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\u201cThe idea of the American dream still is so alive,\u201d Nicolas Endlicher tells me, crouching animatedly on a small couch in Bushwick. The Austrian-born, Berlin-based DJ, known to most as MCMLXXXV<\/u><\/a>, speaks about the US in a way I rarely hear. Wide-eyed and dreamy, the co-founder of Herrensauna<\/u><\/a> \u2014 a roving techno party that has come to represent a certain queer futurity to dance music enthusiasts around the world \u2014 is smiling, his blue eyes ablaze with faith. \u201cThe struggle may be very hard, but at the end of the day, everything is possible.\u201d <\/p>\n He\u2019s surrounded by a cozy crew comprised of fellow Herrensauna founder Cem Dukkah (Cem<\/u><\/a>) and DJ residents Mauro Ventura (DJ Saliva<\/u><\/a>) and Salome Gvetadze (Salome<\/u><\/a>). Modelos and cigarettes in hand, the conversation lilts in a familial patter. It\u2019s mere hours before they\u2019re set to perform at Basement, the labyrinthine club in Queens that has come to define New York\u2019s post-pandemic techno boom. Sensing my surprise at his optimism, Endlicher looks at me before diagnosing Herrensauna\u2019s disposition: \u201c[We are] the German dreamers.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n If the description strikes you as potentially oxymoronic, you wouldn\u2019t be alone. The cultural ideal of \u201cBerlin techno\u201d evokes expansive possibilities but also harsh and rigid boundaries which, to the outsider, can read as deadly serious. That Herrensauna exudes something much warmer and more joyous may, ironically, explain how they have come to represent the vanguard of global club culture.<\/p>\n Herrensauna started as the sweaty, chaotic project of Endlicher and Dukkha, who were teenage lovers in Vienna before they both moved to Berlin and became creative partners. \u201cNow, we\u2019re like family,\u201d Dukkha tells me. He balances Endlicher’s giddy buzz with something more coy and tranquil. \u201cIt\u2019s really cute.\u201d <\/p>\n Beginning in the dingy basements of Berlin\u2019s Neuk\u00f6lln neighborhood, the party, and its surrounding artistic offshoots, has grown considerably over the years. They have residencies at New York\u2019s Basement and Berlin\u2019s Tresor and tour the world, working like a magnet for techno enthusiasts from Tbilisi to Medellin. Their record label, which they started during the pandemic, serves as a hub for their expanding sonic explorations. And they have collaborated on clothing projects with brands like Buffalo Source and Carhartt. Though the familial ethos reigns, Herrensauna (the business, the brand, the community) has become something much larger than an intimate project between friends. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Today, Herrensauna is considered emblematic of a harder, faster sound, as well as a DIY ethos and a gender and sexual diversity that serves in stark contrast to the hegemonically gay and male Berlin scene of yesteryear. There\u2019s nothing wrong with any of these pillars, especially the latter, but the Herrensauna crew is too fluid and impatient to find themselves stuck within an easy narrative.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started the label to showcase the different styles coming to our events,\u201d Dukkah reflects. \u201cHerrensauna became this techno monster.\u201d<\/p>\n The residents are a key part of Herrensauna\u2019s aim to expand what \u201cHerrensauna\u201d (the adjective, the idea) may mean. Gvetadze, who originally hails from Georgia, was the first resident to join. Her style veers towards electro, with her own production percolating with skittering synth arpeggios. \u201cIt was the most special thing because I was the first addition,\u201d Gvetadze remembers. \u201cIt was unbelievable.\u201d And Ventura works double-duty as a resident DJ and Herrensauna\u2019s chief visual curator, helping to hone their look, which they define as \u201ctactile, physical,\u201d and in your face \u201clike propaganda.\u201d In addition to Gvetadze and Ventura, Herrensauna\u2019s residents include SPFDJ<\/u><\/a>, Jasss<\/u><\/a> and Brazil\u2019s own Silm Soledad<\/u><\/a>, whose union with the crew was just announced in February.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After Dukkha jokes about the courting process for Herrensauna residents, I express my surprise that anyone would hesitate to join their ranks. Ventura responds: \u201cIt’s also a burden. Once you start playing [Herrensauna], people really expect something. It’s up to you [whether you] deliver that or throw a curveball.\u201d<\/p>\n That service-oriented aspect of DJing can rub against Herrensauna\u2019s free and flowing spirit. Though techno and club culture are often talked about within a lofty, philosophical frame, the blunt fact is there is a lot of money and a lot of bodies in this business. And in Germany, where cultural institutions are state-funded, artistic speech can clash with the government\u2019s continued, full-throated support of Israel and its related campaign of censorship. \u201cThere are a lot of voices speaking out [in solidarity with Palestinans], which is great. But it’s difficult,\u201d Dukkha reflects. \u201cWe live in Germany. If we want to show solidarity [with Palestinans], we still have to work with these spaces.\u201d <\/p>\n In January, the Berlin Senate introduced a law that would require any recipients of public funding to declare themselves opposed to \u201cany form of antisemitism\u201d as defined by the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance), which controversially categorizes a \u201cmanifestation\u201d of antisemitism as the \u201ctargeting of the state of Israel.\u201d Notable DJs and collectives who were vocally opposed to the Israeli government\u2019s policy of bombardment and starvation in Gaza were barred from playing in German state-funded institutions, including some of Berlin\u2019s most respected clubs. The Berlin Senate would go on to drop the policy, but only after pushback from over 5,000 cultural workers in various open<\/u><\/a> letters<\/u><\/a>, including the likes of photographer Wolfgang Tilmans and DJs Arabian Panther, Lydo Li and CCL. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n That environment of censorship and suspicion remains, though, and the public conversation regarding the limits of artistic free speech in Germany has done immense damage to the image of Berlin as a bastion of multiculturalism and liberatory expression. Endlicher, whose mother is Jewish, even found himself moving back towards Vienna after Palestinian solidarity protests were violently beaten down by the police near his home in Berlin. The decision was informed by personal factors as well, but the stifling atmosphere didn\u2019t help. \u201cI was like, Maybe, it\u2019s time to leave<\/em><\/em>,\u201d Endlicher tells me. \u201cGermany changed the narrative, but a certain kind of xenophobic, conservative resentment is still there. It just hides behind a wall of inclusivity, of open-mindedness, of progressiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n And on top of that, there is Berlin\u2019s institutionalized club culture, which brings with it a set of more rigid expectations, stylistic guidelines and, at times, general thoughtlessness. \u201c[In Berlin, where parties] go on and on, you become so jaded,\u201d Dukkah notes. \u201cBerlin facilitates so much consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very spoiled,\u201d Ventura adds. \u201cIt\u2019s the opposite of Tsibili, [Georgia], for example, where people are thankful for every bit.\u201d <\/p>\n <\/p>\n All of this has led Herrensauna\u2019s gaze to wander. Increasingly, they think of New York and the States as fertile ground to grow.<\/p>\n \u201c[New York] is like a seed that is breaking out,,\u201d Endlicher tells me, his eyes widening again. \u201c[Parties here] attract an interesting crowd. You have to have a particular interest in [techno] and make an effort to go. It’s not something that you just take for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s also a stereotypical American gregariousness that informs Endlicher\u2019s faith in the States\u2019 potential. \u201c[In the US], people will randomly have a conversation with you on the subway. In Europe, people would be suspicious,\u201d he shares. \u201cI was the same when I came the first time to the US. I entered a store and they asked me, \u2018Hey, how are you?\u2019 I was like, I know you don’t care.<\/em><\/em> But actually, it’s sensitive. It sets a nice tone.\u201d<\/p>\n That tone, they tell me, extends towards what they describe as New York\u2019s more generally collaborative ethos. \u201cIn Berlin, there’s a big mystification of the art scene,\u201d Ventura notes. \u201cAll the characters and all the workers and all the artists and everything [in New York] seems much more transparent.\u201d <\/p>\n Jaded New Yorker that I am, I had my suspicions that Herrensauna\u2019s glowing review of the States was colored by their already triumphant status in the global scene. The highs here are certainly high, but in a country with a nearly voided social safety net, the lows can be hopelessly, dastardly low.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But the paradoxical promise of Berlin could also spell why America calls. In Germany, clubs have the gift of state funding, but there are strings attached: explicit state censorship. In America, what do we have but the sink-or-swim chaos of gasping meritocracy: the promise, no matter how shaky or disproven, that all you have to do to \u201cmake it\u201d is just keep going? I don\u2019t believe it, nor would most if asked to debate it in a seminar room, but that dreary tenacity seems to jive well with the Herrensauna crew\u2019s big-hearted chutzpah.<\/p>\n Their faith can be intoxicating. I felt it that night at Basement. I\u2019m a frequent patron of the club, and, like many, have experienced the full spectrum of queasy queer experience inside its dim interior. Few nights there, though, have ever zipped with the buzz of Herrensauna\u2019s. The music was vivid and playful, especially in the main room where sets tend to skew harsher and austere. I was knee-deep in the bender when Endlicher (as MCMLXXXV) finished his set with a plot twist: Peaches\u2019 \u201cFuck the Pain Away<\/u><\/a>.\u201d The song ends with Peaches delivering the titular line over and over again, like a mantra, a twin testament to release and the insatiable urge to numb oneself. As her voice droned on, though, I felt something more akin to transcendence. Fuck the pain away.<\/em><\/em> Away. Away.<\/em><\/em> After a solid two hours of techno hypnotics, her simple poetry hit me. Away. Away.<\/em><\/em> Away<\/em><\/em>. The word spun around my mind and I realized I was repeating it as something more akin to \u201cup.\u201d I felt elevated. I felt good. <\/p>\n I moved through that night with a hopeful sway. As the evening churned on and four turned to five turned to six, I found myself settled in the green room. It was my first time in that exclusive cave, and I sat around the couches with the Herrensauna DJs and a trove of notables, including internet pioneer (and PAPER <\/em><\/em><\/u>family<\/u><\/a>) Blizzy McGuire<\/u><\/a> and playwright Jeremy O. Harris<\/u><\/a> I blinked at the scene around me. In that moment, Endlicher\u2019s rumination on America\u2019s possibility and promise felt fleetingly true. But then I blinked again. The conversation moved with zip and my words were turning to mush as the sky hued purple and then blue outside. I couldn\u2019t see it, but the sun had begun to shine. I decided it was my time to leave. I suppose the day had started.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
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