A late night show with no cue awaited. People were waiting carrying beers in their bellies behind a couple of boyfriends and girlfriends.
ZZK Records blowing buenos aires right at the beginning of Spring in Berlin is no coincidence. It’s Pachamama visiting. Her Word was delivered through the night by five interpreters: Dj Obstsalat, Bakläxa, Dat Garcia, King Coya & Queen Cholas and Montoya.
DJ Obstsalat started the night: Cumbia was the mother language used through the verses of her set, with a background of electronic beat sounds to reinforce the translation of the interpreter. The dancing was slow – but in the long run, you have to take it easy at the beginning to get ’til the end. DJ Obstsalat back there was just delivering the introduction knowing of what was to become. Bakläxa didn’t deliver The Word as Andean nor hand drummed as DJ Obstsalat, but instead with the subdivision of the latin traditional music in electro sound.
The night got darker, the dancing faster and then came Dat Garcia.
The first live act after the two first DJs had stunning visuals, with the Cumbia mixed with hip hop beats made by drum machine sound accompanying her message. She was an expressive-less interpreter, the lack of energy on her speech competed against the so-well-produced sounds mixed with folkloric knowledge. She wasn’t bumping to her own deep beats, what could the crowd do? Just sway.
King Coya & Queen Cholas started the last ascension to the core of the goddess message. Her Word arrived through four on-stage priests delivering by dancing and live singing, pad hitting and choreographies to a diversion of genres, different languages were spoken but the accent remained the same. The intention of the Ritual kept alive by King Cota & Queen Cholas remained up with flowy electronic kick bass and Andean flutes drawing mountains on the crowd’s mind.
The synthesis mixed with instruments made of beans and sticks and the dancing turned joyfully weird. Traditional folkloric dances from South America were brought to the dance floor by Queen Cholas, the crowd was experiencing an event that happens just on Equinox days in forgotten mountains of mysterious realms that are destined not to be remembered.
A white round blanket was grabbed by the ends, lifted up and down going by the rhythm set by King Coya on stage, people going under it and stoping. Queen Cholas showed us the way and then we all got involved. When the blanket got down with one person under it a silouhette of a screaming soul appeared and then back again just a dancer under a blanket.
A long wooden stick with many strings attached at one of the ends, a person carrying this stick on the stringless end inviting people to grab on string and dance around the main pole. Circular rituals, pagans around a fire idolizing earth, rocks, snares, claps, bells and hi-hats.
Montoya kept the party going from 4 AM until the end. Giving the sound a more club approach, he made the survivors bang their heads: the initiated remained in a lonely but powerful dance floor with beats coming from many EDM genres.
By the end of King Coya & Queen Cholas, the dance floor and the crowd had experienced a spiritual ritual, the more you were involved in it the more you were affected, the venue was hot, and we weren’t too many, just enough.
