Review: Ricardo Villalobos

In the murky depths of week 5, the suggestion of getting up at 4AM to go for a dance would provoke hilarity and disbelief in equal measure; inevitable essay crises, coupled with the disproportionately provincial closing times of Cambridge’s ‘nightclubs’, torpedo fantasies of breakfast boshing. That being said, such adventures can only realistically take place in larger cities, and I shouldn’t whinge too much about electronic music in Cambridge – the quality of techno and house has improved exponentially of late, seeing bigger names such as Kevin Saunderson and Ivan Smagghe attracted to our humble university town. 

Back in London, getting up at this ungodly hour seemed like the perfect Sunday morning activity – just one week into the Easter break, supervisions and lectures were a fast receding memory, whilst exams were still too far distant to curb my hedonistic bent. So it was that we crawled out of bed, prepared a less than nutritious breakfast of vodka and Red Bull, and set out for Fabric – arguably the capital’s most internationally renowned electronic music venue. 

There was some degree of rational thought informing this ostensibly ridiculous course of action; although the music at Fabric is almost always exceptional, at peak time the crowd tends to contain a worrying proportion of unscrupulous gentlemen, spilling their Stella and groping any women who happen to cross their path (I wish this were an exaggeration.) Most importantly, however, Ricardo Villalobos’ set was scheduled to begin at 5AM. For the uninitiated, Villalobos is a Chilean-German producer and DJ, and a true pioneer in the techno scene for the best part of a decade. Shamefully, I had not managed to catch a set until now – my sleep would just have to be sacrificed. 

To our mild surprise, countless other people were equally unhinged – we were confronted with an enormous queue upon arrival, delaying our entry until around 6.30. Fortunately, Ricardo was just warming up as we forced our way through the crowds into Room One; his disregard for set times is legendary. We were greeted with an electric atmosphere – the place was packed, but not unbearably so – and the menacing throb of the Funktion One sound system. The first 2 hours flew by, as track after track of relentlessly pounding techno and house dropped, all tinged with an unexpectedly old school hue; the transition from a Detroit tune, featuring a sultry female vocal, into a deeply unsettling ‘rave’ (in the unadulterated sense of the word) banger was particularly memorable. 

Our first excursion into the smoking area was quite a shock – leaving the cocoon of a club in full swing can be disorientating at the best of times, an effect exacerbated by the full morning sunlight. One friend, her eloquence clearly compromised by sleep deprivation and intoxication, remarked “God, it’s actually Sunday!” A couple of hours later, we had exhausted our supplies of energy, and were forced to retreat to the comfort of a warm bed, and the calming artificial light of the television. Apparently, Ricardo played on until 12.30; my source suffixed this information with the claim that he had been on a ‘journey through sound’ – I am not inclined to disagree, based on the quality of what we saw. Upon returning home to inform my parents of the weekend’s events, my father asked whether or not they had served us breakfast – bless him.