CLUB OCTAGON, SEOUL, KOREA
art Funktion One speakers and backed by a never- ceasing swirl of visuals on a giant LED screen, typically pumps out the sound of seismic basslines, builds and drops. Kindergarten, to his credit, commands the full dancefloor, containing much of the club’s 2000 capacity with a driving set of tough tech-house grooves, Lookback’s remix of Mighty Dub Katz’s ‘Just Another Groove’ a rare electro peak. For our own part, we spend two hours mixing up electro, techno and tech-house, Popof, Format:B, Green Velvet and Drums Of Death holding their own alongside Martin Solveig, Congorock’s scalding remix of Swedish House Mafia’s irrepressibly popular ‘One’ and Robbie Rivera’s pitch-bending ‘Moocher’. With hundreds of glow-sticks illuminating the seething mass in front of us, it spells out exactly why, despite only celebrating its first birthday in November of 2012, Club Octagon entered last year’s Top 100 Clubs poll in 97th position. Following on, another resident — G-Tech — takes the sound even bigger with giant electro riffs pumping into the green room, which has its own volume control. After choosing to spin some house sounds of our own backstage, Minhoo suggests that we head to play the upstairs lounge, a circular room with octagonal lights that holds just a hundred people or so. While much cosier and more intimate, this space is significant in allowing Octagon’s resident DJs, handpicked as the next
generation of Korean talent, to explore less commercial sounds and introduce the dancefloor to less obvious strains of electronic music. It’s slowly starting to change tastes, explains Minhoo, though this is a drawn out process made harder by the fact that some people who come to the club only do so because it is currently cool, rather than because they have an actual taste for dance beats.
Returning the next night ourselves to play a two- hour set, another resident, DJ Roxy, is throwing down a selection of lush deepness, bringing a light feminine touch to balance the speaker-wrecking energy coming from next door. Indeed, we’re able to build our time slot, starting slow and progressing to Eats Everything’s remix of Chicken Lips classic ‘He Not In’, then the bassline surge of Jay Lumen’s ‘Get Ready’, dropping the mood again to close with David August’s wiggly ‘Roco Coco’ and Martin Eyerer’s Latin beauty, ‘Un Empujon’. We hand over to Pascal Dior (a resident, yes), whose half-German/half-Korean heritage makes his favorite club Berlin’s infamous Panorama Bar — a clubbing institution we’re sure is a mystery to most of Seoul. Opening with Rodriguez Jr’s chugging, organ-sprinkled remix of Ray Okpara’s
‘Chi This Wonder Up’, it’s records such as this which are fighting for the hearts and minds of Gangnam. At the moment, the crowd may dress smart, a boy in a tight-fitting mod suit wiggling around with girls who clad themselves in fur when they depart into the sub-zero night, but despite an enthusiastic crowd who throng in front of the decks all night, the main action — and ‘cheesy’ dancing — is still happening next door. There Shut Da Mouth are holding court with flawless mixes. Despite having played us one of his own productions in the car, a deep, techy roller with sharply-ironed synths, here Mindbender and partner Beejay have abandoned education for all- out entertainment, a steroid-fuelled, gym-ready remix of Swedish House Mafia’s ‘Save The World’ paving the way for the silky smooth outro of Deadmau5 and Kaskade’s ‘I Remember’. This is Gangnam Style 2013, giants of the game like Skrillex and Steve Aoki popping in to play unannounced at Octagon alongside past guests such as Paul van Dyk and Headhunterz, all watched by local and Hollywood stars, including recently Jessica Alba. If Club Octagon have their way though, it’s just the glittering, all-lasers-on-full entry point into a thriving new underground scene for Seoul. JOE ROBERTS
djmag.com 035
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