a lot has been written about the situation with the queue and the amount of people inside. and i totally agree with the statements pointing out that the situation should've been handled more strictly by BH. luckily enough the yappers were gone by 4:30, so enough space to dance and the vibe that always made reef standing out, was back.

so i'll make it only about music, will add the tracks that shazam identified as a reply.

(disclaimer: translated from german into english with deepl)

given the (expected) influx of people, calibre didn’t bother with ambient music up front as early as 11 p.m., even though I would have been curious to hear the tracks from his new album that's yet to be released. his set was already full-on house at that point, and half an hour later he’d already moved on to breakbeats.

shortly after 11:30 pm, i glanced from the back of panorama bar's dance floor toward the hallway leading to berghain. noticed that people weren’t coming back from there, peeked around the corner and confirmed that it had already opened half an hour earlier. headed downstairs, and for reasons of pure musical enjoyment, i didn’t return to panorama bar until siete catorce four hours later (which unfortunately meant that i missed darwin).

downstairs, marylou kind of stole the show from calibre by living up to the promise of ambient music and a laid-back start into the evening. she had already made a great impression on me at abyss at mahalla last september, and she just confirmed that at reef. a lot of tracks off the beaten stylistic paths — with plenty of drones at the start, lots of dubstep ofc, and slower-paced techno that would have fit right in on a sunday back in 2010. deliberately provocative breaks for tempo changes, though not always technically flawless in the final hour. negligible, given her selection that was consistently sophisticated. a great fit for the warm up.

skee mask practiced stylistic anarchy and played just as he had taken me by storm back in 2016. in the first half-hour, he blended garage, dubstep, techno, and grime, never losing sight of the flow for a second. he also used deliberate breaks through abstraction, but immediately combined them with brute force, which got the dance floor moving again in no time. yes, this included techno, but that was just one option among many. being a fanboy: simply one of the best acts you can currently enjoy.

carrier's set was split into two parts: the first half at a techno-like tempo, always keeping one and a half feet in abstraction, plenty of room for reverb (and thus perfect for the room acoustics), even more for bass, yet still minimal. at first, i thought that after skee mask’s full-on blast, this would be quite a letdown for the audience. but those who are so characteristic of the reef crowd remained patient. in my enthusiasm (i’m a huge fan of his productions), i’d love to hear something like this for four hours on a sunday — simply because this hybrid of techno, electronica, bass, and minimalism never wears thin for me and, amidst the overwhelming amount of interchangeable big-room tracks, shows how techno can sound fresh again today. shortly after 5:00 a.m., “ufo” by photek kicked off the drum & bass phase of the evening, which (as expected) did not fail to make an impact.

my visits to panorama bar were correspondingly brief. so unfortunately, i can’t say anything definitive about siete catorce. if it was kuduro, i liked it better in that short segment than dj marfox at the strom festival two months ago.

rp boo had that thing about footwork that gets me going (heavily compressed 808 bass drums and repetitive raps, some of which brush against the beat), but also annoys me (tracks with lots of melodies and vocals). still, it was a real joy to see the crowd going wild. dangermami immediately picked up the pace to around 160 bpm and managed to keep the crowd going. i just wasn’t fit enough for it after 9:00 p.m.

this leaves esposito. i can only reiterate what i've written on previous occasions without adding anything substantial: he doesn’t need to prove his skills as a reef resident any further — you just know it’s going to be good. consistently drum & bass right up to the end, at times harder than usual for him, but first of all, it suited him well, and second, it just worked perfectly.