Techno shows can be strange affairs. Over the years, I would go to a few shows here and there, each one pushing me slightly deeper into the genre. But it wasn’t until 2021 when I spent a month in Berlin, Germany with a techno-loving friend that I finally realized this was something I really enjoyed.
And I wasn’t sure why. My prior musical background is highly melodic (classical music and American EDM), which techno isn’t.
In 2022, the same friend and I met up at Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) conference and festival. We saw Belgian DJ Amelie Lens on the final night, and that night it occurred to me that a good techno show can be spiritually satisfying and fulfilling. This particular one was like an ayahuasca ceremony, spiritual cleansing and all.
Bear with me while I dive back into my stream of consciousness that night:
15 minutes into the start of Amelie Lens’ set, I start feeling uneasy. I can’t place my finger on why.
Then, I see a guy smoking a cigarette next to me. That simple action immediately transports me back to the Peruvian Amazon, where ayahuasca shamans chain-smoke sacred mapocho tobacco to ward off bad spirits.
I suddenly feel that Amelie Lens’ set is analogous to an ayahuasca ceremony: a shared group ritual with a nominal leader at the helm, and where the collective’s energy shapes an experience that is unique to this time, place, and all participants’ current emotional state.
The venue’s perfectly round dome reminds me of the circular, sacred Maloka in which we sat for ayahuasca ceremonies.
Everyone is pulsing their bodies synchronously to the dissonant and primal beat. We may not know why, but our animal brains do. Some people are flowing through the crowd restlessly, seeking pockets of better energy. Many are getting sweaty and fanning themselves. For some reason, everyone has the same fan. It feels like they can’t stop fanning, as though controlled by a greater force. The fanning is hypnotic and blends seamlessly into the techno beat and atmosphere. In ayahausca, such repetitive shaking and shivering actions are the body’s natural way to purge toxic energy.
MDMA and LSD, via their empathy-inducing qualities, help bind everyone together at an emotional and spiritual level. Shouldn’t MDMA make us feel happy? And yet, not that many people in the crowd are smiling. But we all feel something together; something collective, something greater. The techno beat continues droning onward, sweeping our bodies along in its relentless march.
Is it no surprise that Berlin, a city that bears so much of the world’s suffering and painful memory, is also its undisputed capital for techno?
We suffer. It doesn’t make sense. And yet, we return.