Just back from a trip to Cologne-- pardon the budget cameraphone photo. It was a quick 2 day jaunt to see some friends, buy some presents at the Christmas markets, stockpile the Continental miles, and generally check out a new city. On Friday night, I went to the Total Confusion party put on by Kompakt's Tobias Thomas, and where Michael Mayer and BPitch's Sascha Funke also played for the duration of the night. What stood out to me is the friendly, small-town vibe of the event (Michael Mayer worked the door for a few minutes), and it seemed that everyone knew each other, and were friends/supporters/collaborators. I'd heard that these nights start out with an hour or so of ambient music, and was pleasantly surprised to arrive early to hear Mayer playing just that.

It had to be an hour and a half before the first kick drum, and I found it such a refreshing change to the NYC dynamic, where all too often, DJs have no sense of pace, and you find yourself arriving at a club wanting to relax and catch up with friends to a soundtrack of a DJ playing barnstormers at 130 bpm at 11:45 at night. Needless to say, there was a slow and steady build up that peaked out with Sascha Funke's inspired set at about 5 am. All in all, a really memorable night with a great group of people, and I was back in NYC for a late Sunday brunch.