NORMAN NODGE | CLUB REVIEW
Mood @ Undertone, Cardiff, Sat 21 June
On Saturday night Undertone played host to Berlin techno wizard and Berghain resident Norman Nodge. Ten Feet Tall’s smoke-filled basement isn’t exactly as impressive as Berlin’s clubbing mecca, but it certainly did an impressive job of being the kind of godforsaken hole in which aggressive dance music thrives.
Norman Nodge absolutely smashed it from the moment he began. It was fierce, you got your head into it. Techno can be an incredibly alienating and oppressive form of dance music, but often I found that its beauty lies in taking that overwhelming noise to the point where it entrances and guides you by the gut into a space that is simultaneously a collective experience and a private one. It resonates with you on an emotional level that is unexpected at times. You could be bouncing away to jaunty yet hard-edged German synth-pop one minute, or pounding Undertone’s low, sweat-covered ceiling with clenched fists in the next as the tribal rhythms transform the crowd into a wide-eyed, baying animals.
Nodge’s performance was mind-melting. In the chaos, vicious snares were mutating and converging into walls of sound, ticking away at hyperspeeds, rushing and spitting into ominous, bassy roars, and all of it was swirling around inside a nihilistic, drone-y wholeness before it would disappear and re-emerge as yet another exquisite lick of teasingly flamboyant tech-pop. We were locked into the Techno dynamo; that churning engine which brings out the primal instinct through sheer simplicity of its execution, and it’s uncompromising ferocity.
I think one of the most fantastic things about Norman Nodge’s selections was that he actually managed to successfully blend polar opposites: pop music and drone, all within a Techno framework of course, and all blended as beautifully as a Raspberry pavlova. Germany is the land of Techno, Berghain is it’s castle, Nodge might as well be its king. In all my years in Cardiff, I have never witnessed such a masterful illustration of what it means to be a fine DJ. Shout out to the people at MOOD, its promoters and its residents for putting on such a fantastic night. Keep an eye out for their next one: 17-year old techno prodigy Happa, happening on Sat 5 July in Undertone.
words ROB JUREWICZ