DVS1 Wall of Sound dominates Los Angeles

DVS1 Expanded my rave Overton window

Zak Khutoretsky, more commonly known as DVS1, played techno of the purest and hardest variety from 3am until 7.35am on Saturday morning, January 25, 2025, subjugating and crushing dancers between his decks of steel and his throbbing wall of sound. I've danced for seven hours without stopping (Despacio Miami). I've danced for 10.25 hours with a few water breaks (Stereo Montreal). But DVS1’s 4.5-hour set felt like the BDSM of dance music -- I was bound, slapped, punched, kicked, and assualted (with my permission). At multiple points in the night, I almost said my safe word, but I stuck it out, and though I suffered soreness for days, I think I might want to go back for more.

Wall of Sound: concept, hype, and promise

Photo credit: Chris Molina @auburn_sky

Explaining the Wall of Sound Concept (pictured above in the warehouse where we attended our event), Khutoretsky has said, "The sound system should be as big as any of the DJs on the flyer. In its own right, it should be a headliner. It should be. And if you can promote it to that level and then deliver it to that level, it becomes important. It becomes an aesthetic that people have to care about."

On font size alone, the flyer for the event (pictured below) billed the massive speaker system above the two DJs who played on it.

Named after the famous soundsystem the Grateful Dead debuted in 1974, the DVS1 "Wall of Sound" we heard in Los Angeles consisted of:

Main system:

• 8x L-Acoustics K1

• 30x L-Acoustics KS28

• 4x L-Acoustics A15 Focus

• 18x L-Acoustics LA12x amplifiers

Front-of-house control:

• Digico SD12

• L-Acoustics P1

Booth:

• 4x L-Acoustics A15 Wide

• 4x L-Acoustics KS21

• 1x LA12x

DJ:

• Traxx: Pioneer A9 & 4x CDJ 2000 nexus2

• DVS1: Allen & Heath Xone:96 & 4x Pioneer CDJ-3000

I don't speak professional audio, but I do speak dance, and I can and will talk (later) about how this system felt in my body. The Wall of Sound events aren't just about the hardware -- they're about a holistic approach to to an experience that's rare and admirable in the current moment of hyper-commercialized dance music experiences.

In "DJ'ing as an artform," a video class on seedj, Khutoretsky said, "Magic happens when the bartenders are amazing, the door people are amazing, the lights are perfect, the smoke machine is full, the sound is just right, and everything just happens to work. And it all comes together to create this magic. You're all in the same room listening to the same heartbeat in the same place at the same time and respecting each other's space to have that experience. And I just think that's such a beautiful thing that I hope that a new generation can experience that."

The sold-out event was the place to be in Los Angeles on Friday night. Posts on multiple subreddits and Discord servers had ratcheted up the excitement and expectations were high, especially given very positive word-of-mouth reports from the prior Wall of Sound event in May of last year in Detroit.

The calm before the storm. Photo credit: Chris Molina @auburn_sky

A number of attendees, self included, had attended one or both of the Jamie xx shows at the Shrine earlier that day. We left the Shrine a bit after 11pm, grabbed a late dinner of ramen, and then drove to the secret event location in downtown Los Angeles. More sane attendees probably took a proper disco nap prior to the event. We would come to regret not napping.

Strobert will in the darkness bind them

Andy Fitton (sound engineering, left) and Strobert (lighting, right). Photo credit: Marco Sgalbazzini

The Wall of Sound (WoS) events are kept dark, on purpose, to provide dancers with the freedom to lose themselves in dance and to provide a blanket of anonymity and safety over the crowd.

On the way into the event, guests were asked to sign a sheet of paper acknowledging that they had read and understood the rules, and that they would not use their cameras for the duration of the event. The effect was theatrical rather than legal — the signatures weren’t accompanied by our full written names, so proving that someone had signed (or not signed) the book would have been impossible. That said, the theater was appreciated because it was unique, and it told attendees that the organizers were taking this seriously. Cameras were stickered, and signage reminding people to “enjoy the moment” was taped to every porta potty door, entryway surface, and wall of the space.

Everyone who entered signed this book as a promise to keep to the rules of the event … photo credit @magicaldancefloors

Lighting for the event was handled by Strobert, an Amsterdam-based lighting designer known for minimalistic lighting combined with intense strobe effects (this is why his nom de guerre combines his signature effect and his first name).

In an interview for another event, Strobert described his approach: "During club nights, I’m actually completely led by the music. I get a certain emotion from the music and I try to express that as much as I can. For me, that is what it means to operate a light show."

Here's a two-hour recording in which Strobert's signature style can be seen accompanying a Mulero set at Reaktor 2019. Because there will be few, if any videos from the event, this is as close as you'll get to being able to see what it looked like inside the DVS1 Wall of Sound event in Los Angeles.

The darkness of the room was made more intense by abundant fog and cigarette smoke in the air. The constant haze in the room gave the beams that shot out of moving heads an intense Tyndall effect. The rays of light looked like proton lasers from a sci-fi film, or like fat jets of magma spurting from volcanic ducts in the dark.

Throughout the night, Strobert used different parts of the lighting kit in new combinations, creating novel shapes in the air. Even at 6:30am, when the event was nearly over, he was still pulling out new combinations to cast new spells on the dancers.

Photo credit: Chris Molina @auburn_sky

The lighting left much to the imagination -- people in the space were only briefly illuminated, and one could typically only see the outlines of people. We rarely saw anyone's face unless we were almost on top of them. In the pulsating strobes, we saw silhouetted, contorted bodies, we saw arms slashing shapes through the air, we saw heads thrown back and thrown forward, we saw shirtless men, we saw couples locked together at the hips.

Photo credit: Chris Molina @auburn_sky

I wore sunglasses, essential armor against the occasional searing flashes of light that strobed against my dilated pupils with intensity that bordered on painful or disorienting. That may sound like a complaint -- it's not. I loved the lighting and believe this part of the experience was essentially perfect.

Of course real ravers don't come to raves for the lighting — though it certainly contributes massively to the overall feeling of a night. Lasers and pyrotechnics and Star Wars-style light shows are seen by those in the know as the crass excess of commercial EDM concerts in which entertainers stand on a stage, hit play on a pre-recorded set, and stand in Christ poses and/or throw cakes at their adoring masses. The Wall of Sound events are built as antithesis to commercial EDM events. At WoS, music comes first, lights second.

Photo credit: Chris Molina @auburn_sky

Bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism

I needed the days after this event to process the experience of DVS1 Wall of Sound because it challenged me in a way that no other dance music experience has ever challenged me.

The day after the event, I woke up sore. My calves ached such that getting out of bed required a handhold, my quads and glutes felt like they'd been put through a marathon of lunges, and a cough I'd just about kicked returned with a vengeance. I only danced for a little over six hours (~1:15am to 7:35am), but in comparison to my most recent dance music event at Stereo Montreal, where I danced for 10.25 hours, I felt far worse for wear.

The hard concrete floor of the warehouse wasn't easy on our bodies, compared to the cushy sprung wooden floor of Stereo. Dancing on concrete punishes the knees, ankles, legs, and back. Again, not a complaint because I'm not expecting underground raves to put in sprung dancefloors. It's just an interesting difference in how it feels to dance on a soft floor vs. a hard floor. I didn't expect such a marked contrast.

My lungs didn't love the air of the warehouse either. The room's atmospheric haze felt post-apocalyptic and dystopian, setting up some gorgeous lighting effects in the same way that LA fire season yields gorgeous sunsets. Lots of folks smoked inside the room -- not just weed, which is typical, but even *gasp* cigarettes. The result was air loaded with evaporated sweat, smoke, and theatrical fog. Again, par for the course with a warehouse, but it's a detail that explains the day-after feeling that my lungs were full of steel wool.

I'm beating around the bush -- the punishing floor, the difficult air, these are but mere trifles compared to the challenge of the music.

I'll focus here on DVS1’s set for the reason that Traxx's set was somewhat marred by equipment difficulty (the Numark mixer that had passed soundcheck had to be swapped out for a Pioneer A9 that didn't sound pretty when redlined as Traxx is wont to do). I don't think it would be fair to review the soundsystem based on the 1.5 hours we experienced of Traxx's set, but there's this thread on Reddit about it that's interesting to dive into.

The person who kicked off the thread, Redditor Noobpwnr wrote, "When we got in, all we could hear was bass. Larynx-vibrating bass. And none of the highs or mids. Literally couldn't hear the song itself. And regardless of where we moved on the dance floor. It was so unexpected that we had to step off the dance floor and wonder if we made a mistake by coming."

Once DVS1 took over, a new mixer (an Xone:96) was swapped in and the system immediately sounded better. It's likely also the case that DVS1 knows how to get the best performance out of the system that he and Andy Fitton (of Fitton Audio) had put together for the event.

But still, it wasn't easy on us as attendees and dancers. Big picture -- the way the commercial machine works, we're taught to consume "songs" or "tracks." We go to a search box on Spotify or Apple Music or YouTube and we type a song name and an artist, and we get a result -- typically a three- to 10-minute song with an intro, verse, chorus, bridge, and outro. The commercial machine then increments the counter for the number of times the song has been played so that the artist can be paid between $0.003 (Spotify) and $0.01 (Apple).

The music played at DVS1 Wall of Sound had none of that structure. There were no recognizable songs, there was just a river of techno sounds. There were no intros or outros. There were no verses, choruses, bridges or breaks. There was just one pure, driving beat after another. Loops were layered on loops. There were no handholds -- we were cast loose and had nothing to hold onto except the ephemeral and temporary music that washed through the room and massaged our insides.

I loved the bass -- it felt great to me. Except for one break in the middle of the night, I stayed in the room the entire time, but one Redditor noted that the bass was too much for him, and that he saw "some people sitting down, standing up against the wall, or puking in the trash can cuz it was too much."

My girlfriend needed to quickly find a new spot in the room at one point because the bass made her feel nauseous, and I find myself regretting as I write this that I didn't just tell her to go and that I'd catch up with her, because I loved the spot we'd found ourselves in when DVS1 played some otherworldly bass frequencies that felt almost like a technical demo of the power of the system. The pulsing air felt very good -- it slapped my skin, massaged my guts, and vibrated the fabric of my shirt against my nipples. I loved the bass and found the most intense moments of the night to be exactly my jam.

This wasn't like a normal DJ set where even with continuous mixing there's a clear sense of moving from one song to another song, creating a sense of journey and progression. For those of us in thrall to the DJ, time often felt like it stood still. The real journey seemed to take place within our heads and bodies.

I've learned a tiny bit about DJ'ing -- having taken some lessons and practiced enough to have DJ'd a budget wedding and a couple of corporate events, so I thought I'd try to figure out what I was hearing by listening closely to the mix.

I noticed that DVS1 interwove highs, mids, and bass in a way that broke the typical rules of mixing as one would commonly hear it done in a traditional DJ set, where phrases predictably change every 16, 32, or 64 beats. That's not how he mixed.

I felt uncoordinated and out of sorts, so I decided to spend a couple hours just counting in my head and dancing with my body to get a feel for how long he held onto sounds. Just trying to count beats and feel the shape of phrases revealed some interesting traits of his mixing style. Many times a specific pattern of sounds would only be present for eight beats, would disappear for eight beats, then show up again for 16 beats. He sometimes ducked a high-mid on the 3s and 4s before bringing it back in for the 1s and 2s, something that the Xone:96 mixer he was using allowed him to do. Sometimes, he cut every other bar of a phrase.

If DVS1 were a boxer, he'd be the sort who jabs, feints, ducks, bobs and weaves, shifts and shuffles his feet to keep his opponent off balance. His agility and speed combined with the power and weight of the soundsystem created in me an undeniable sensation of being completely outclassed and outmatched.

the frequency controls of the Allen & Heath Xone:96 that DVS1 uses

Counting helped me figure out why I felt so lost, but it didn't make the change-ups any easier to predict. I grew a little frustrated. I felt that I had a choice: give up and go home, give in to the DJ, or beat my head against the music trying to crack the seemingly uncrackable code.

I struggled with this for the better part of the first half of his set. I wasn't going to go home, but I also didn't see myself being able to figure out his mad genius style of mixing. I decided that I would have to surrender and submit myself to his total power. He had won. My mind shut down and I entered a more instinctual flow -- I just reacted and moved. I felt a sense of being mastered or dominated by someone with total power over me through the medium of sound. This was unsettling for someone who likes to be in control; I felt like I was being dominated on the dancefloor. His mixing defied prediction and demanded total obedience. There was no other way to survive. I didn’t have the energy to fight him.

Bondage next. DVS1’s strung-together beats controlled my body as surely as if he'd looped rope around my wrists and ankles. Like a domineering puppeteer, he yanked his strings and my body responded. Cracks appeared in my dancer ego, then it crumbled as he forced me to comprehend that I would never competently dance to his mixing. He was the puppetmaster, I the gangly, knock-kneed puppet. By the midpoint of his set, I felt broken down into my component parts -- a leg, another leg, an arm, another arm, a head on a neck, shoulders, torso.

I stopped trying to make sense with my dancing, and instead moved nihilistically, anarchically. I simply reacted without trying to predict where the music might go or how long the current phrase might continue. I was fully present, with no sense of the past and no hope for the future. As dancers we hold onto the last 30-60 seconds of music because it helps us add coherence to our flow, but DVS1 rendered my short term memory function useless. My dancing isn't graceful at the best of times and if there had been enough light to illuminate me, someone might have called the medics to help the man having a seizure.

With most music, you can sense a build-up before a drop. In "big room" EDM, the repetitive buildup-drop pattern has become a parody of itself, as cheap and tawdry as 30-second porn gifs that start with a clothed man delivering a pizza pie with ranch sauce and end with a naked man delivering a different sauce to a different pie. None of that cheap nonsense happened in this set.

In most dance music, you know immediately when a break has started and how you might go wild, get down, or get funky for 8 or 16 bars before returning to the more sustainable pattern you were in before the break. But this music felt like the free solo version of dancing -- with no safety ropes, carabiners, or harness. It was both humbling and freeing -- I have never moved like that.

Yours truly at Wall of Sound. Photo credit: Chris Molina @auburn_sky

Is DVS1 a sadist who gets pleasure out of others’ pain? I don't know. Probably not? He seems nice in his media interviews. But the way he relates to his dancefloor, I felt simultaneously dominated, subjugated, humiliated, and -- strangely -- appreciated, respected, and supported. I felt the strong hand of the artist in every nook of the dance floor. I have never been so thoroughly defeated or wrung out by any other dance experience. Though DVS1 has nothing to prove, I wonder whether Mr. Minneapolis OG Raver Man had come to teach a city known for its psychopaths and power pathologies a thing or two about the use and abuse of power.

In an interview, he said, "I want somebody to come here and understand why this was better or different than the other experience they have next weekend or the weekend before. I want them to demand, in their future, something better for themselves because of -- maybe -- this experience. Like, "wow, this was... I totally heard music differently."

Fucking A, DVS1, you nailed it. You nailed me. Am I pregnant now?

Liberation through labor

Work merch at the booth … photo credit @magicaldancefloors

One memorable moment, among many: After an hour with no human voice in the music, a human voice suddenly broke through the thunderstorm of beats. This felt like a shocking transgression. The voice was human -- a woman's -- but it was not warm. She said, simply and mechanically, without any kindness, "work."

Over and over, "work."

Her voice was accompanied by a stomping base sound that had a wooden timbre to it -- not warm like a dinner table, but cold and hollow like banging on a coffin with your fists. I imagined her as a harsh boss in a minimalist frock -- a techno frau -- standing over me with a riding crop as I sat at my desk and wrangled paperwork.

This was around the time that I realized that I was going to need to commit to the work I had come here for if I were going to survive the ordeal. And so I went to work.

My dancing fell into a work-like pattern. I took on the role of low-level paper pusher, chained to a desk. I assumed an obedient posture. On the first beat, I took a piece of paper from the large stack of work on my left. On the second beat, I stamped the paper and my desk-coffin resonated with wooden hollowness. On the third beat, I put my stamp on the inkpad. On the fourth beat, I slammed the completed paper onto the done pile. I worked in this manner for four minutes, ten minutes, or twenty minutes. I don't know. I was free from watching the clock -- I had been liberated.

Work is also, of course, the collaborative entity that put on this fantastic event. After the show, I chatted with Marco Sgalbazzini, 6am event director about the event and learned a few interesting facts:

• Work is the warehouse event series put on by 6AM + Synthetik Minds, two independent promoters.

• This event sold out its 1,200-person capacity.

• Lighting came to 40% of the production budget.

• The team landed international talent DVS1 and Wall of Sound because they'd previously booked DVS1 for solo performances in LA as well as Detroit during Movement weekend, establishing trust and rapport.

The team did a fantastic job -- security for the venue was handled well, and all attendees received clear messaging in pre-event communications and onsite communications about the expectations for the event. Though I initially felt that the $20 I paid for four bottles of water on entry was steep, I don't feel that organizers were overly focused on monetization -- I ended up receiving more than six free bottles of water from vibe hosts who walked the dancefloor distributing water to anyone that needed it. I felt cared for, safe, and grateful for the quality of organization. This team is a model for underground Los Angeles events, and I cannot complain about the policies, regulations, or operations surrounding this event.

There were some really nice touches. The team created these fantastic Pokemon-style collectible cards that some lucky attendees were able to score, and the design and thought that went into these speaks to the passion that the team brought to the event. You don't get cool shit like this unless the team is turned on and personally invested in throwing an awesome party.

Additional thoughtful touches included a vending machine with poppers ($38), condoms, chapstick, gum, almonds, vapes, and sexy packs of cards (see below for a groundscore). The team printed up 150 of the “Wall of Sound” promotional posters signed by Khutoretsky. Events of this caliber are hard to sustain, so it’s a good thing that the organizers have their ancillary revenue streams figured out.

vending machine … photo credit: McKenzie D

It wasn’t all about the money, either. In addition to the substantive entry security process, a harm reduction table with Naloxone, fentanyl test strips, and the like was positioned near the merchandise table. I also saw quick action from the team when one man -- apparently too intoxicated -- was carried out for medical assistance by the team of safety chaperones. Vibe hosts with yellow lanyards constantly circulated through the party to ensure that everyone was ok and that nobody needed help or assistance.

Ground score: sexy cards that apparently came from a vending machine. photo credit: @magicaldancefloors

The portapotty situation was a little challenging. Water at the hand-wash stations had run out by the end of the night. And I had to stifle a gag reflex on entering one portapotty because, judging from the scene I encountered, the bass from the Wall of Sound certainly helped a number of partygoers exorcise their bowel-demons there. The portapotties weren't disgusting, but this level of bass makes people lose their shit. Literally.

I didn't encounter a table distributing free ear protection though there might have been one. I encountered a friend who I know uses 1of1customs (excellent ear protection) with the pro17 filter (roughly 17dB NRR) and when I came up on him, he was dancing with his hands over his ears because the pro17 filters were not nearly enough. I also use 1of1customs but had my pro27 filters in and they were just enough for the exposure levels, which my Apple Watch and iPhone measured at 99dB sustained exposure through the night.

What the people said

Here are some quotes I collected in a post-event survey I sent out, as well as quotes gathered from Discord and Reddit threads. I'm including these voices to better capture the range of experiences that folks had throughout the night.

"6AM/WORK brings the same level of quality to all their shows in terms of security, amenities, merch booth, bar, culture, and community. It's the reason why a lot of us here in the discord community have been die hard 6AM fans for years. There are a few other pinnacle shows like WoS that stand out each year like RE/FORM festival, Observe, and Ben Klock's Photon." -- Orrus

"Fully recovered from last night and holy shit that bass was making my cheeks clap all night🍑." -- Gi_go

"never experienced something like that. It was almost like a Theragun to the face" -- prettyprettyprettygood

"Aggressive and assaulting, in the best way" -- Slime41

"At first I thought the subs were too much. But I began to understand the subs as part of the experience. It helped people become more engrossed in the music and while maybe not audiophile quality, it was a unique experience." -- Matt

"Other than my personal pain (back pain), the entire experience is amazing. Thisnis my 4th time seeing DVS1 and it has never disappointed. The vibe hosts are always a big plus for me and the crowd, although mixed, was relatively good." -- Victor

"Try to last as long as you can cause there will be a moment where you may want to leave but try to push pass that barrier if you can" -- YoBebop

"Sometimes the bass was too much to handle physically. Rattled my ears and it was hard to swallow. But that was still kind of enjoyable just because it was unique. I never felt like I couldn’t escape it. The lighting at times was a lot too. Very disorienting. But I would just close my eyes. Even though those were challenging moments it didn’t take away from the experience being amazing. Sounded great just about everywhere. Crispest sound I’ve ever heard in my life." -- anon

"The vibrations were almost too intense at times but I fucking loved it. I felt like my cells were dancing. I took a few breaks outside. It kinda looked like a sacrificial ritual with the lighting set up and all too. It was an all around epic night with great people and will go down as one of my favorite nights of partying to date." -- McKenzie Dalthorp

"need to shout out the lighting. It was minimal, but soo effective. The moments of the strobing combined with the music were absolutely overwhelming and all I could do was hang on for the ride, but holyyy geez the reward on the other side was indescribable. What else is there to say about getting transported through a wormhole 🤷 and then there were the moments of absolute darkness where i felt completely alone. The lighting really added to the emotions and headspaces I experienced. this was a CHALLENGING experience. The sound demanded my attention and resistance was futile. The last hour was a matter of survival for me lol." -- KJiam

"The WoS was my single best experience of my life. It's not a concert or a show, for me (and those who withstood it) it was literally a religious activity. And I was genuinely amazed at how many people managed to take the heat till the very end.I had tears falling from my eyes as I went up to Zak after to thank him and everyone for this life changing night." -- Snake2k

"I was expecting more of a "take me on a journey" type set and instead was taken out back and brutally assaulted with pummeling bass. Still had fun, just completely different that what I was expecting." -- 4gent0r4ng3

"Am I the only one who thought there was also too much bass during DVS1s set? I feel like it wasn’t as consequential as during Traxx’s set, for whatever reasons, but I kept trying to find spots in the room that didn’t make my skull vibrate and was struggling." -- hearechoes

"I'm a well seasoned raver and that put any Berghain marathon to shame in terms of sonic intensity. The experience could have benefited from some refuge space, the outside wasnt really setup for the recovery needed to handle the onslaught. A big MDMA hit was definitely at odds with the intensity, and the crowd vibe was much more singular mindset vs collective. the space was set in a interesting spot, it was surprisingly cavernous given the unassuming entrance and ideal location for sound bleed. Limits were explored and pushed beyond. amazing experience, but definitely in no rush to submit my body to that again any time soon. Grateful to have the experience." -- blackdangler

“Insanely intense. You’re literally like trapped on the floor by the music. You try to leave the floor since you’re inside a cigarette from everyone smoking, go back, and the music is still so loud that you’re still drawn in. It gets cooler and colder in the back so you recover and then go back in. But you physically feel like you’re being battered for hours.” — SirNarwhal

”I’m an LA-based producer and I’ve been at it for 4ish years and I’m now getting in with the WORK community. I’ve finished just over 20 tracks and was preparing to start shopping some around to different labels… then I went to wall of sound. That experience flipped what I find to be important completely on its head. The songs I’ve made all follow a structure that make them ‘listenable’ in a non concert setting (intro, beginning, breakdown, drop).

I now don’t identify with anything I’ve made because that night taught me it’s all about the loop, its evolution, and the groove. I too found it hard to follow the mixing styles of the DJs but I was transported to another world and totally lost in the music. I experienced techno in its purest form.

I’m now a bit lost but also have the most clarity I’ve ever had when it comes to making music. This show literally changed my life and I am now just completely turned off by new age techno, and also inspired to create my own version of what I heard that night.” — anon

What DVS1 said

The bottom line

Ultimately, I found this an enlightening, unforgettable night, but not an easy one. I had ventured into the wilderness to explore one of the extremes of techno and come away stronger for it. It did not kill me, therefore it made me stronger. Work had set me free.

As you'll see in the scorecard below, I would count DVS1 Wall of Sound as a magical dancefloor. But I think, despite all of his intentionality and design sense, DVS1 got one important thing wrong.

DVS1’s dominance and strong hand make him unforgettable. At almost every moment, it's clear you're on his turf. The Wall of Sound is equally imposing -- massive, loud, egregiously bassy. It dominates the room.

So there are two headliners: the DJ and the soundsystem. And neither of them let us forget that, even for a minute. Throughout the night, most attendees naturally faced the system (the DJ booth was, as per the vision, tucked off into the front-left corner of the room where few could see it). In the room, it was easy to tell where the sound was coming from because the air pushed from that direction. And as the night wore on and a few die-hards remained in the final minutes before the set wrapped up just past 7:30am, almost everyone found themselves facing DVS1. This is all by design.

The downside of this design is that there was never much of a communal dancefloor where dancers were able to -- even for a moment -- convince themselves that they were the headliners. The darkness kept most folks from seeing each other or relating to each other. That's a stark contrast to some dancefloors that are dark but punctuated occasionally with brightness -- the bright moments allow people to see each other. It's like the moment in certain Christian traditions where everyone in the pews who had been facing the preacher or pastor is encouraged to turn toward each other and shake hands. These moments of “I see you and you see me” are also where magic happens on a dancefloor -- and this piece of magic did not happen because neither light nor sound nor selection made room for it.

My favorite dancefloor -- Despacio -- is typically so dark that people have fucked on it. But crucially it also has moments of supernova brightness where people are revealed to each other. What's more, Despacio's dancefloor is surrounded by a circle of seven speaker stacks so sound is never coming from one direction -- so when the lights do come on, everyone is naturally facing every which way and there's a collective feeling of everyone seeing and meeting everyone else at the same time. At the end of the night, people are facing each other and hugging one another because they have been brought together by the format. Here’s an image from one such moment at Despacio — the combination of strobes and disco supernova have some people seeing each other for the first time after perhaps 30 or 45 minutes in darkness, and this is like the effect of playing peek-a-boo with a child. It’s delightful to see faces that had been hidden.

In contrast, At DVS1 Wall of Sound, one enters anonymously and one leaves anonymously. To the extent that connections were made between people, they tended to happen off of the dancefloor out near the portapotties. The DJ’s power over us was so complete that we remained his thralls or subjects through the night, never reassembling our egos in a way that would have allowed us to build relationships with each other, never mind ascending to the role of co-creator of the dancefloor.

I agree with Khutoretsky that the soundsystem should be a co-star of the event. Of course the DJ is the one we typically think of as the star of the event. But on magical dancefloors, the dancers are co-stars of the event, and the best stories of the night are typically the ones that happen on the dancefloor between dancers.

I think his vision and execution are aligned. This is the thing he wanted to create. And I appreciate and value that. But when I think about dancefloor magic, I tend to value designs that elevate dancers to peer status with the DJ and soundsystem, and this concept deliberately does not do that. That doesn't make it bad, it just results in a much more introverted, isolated experience than I personally tend to seek out.

Bottom line: this is a magical dancefloor full of surprises and challenges. I grew as a person from my time in this sacred space.

The scorecard