Berlin Stories: Stefan Goldmann on Berlin’s Thriving ’90s Drum & Bass Scene

The first time I got introduced to drum & bass was through TV. There was a Berlin cable station called FAB that used to get the rights to three or four video clips and then play them forever. It was never mainstream stuff. I remember they had Chick Corea Elektric Band. On rotation. At some point they started showing Shy FX’s “Original Nuttah” and a Photek remix of Therapy?, some grunge rock band. I had never heard anything like it – outer space, alien music. It was the first electronic music after Tomita’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” that really struck me.

I eventually found out about a place named WTF, which was one of the first drum & bass clubs in Berlin. It was the first proper club I ever visited. The door opened and the first thing I saw was Shy FX. I was in shock. I didn’t expect to get close to such a TV celebrity. FAB was probably a channel that reached 500 people, but I was starstruck.

The place was packed, and it was at this beautiful moment where people still hadn’t figured out how to dance to drum & bass. Everybody was moving differently. Three years later and everybody was marching in sync. You also still had girls in the club, which later on was … not the case. It was a wonderful introduction to clubbing because it was brand new for everyone. It wasn’t a thing where you were introduced to a scene that is already established and you need to find out the rules.

There were several clubs and parties at that time, all promoting different angles. Some would push a Metalheadz sound, others would be into Bristol stuff, jump up had its fans too. Hard:Edged was one of the major parties at the time. They had a residency at WMF. Toaster was a cellar club in Mitte. I saw Ed Rush play there. I think it was his second gig in Berlin. For the first half hour or so he played what my friend called “optics” – tracks where you’re totally flashed by the sound design. Even today I feel nothing surpassed drum & bass in that domain. I always loved the “intros” to the DJ sets – hardly any DJ started with the tools. The first five records were always meant to set the mood.

It might seem strange that Berlin had a really good drum & bass scene. It didn’t have the same sort of ethnic background as London. Berlin never had a significant black community. Once on a school trip to London, a friend and I sneaked out at night and went to see the Metalheadz session at the Blue Note. There were these black girls in sportswear, dancing incredibly smooth moves to banging breaks. There was a culture this music could build on that was missing in Germany, so the angle over here was different. Many of the DJs who were leading exponents – Bass Dee, Feed, Bleed who is an editor for de:bug – all had a Detroit techno background. They all ran around with UR sweatshirts. Those aesthetics are related I guess: Music that was urban, distorted and worked really well in a dark basement. It fit quite well I think. The same people also used to print fantastically designed fanzines. It’s sad that the scene faded away before it managed to breed any significant producers.

When I started DJing, I started out as a drum & bass DJ. I organized a party with a friend in a basement club called Acud. We earned like 100 bucks on the night so we thought, “Cool, we actually can do parties and survive it!” For the second event, we invited Matrix, who was my favorite producer at the time, and his set exceeded my expectations. My friend Mike, who was a drummer, gave up playing afterward. He was like, “I can’t compete with these beats.” He ended up becoming a programmer at Native Instruments. Some of his bass synth programs became the foundation of a lot of UK bass music. And EDM. But that’s a different story.

Drum & bass had an effect on people who would end up doing something totally different later on. I remember Kristiina Tuomi being obsessed with “Quadrant 6,” a super dark track by Dom & Optical… Unfortunately back in the club with Matrix there were only 100 people. We lost a ton of money – and I gave up on promoting – but it was almost a luxurious private experience to have that set performed just for a couple of friends.