Why dance music needs CCL

Several weeks before the air turns crisp and people start putting out their pumpkins, CCL and I are sprawled on the grass of a Brooklyn park, discussing the interior of the Skull Discotheque. Dusty chandeliers hang from the ceiling, and the thick, purple carpet is showing its wear. Neon lights softly illuminate the dim room, but not enough for you to see what people are wearing. Dark and sweaty, sexy and glittery, this bewitching club—alas!—exists only in CCL's mind.

The Berlin-via-Seattle-via-Bristol DJ, producer, and curator is no stranger to creating elaborate realms and particular moods for listeners and dancers to explore. There's a sorcery to what CCL does in their sets and mixes, shaping narratives less along genre lines and more in terms of images and feelings. On their 2020 Blowing Up The Workshop mixtape, their 2023 Honcho Campout set, and their 2024 T4T LUV NRG cassette, ‘A Night in the Skull Discotheque’, to name a few, CCL intimately traverses time, place, and atmosphere while opening up a portal for anyone willing to take the journey together.

Sporting a short, bright orange haircut and an impish glint in their eye, they explain how ‘A Night in the Skull Discotheque’, a rollicking, comprehensive proto-dubstep odyssey, was a concise expression of their personality, both music-wise and character-wise – macabre but playful, sparkly and slightly garish, not so serious. This energy also comes through on their long-awaited debut EP, ‘Plot Twist’, an assertive amalgamation of twinkling speed garage, breaks of a “spiritual 160” nature, and a Weatherall-esque remix by Milan's Piezo.

“For so long, I was so obsessed with sounding like myself,” CCL shares, “and thought the music I released had to be this vision that represented me totally. Then I realised it's an impossible task for one record to do that. I don't want one thing to define me, but one thing won't ever define me anyway.”

This was a lesson they learned in part during the making of ‘Tilda's Goat Stare’, a collaborative EP with Ciel, released earlier this year. The record was inspired by a mutual love of sampling and Teknolust, the 2002 sci-fi film starring Tilda Swinton as cyborg clones. During the recording process, CCL found, they were more inclined to excessively tweak a mix, whereas Ciel wasn't shy about letting them know when she thought the mix was finished. As a result, the tracks are punchy, effervescent, and altogether fun.

"If we had spent more time on [the songs]," CCL continues, "they would have turned into something else. [‘Tilda's Goat Stare’] isn't necessarily an opus, but it's a really cute tribute to having a friendship with a person you have many things in common with and feel inspired by in various ways. And, if I only released super serious music, I feel like that would be kind of dishonest too. Because I'm a cheeky fucker!"

In a time of increasingly hegemonic algorithms, AI-curated playlists, and streamlined DJ sets marketed to the widest possible audience, CCL's up-for-anything sense of humour and self-described willingness to "throw paint at the canvas" is necessary and refreshing. Two tracks on the upcoming EP, ‘Plot Twist’ and ‘The Plot Thickens (feat. D. Tiffany)’, interpolate the listener in an ASMR murder mystery, replete with electric guitars, 2-steppy hi-hats, and CCL's own vocal samples. Though they cite British producer Serious Danger as a speed garage influence, ‘Plot Twist’ is genuinely a world unto itself, something only CCL could have made.

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CCL is no stranger to world-building, but prior to their DJ career, this manifested in the form of curation and event production. After moving to Seattle from Bristol in 2013, they soon became enmeshed in the local music community, and booked artists for a myriad of experimental, boundary-pushing festivals like Corridor, Decibel, TUF, and New Forms, developing an expansive musical lexicon in the process. When they relocated to Berlin at the end of 2019, they weren't sure what they wanted or needed to bring to a place already so saturated with events.

“I never start doing things somewhere until I've observed the scene for a while and feel like I should contribute something,” CCL remarks. “And ultimately, I was like maybe the thing I want to contribute, and what I feel is both missing and what I'm most excited about in terms of DJing and a club night, is a more DIY ethos.” Fortuitously, the independent venue OHM approached them to do a residency, and subglow was born.

They had a clear vision for subglow from the outset – a queer party oriented around bass music styles, filling a niche in a city where queer events tend towards more house and techno, and bass events pull more of a straight, bro-ey crowd. But like their DJ sets, the party is more about a vibe than it is about one specific genre. (“To me,” they clarify, “subglow is all music that makes subs glow.”) CCL seeks to book lesser-known DJs who “play all over the map” and reject “this notion of seamless entity” upheld by the established clubbing institutions of Berlin, and to push against the expectations of people who might go out anticipating hearing a four-on-the-floor kick drum all night long.

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“In the beginning,” they remember, “it was a slog to get people to come. I felt so anxious before doors opened every time, like, 'Oh no, this is not going to work.' But I kept trying! My friend NAS TEA played the party in January 2023 and the scenes that I saw… she had the audience in a frenzy with her opening set. DJ Marcelle played two parties ago, and it felt like witnessing a hurricane. Everyone was so locked in. I don't think I've ever seen a crowd in Berlin dancing like that to this kind of music. I was like, okay, something special is happening here.” Now having finished its second anniversary last month, subglow has hosted the likes of DJ Storm, Sister Zo, Nono Gigsta, Exael, Shyboi, Objekt, aya, ābnamā, rrrkrta and Kiernan Laveaux.

Finding the exact words to describe subglow is tricky, they say, but there's a tactile sense of warmth and mischievousness they want to share with people who can't come to the party. Luckily, those of us who live outside of the German capital will soon get to experience subglow through its label counterpart. The first release, they hint, is an ode to the slower, 100 BPM part of the night, “which people now love and expect to happen… in a good way! It’s not a tempo I hear in Berlin often. Berlin is notoriously fast, everyone's playing fast and hard music, and [at subglow there can be] this beautiful, steely soulfulness at peak time.”

The tapped-in, audience-challenging philosophy CCL upholds runs counter to what the city is often known for – hedonistic nightlife, never-ending days of partying, and an overarching sense of escapism. In their intentionally slowed and deliberately crafted space, though, the audience becomes connected in a real way, not only to whoever is on the decks, but to each other. As someone who moved to Berlin to pursue their creative life, it's important for CCL to show up for the community outside of the club as well, especially with the violent rise of anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism, repression, and censorship.

“Many people ask me, why are you still there? I feel like I have a responsibility to stay and not be like, things got rough, I'm gonna bounce and go to America, the number one arms dealer. Things are becoming more overtly fascist, and I risk way less existing here than other people – friends and people around me have been put in jail, have multiple criminal charges for merely saying things on social media or at protests, and are constantly fighting. If they were to stop, it would get really scary.”

Read this next: Stifled voices of Berlin's creative community are still rising for Palestine

Having had gigs cancelled by several German venues since 2018 for their support of Palestine, CCL was already aware of the ramifications of state-sanctioned cultural censorship. At the time, they recall, it “rocked [their] world” and they couldn't fathom spending an extended amount of time somewhere so oppressive, but now they're finding solidarity with those who have had similar experiences. And, of course, a space where people gather to step outside of their comfort zones, get in touch with their feelings, and learn about new ways of relating to one another holds so much potential beyond the club.

“There's a natural level of magnetism that exists when like-minded people start congregating,” they reflect. “It's been cool to look around [the party] and be like, I know all of these people also care about things on a wider level. This isn't just background music for socialising and drugs. We're coming here to recharge and feel a level of joy and not in an escapist, dissociative way.”

'Plot Twist' is out via !K7 on November 15, get it here

Nina Posner is a freelane writer, follow Nina on Instagram