64.
ARTWORK: Rose Dixon-Campbell & Ned Atkinson
Deep Techno and the Vocoder Oksana Kauhanen CW: Mentions of drug use and psychedelic experiences. I was trotting along an empty street in this eerily quiet industrial suburb. Empty warehouses with small windows loomed on both sides of me. The sky was a hollow blue, completely void of stars but the moon shone with a blinding, burning brightness. The lack of streetlights in this part of town wasn’t so much of a problem under the moonshine. The doof had officially started two hours ago. The wind was unusually still for this time of year, and the temperature couldn’t have been above 4 degrees. My pores had opened up and I was starting to sweat. The 2CB was taking hold. I turned down the last dilapidated street on my journey and was met with lights from huge iridescent lasers and searching hollow signals. How did I only just notice them? Whatever, my mind felt like it was playing tricks on me. I walked into the cavernous warehouse, the rhythmic bass guiding me through like sonar. Around me the faces of people (were they people?) blurred into almostunrecognizable forms, seemingly melting into hectic caricatures whenever I tried to focus. A bit scat, but no matter. We soldier on. I heard someone call out my name and turned around to see my friends and a group of others standing together. The guy standing next to Kate had an oddly bulbous head - everyone looks a bit weird at doofs so I thought nothing of it. I took a hit out of the bulbous-head guy’s nebuliser and stumbled backwards at the effect. DJ Multi-Limbs was just coming on to start his set. Perfect timing. We moved through the masses of bug-eyed people who seemed to stare right through us as
we made our way to the front. Words seemed to disconnect from the bodies of people who spoke them. The warehouse set-up was unlike anything I’ve seen before. The room seemed to pulse, enlarging and contracting like a massive balloon. Was it just me? There were massive planetarylike orbs of light hovering above the decks. I swear they were moving. They seemed to search through the crowd. These hypnotic hallucinations filled my brain. I’d been to doofs before, but everything seemed to feel so cosmic here. The crowd was moving awkwardly, yet morbidly in sync, all vibing but not quite to the pulse of the music. They moved like shitty versions of the JabbaWockeez. The low rumble of the soothing bass carried my body in time. I felt each beat move from my fingertips into my chest, vivid yet soft. Primal almost. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the red and blue light on my skin, seeping in through my pores and filling my veins with intoxicating euphoria. The force of hundreds of Doc Marten boots, Salomon trail runners, funky Nike kicks and some guy in a disturbingly convincing E.T. costume could be felt reverberating through the floor. The orbs of lights started to soar and swoop in time with the heavenly synths the DJ mixed flawlessly. The concept of chronology had moved beyond my comprehension, and my body was begging for fluids. I approached the makeshift bar setup and asked for a drink. This bug-eyed lanky man with speed dealers on handed me a little plastic cup. I thanked him with a smile. The first sip was refreshing: the beverage was room temperature, but the act of sipping, gulping and swallowing was cathartic nonetheless. Upon my second sip I realised something was wrong with the tepid liquid. As the lights around me flashed in a chaotic strobe frenzy I saw the ‘water’ wasn’t quite clean… “Where did you get this water from?”
