octave One are landing their infamous Mothership at Den Anden Side, bringing a small warehouse of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers to a city increasingly accustomed to DJs armed with little more than Instagram followers and USB sticks loaded with the latest playlist shit du jour — or premixes synced to visuals, or a bag of retro-conservative, scratchy vinyl.
Whether you’re a hedonist, a live music buff, a Detroit techno scholar, a music producer — or the kind of gear pervert who gets sexually aroused by the mere twiddling of a filter knob on a vintage analogue synthesizer — consider your Friday night sorted.
Octave One’s live set at Den Anden Side offers a rare opportunity to experience their hardware-driven live set in a legendary intimate club setting. The duo usually perform at major festivals such as Movement Detroit, Time Warp, Dekmantel, ADE, Awakenings and DGTL, having also played Copenhagen’s excellent Strøm Festival back in 2012.
Add local heroes Denis Horvat, Prom Night, Sakena Ali, Gabriella Vergilov and Morten Vammen across two floors of Copenhagen’s hedonistic underground sanctuary, and you have a rather compelling reason to cancel your existing weekend plans.
OCTAVE ONE: DETROIT’S NEXT GENERATION
Detroit has given the world several rather significant inventions: Motown, the moving assembly line and, depending on whom you ask, techno.
A generation of young Black musicians began constructing sonic science fiction, with Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson emerging as the founding fathers of Detroit techno. They inspired the next generation: enter Underground Resistance, Carl Craig and the Burden brothers.
Lawrence played saxophone. Lenny learned brass instruments and drums. Their younger brothers eventually introduced hip-hop and newer forms of R&B into the family’s increasingly eclectic musical universe.
The brothers started collecting equipment, buying records, DJing and organising parties. They even operated a small mobile disco business, complete with turntables, lighting and effects. When Detroit’s legendary Music Institute needed equipment, the brothers were able to rent some of theirs to the club.
RIP: Juan Atkins – He Heard the Future Before the Rest of Us
Meanwhile, they gained access to Juan Atkins’ Metroplex studio, with Anthony Shakir engineering the sessions. One of the resulting recordings was I Believe. It eventually appeared on Derrick May’s Transmat label as part of the influential and accurately titled Techno 2: The Next Generation compilation.
In 1990, they established 430 West Records, followed later by Direct Beat, an imprint that helped develop Detroit’s distinctive electro tradition. More than three decades later, 430 West remains an active part of their independent operation.
THE HIT: BLACKWATER
Built around an irresistible combination of muscular Detroit rhythms, warm synthesizer harmonies and the gospel-tinged voice of Ann Saunderson, Blackwater became an anthem without abandoning the core Octave One sound.
The record could function as a peak-time techno weapon, a soulful house classic or an emotional finale to an exceptionally long night. Its appeal crossed musical generations and genre boundaries.
Blackwater has reportedly sold more than a million copies worldwide — remarkable for music emerging from a small, independent Detroit operation.
TICKETS: GET AHEAD OF THE LINE – THE CHEAPEST TRILL IN TOWN
LIVE: THE MOTHERSHIP
Technology has made it possible to recreate an entire symphony orchestra, a 1970s recording studio and a warehouse full of synthesizers on a laptop costing less than a decent hardware synth.
Yet Octave One continues to travel the world with an enormous collection of physical electronic instruments.
Their live setup, affectionately known as The Mothership, has included approximately 60 pieces of equipment, all wired into a large mixing console. They effectively assemble their studio onstage and perform with it — much as Kraftwerk once did.
But where Kraftwerk cultivated the aesthetics of cool robotics, Octave One celebrates the physicality of a messier, more animated performance, echoing gospel, funk, soul, jazz and house — the accumulated musical history of Black America.
WHY THE OLD MACHINES STILL MATTER
The contemporary synthesizer market is full of instruments purchased primarily because they look magnificent in social media posts. A collection of vintage equipment can easily become a substitute for musical imagination, just as vinyl records have become Pokémon cards.
The laptop is arguably the ultimate sound-production tool. But its lack of a tactile interface leaves many producers sitting motionless in their studios like architects, composing through an endless sequence of binary decisions made with a mouse.
A curious paradox, considering that techno is music for both body and mind.
Hardware forces a more physical approach. It invites improvisation, happy accidents and real-time interaction with the music.
The Roland TR-909, for instance, is not simply a fashionable piece of retro equipment. Its timing, sound, controls and peculiarities have helped define Octave One’s musical vocabulary. An instrument that once provided the original sonic building blocks of their tracks has become an old, trusted collaborator.
STILL TRANSMITTING
Their recent releases include Gallium, issued in May as part of the Flights to Earth project, and a deluxe edition of The Collective, bringing together material from their formative years.
And after more than three decades, the brothers are still hauling their electronic spaceship from city to city.
Which brings us to this Friday in cosy Copenhagen.
TICKETS: GET AHEAD OF THE LINE – THE CHEAPEST TRILL IN TOWN
DAS: THE OTHER SIDE OF COPENHAGEN
Copenhagen has never suffered from a shortage of nightclubs. But finding a place genuinely dedicated to underground music — rather than expensive cocktails, bottle service and the endless pimping of fashionable customers, C-listers, “VIPs” and douchebags. Den Anden Side — literally The Other Side — is the antidote.
Opened in November 2022, the club is the latest incarnation of a project that began with intimate warehouse parties, continued through the labyrinthine basement of Ved Siden Af (now Module), and eventually found a considerably larger home beneath Copenhagen’s historic Palads cinema.
The space once housed Daddy’s Dancehall, which hosted everyone from Iggy Pop and Patti Smith to the Sex Pistols.
Today, the emphasis is on underground electronic music, queer culture, artistic freedom and a distinctly hedonistic interpretation of community — complete with two contrasting dance floors, a darkroom, secluded spaces, an underground garden and a formidable quadraphonic Funktion-One sound system capable of shaking even the stiffest arses into motion.
Photography is prohibited. The emphasis is on participation rather than posing and documentation.A welcome oasis in an era when nightlife increasingly seems designed to generate social media content, trapping the crowd in a self-conscious panopticon of perpetual self-surveillance.
The result is something increasingly rare: a nightclub that aspires to build a community through culture, rather than merely operating as a bar with an entrance fee and some additional speakers.
And on November 6 from 23.30, it provides the landing strip for Octave One’s Mothership.
COME EARLY. SKIP THE QUEUE. STAY LATE.
THE SUPPORTING CAST
DENIS HORVAT
Born in Frederiksværk to Croatian parents, Denis Horvat grew up listening to Depeche Mode, Blondie, Billy Idol and Kiss before discovering The Prodigy at the age of ten.
Originally a drummer, he taught himself electronic music production and developed a distinctive style of melodic, analogue-driven techno, which he calls synthesizer techno.
Releases on Innervisions, Afterlife and Diynamic helped establish him internationally, while his remix of WhoMadeWho’s Dynasty became a dance-floor favourite.
He also runs his own label, Vokabularium, and records under the alias Tlak.
Horvat closes the main floor with a marathon session of hypnotic, progressive and deeply textured electronic music.
PROM NIGHT
Behind Prom Night is Copenhagen-based Shaquille Beck McGosh, who grew up in Aarhus with South African parents who had fled apartheid in the late 1970s.
DJing since his early teens, Shaquille eventually established Prom Night Records and became a fixture of Copenhagen’s underground club circuit.
His energetic sets move freely between disco, Italo house, acid, Afro-house and techno, combining old-school musicality with contemporary dance-floor instincts.
Having recently played Berlin’s legendary Panorama Bar, he takes over immediately after Octave One.
SAKENA ALI
Sakena Ali has been playing records since 2002. She has also organised parties, served on the board of Copenhagen’s Culture Box, contributed to the city’s independent radio culture through Radio Panini and managed Danish electronic music icon Bjørn Svin.
Her selections move between disco, house, deep house and more unexpected musical territories.
Sakena opens the main floor with an all-vinyl set.
GABRIELLA VERGILOV
Born in Bulgaria, Gabriella Vergilov grew up surrounded by music. Her father established one of the country’s early recording studios, introducing her to everything from classical music to Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre.
Classically trained in piano and dance, she eventually developed a distinctive combination of techno, electro, house, cinematic textures and her own vocals.
Her productions have received support from Ben Klock, DVS1 and Ben Sims, while her music has appeared on respected underground labels and in DVS1’s Fabric 96 mix.
She also founded the independent GAMA label and became the first Bulgarian female artist to perform for Boiler Room.
MORTEN VAMMEN
Morten Vammen began DJing during Copenhagen’s anarchic post-punk 1980s before disappearing into recording studios, releasing music under the aliases AUM and AAA from the early 1990s onwards.
Vammen has appeared on lineups alongside Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Robert Hood, Moodymann, Thomas Fehlmann, Monolake, Luke Slater, Dave Clarke, DJ Hell, Roman Flügel, Electric Indigo, Bjørn Torske, Bjørn Svin, Rune RK, Mixmaster Morris and LTJ Bukem.
His work also encompasses soundtracks, art, documentary films — including the legendary Eye in the Night and State of the Art — and two novels, The Afterparty and Tilt, both set in Copenhagen’s nightlife.
Vammen produces and releases music through his SOFARAVE imprint and runs the online magazine Blazar.
He opens the cosy second room with a playful mixture of classic gems and his own productions – but anything could happen.
CONCLUSION
Nine hours. One live electronic act. Two dance floors. Six distinctive artists. Several generations of electronic music.
No phones. No photographs. No VIP bullshit or Instagram juggling. No dress code. No obligation to explain what happened afterwards.
Just music, machines and people — creating new mental spaces, unexpected encounters and social connections.
The original raison d’être of techno.
COME EARLY. SKIP THE QUEUE & STAY LATE.
TICKETS: GET AHEAD OF THE LINE – THE CHEAPEST TRILL IN TOWN
COPENHAGENS SECRET SOUNDTRACK
RIP: Juan Atkins – He Heard the Future Before the Rest of Us
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