A dozen songs that define Despacio

... for me, at least

Moving heads illuminate the ball’s anchor point at Despacio Miami, October 2023. Photo credit: @imustdraw (Instagram)

This is the first of many posts in which I’ll be talking about Despacio, the dancefloor that started it all for me. It wasn’t my first dancefloor, certainly, but it’s the one that blew my world apart by demonstrating the magic of truly intentional design. There’s the before time, and there’s After Despacio.

One way to introduce people to Despacio is through its music. Who doesn’t like a playlist? Over on the r/Despacio subreddit, who-took-the-bomp asked, "You want to show Despacio to someone and you're putting a 10-track playlist together -- how would it look?"

There are already some great playlists provided in the responses, but I had to take a shot at this question because I have some opinions held deep in my bones. So here (with purely subjective rationale) are the tracks that define Despacio for me, in rough order of how they might be heard during a full Despacio set. To be fair, a full Despacio set includes some 70-90 songs, so making me choose just 10 was like asking me which five of my fingers and toes I want to keep. That said, here's my list:

Art of Noise - Moments in Love (Beaten): This downtempo classic is often the very first song on one of Despacio's multi-day weekend shows, ushering dancers into Despacio's bardo like a Ferry of the Dead ride across the river Styx. Dancers mill about the room and the hush is palpable. Nobody’s got their ear protection in yet.

At the start of one of Despacio's 6- or 7-hour sets, we're not yet a congealed group -- we're just a loose collection of individuals milling about at the start of a journey to happiness. The room fills and soon a few hundred people are standing in darkness, turning slow circles and gawping at the seven magnificent, 11-foot tall monolithic speaker stacks that are lit up just enough to be visible, like members of a classical Greek chorus, statuesque and foreboding.

As our eyes adjust to the darkness we begin to coalesce. We bump into and say hi to friends who were there in the queue with us. Piano yields to bongo and the spirit of dance begins to take possession of the bodies that have found their way there.

The beat gently tugs us into cohesion with each other -- pulling my hips into rhythm with the hips of every other human there. It's like the marionette gently putting tension on all the strings of his puppet troupe.

The track's contrasting highs and lows feel like a demo for the dynamic range and headroom of the ultra high-fidelity system fueled by McIntosh audio equipment. Bottom line -- If you're going to raw dog (i.e., listen without earplugs) to just one song at Despacio let it be this one.

Madonna - Justify My Love: You might think you've heard this song before. There's a good chance you even believe you've heard it dozens of times. That’s what I thought. I’d purchased the CD on release, and had listened to it dozens of times. But until I felt its heavy bass massage my sacral chakra, I hadn’t really heard it in the way that this sexy song was designed to be heard.

I've now heard-heard this song three times at Despacio, and when it's played, the room is always dark out of respect for the PDA that's certain to spontaneously erupt when dancers writhe to it. John Klett, the audio genius most responsible for Despacio's sexily sumptuous sound, wrote in a blog post, "We are pretty sure there was a child conceived right on the dance floor at a 2015 event." He didn't specify the tryst's soundtrack, but if it wasn't Madonna's "spoken-word ode to releasing your inner freak" I'd be surprised.

Monika - Secret in the Dark: The #despacioishappiness hashtag on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube often gives people the wrong impression about Despacio’s lighting. What’s shared to social media tends to be video of fully-lit mirror ball action. But the room’s kept dark dark 70% of the time. The lighting, done by Arf&Yes, is low-key for a few reasons. First, darkness foregrounds everyone’s sense of hearing, allowing the music coming from Despacio’s hulking towers to speak without distraction. It’s not dissimilar from those restaurants where one eats in total darkness to heighten the sense of taste and smell. Music just hits different in darkness.

Despacio’s darkness also provides a sense of safety and intimacy. You needn’t worry that your dance moves look goofy if nobody can see you. You can really dance like nobody’s watching because nobody can.

And finally, darkness provides contrast so that the big lighting moments stand out like mountains on a plain. The contrast between Despacio’s lighting extremes is part of how it cracks you open, emotionally.

All of that is why, when 3manyDJs play Monika’s Secret in the Dark, the song has special significance to Despacio. As with many songs played, it can be read on multiple levels. There’s the allusion to the darkness of the experience, the secrets that folks bring to the dance floor, the secrets that are made on the dance floor as people get intimate with each other, and even to the feeling of introspective isolation dancers can feel when totally lost in a frothing sea of anonymous, churning limbs.

But Secret in the Dark works on yet another level, thanks to the incredible story behind the song. While miles offshore on a boat in the Aegean Sea with companions, Monika’s boat experienced a catastrophic explosion that set the boat on fire. “Monika and a male companion swam nearly eight hours in the windy night, fixated on the glowing lights of the city ashore,” according to an interview with The Fader. She temporarily lost her eyesight due exposure she endured during that eight-hour crucible.

This song was for Despacio community member Padsushi the number one song she hoped to hear at Despacio, and that she had traveled from France to Belgium to hear. She wrote, “I love this song for so many reasons. In addition to the great story behind it, the original production itself nails the disco vibe so well you could think it was produced in the late 70’s. The Soulwax Remix, however, emphasizes the dance floor vibe so much, with a longer progression, loud bass line and extra congas. This remix makes me very nostalgic of the 2×2 shows [2manydjs] did back in 2016, which are filled with gems they often play at Despacio or other places. [This was] a time when I discovered music styles I didn’t even know existed, and it changed my life for the better.”

Black Meteoric Star - Freaks Only: Despacio is full of tracks that have an otherworldly or even weird quality, and this is a prime example of that style of music. Likely a James Murphy addition (because it was released via his label, DFA Records), I first heard "Freaks Only" at This Ain't No Picnic (Despacio #15, 2022). It grabbed me right away, not just because of how it sounded, but because there were people scattered throughout the the dance floor chanting "woo woo" and growling "rowr rowr" along with the music, making me feel like I'd washed up shipwrecked on the island Where the Wild Things Are. It felt like people were ascending to a new level of freakiness and self expression and it was a real moment.

Permit me to get heavy for a minute. Per the official description of the record on the DFA page, "this record lays out a broad slab of practice-based research into the ghosts we connect with on the dance floor. Whether it be through partying in former industrial buildings, contested spaces of labor built on lands violently appropriated from indigenous people, uncomfortably inhabiting vacuums in queerness left by the AIDS epidemic, lifting lineages through sampling, or the relentless cycle of whitening that accompanies dance music’s march into the market, our experiences in the Disco have been permeated by the spectral and the haunted. Through rhythm and frequency, organized over time, this music blurs the veil between the living and the dead inviting those who move to it to connect with experiences beyond that false binary."

I'd read none of that high-concept stuff when I heard the song at Coachella '23 (Despacio #17a), so I promise it wasn't the power of suggestion when the following happened. I felt the very real presence of my mother's spirit (RIP) inside my body, compelling me to give her the joy of dance and to dance with her. Now you might say it was the psychedelic mushrooms that had me hallucinating my dead momma's indomitably dancey spirit, and you may have a point there, but I also know that this song had something to do with my brief experience of being possessed (in a good way) and that it did indeed "blur the veil between the living and the dead." So yeah, seance on the dancefloor. That happened.

Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol: The first time I heard this tune, at Despacio's showing at the This Ain't No Picnic festival (Despacio #15), the 1972 song had just turned 50 years old and it fucked with my head because I couldn’t tell what it was saying, but I felt that I should be able to understand it given the obvious American accent and the recognizable "alright" at the end of many lines. It sounded like English, but it also sounded like gibberish. I questioned my sobriety as a result of this struggle, but about halfway through the song I realized that the DJs were fucking with me, and I developed a deeper understanding of Despacio's playful attitude; it's not all serious all the time. There's more than one trickster working the decks and they play songs like this. That said, the song's a certified chart-topper: according to the extensive wiki article on the song, it peaked at #2 on Belgium's pop charts in 1973, suggesting that it's a tune brought to Despacio by the Dewaele brothers (Stephen, the eldest, would've been 3 years old at the time it peaked).

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On Unknown Re-Edit: Click to give this one a listen and let us know if you can ID the track. Ever since it was played at Coachella (Despacio #17a) the community's best song sleuths haven't been able to ID it. It's a great example of the sort of unidentifiable re-edit that you'll probably only ever hear once in your life and then spend the rest of your days searching for. The spacey satellite bleeps, jungle bongos, and staccato clacks add an electronic underlayer to Gaye's silky vocals -- like cashmere on a robotic panther -- not in a hurry to get there, but arriving step by step with a stealthy sure-footedness that indicates a master's hand at work.

Miami (Parrot and Cocker Too Remix) - Baxter Dury: The DJs have played this gem twice during Despacio's showing at iiipoints Festival in Miami (Despacios #16 and #18). It's an anthem for a complicated city, a spoken word poem by a fictional sociopath named Miami delivered in Baxter Dury's gravelly London drawl, equal parts malevolent gangster and coked-up joker. In this remix, the first words ("So fuck ya") kick off a deep groove that makes you look around the room and wonder if any of this is real — how do record grooves this pure exist and where can I get about a kilo of them? In Miami last year, I danced near a couple of guys who quoted every word of the track at each other with impeccable timing while the room was lanced with alternating slanting columns of blue and white light -- it was as close to a religious experience as Miami gets.

Skatt Bros - Walk the Night: The vibe of this song is otherworldly, and by otherworldly, I’m imagining 1970s space opera rave, like when the Death Star's thousand-person construction crew snuck down to the sub-basement storage cubes on the third weekend of the year to celebrate construction of the death machine being ahead of schedule. They rubbed droid grease all over their shirtless torsos and inhaled through their amyl nitrate-soaked shirts and danced until the end of the third shift, stomping their boots to this song the DJ played at the height of the all-night bacchanal.

Back in our universe and out of my head canon, this 1979 song is experiencing resurgence -- having recently been featured in campy robot horror flick M3GAN (from which the above still image was taken) and being a regular fixture in 2manydjs's DJ sets, including those at Sound (Miami), Lobos (Los Angeles), and Bill Graham (San Francisco). It's the sort of banger from the late disco era that sounds both entirely modern and like a weird throwback to a time when dangerous lyrics in songs were not yet cause for cancellation. It sounds and feels absolutely magnificent in Despacio.

Manncool & Trol2000 - Capy: This specific version (listen to the original here) demonstrates the way Despacio's DJs are wont to pitch down songs to create a deeper, more soulful vibe. The original song doesn't lack charm at all, but at about 137 beats per minute, it's in a completely different zone from the Manncool & Trol2000 version's 125 beats per minute. Neither original nor edit can be found on popular streaming services or on Shazam, evidence of a crate-digging approach to track selection that makes Despacio a treat for open-minded fans of music. I'd never heard this song, and fell in love with it because my personal memories of this track on the Despacio dance floor include throwing my arms around the shoulders of the people I'm dancing nearest and singing the chorus to each other. It's a love-bomb in all the best ways.

Ferrara & 2manydjs' Love Attack / Get Off the Speakers: Imagine you're me for a moment — you’re inside Despacio dancing to a fine groove (Ferrara's Love Attack (1979) and the DJ gets on the house mic, ducks the music, and tells people to clear out of his area and to stop climbing on the speakers. He sounds annoyed. "Will you people please get off the speakers? Get down off them speakers." You look around but you can't see anybody on the speakers.

Another 30 seconds goes by, and the DJ's back on the mic, frustration in his voice: "Will you people please get offa the speakers? I'm tired of asking you nicely."

The DJ plays a bit more of the groove, then cuts back in, taking the music way down so that he can be heard loud and clear. He’s angry now. "I'm not gonna ask you no goddamned more. I don't want to see nobody dancin' on top of my shit unless I say so."

If you're me, the first time I heard this track (at Despacio #15 in 2022), I looked around the room wondering what kind of idiot would dare profane the beautiful Despacio speaker stacks by climbing on them. I was just inebriated enough to believe for a minute that the DJs were asking people to keep off the equipment, an illusion aided by the way they cut everything but the mid-range frequencies so that the DJ's voice feels like it's really a live announcement happening right there in the room. It's a tremendous bit of trickster magic.

I've since learned that the Dewaele brothers have been working on this remix for seven or more years, according to the healthily obsessed fans on the Soulwax Discord. We might've heard the near-final version of it at Coachella '23. Who knows if we'll ever see a release of it.

Thanks to heroic work by a member of the Despacio Discord, the “get off the speakers” voice sample was located in this recording, from a 1977 gig in East Elmhurst, Queens, NYC.

And for the record, so far as we know, the only people who have ever climbed on top of the Despacio speakers are pictured above.

Tame Impala - Let It Happen (Soulwax remix): I credit this song with helping me make up my mind to embrace the now of my life rather than dwell on regrets around the past. I had entered Despacio with a question buried deep in my subconscious, and this song dredged the question forward onto the dance floor and led me to use my body to answer to it. This song is probably the number one reason why I continue to devote so much of my time and energy to Despacio in an attempt to give back a fraction of what I gained from hearing this tune at the right time in my life.

The song is also a masterpiece of of remix. Thanks to 2manydjs being part of Despacio, it’s a dancefloor where Soulwax remixes (including remixes in development) are often heard and tested. This might be my favorite of many deep remixes.

Evangeline Gibson wrote, “Leaving the vocals relatively untouched, Soulwax completely reinvents the instrumental layers and the overall structure …. [turning what was] four minutes of bubbly psych-synth [into] nine minutes of intense, incredibly expansive electronica. As the vocals fade in and out the beat builds, becoming deeper and heavier at about two minutes in. Despite lasting over nine minutes, the song goes through so many subtle transitions that it is electrifying the entire way through.”

Of course they play the entire song — Despacio’s DJs aren’t afraid to let a nine-minute song breathe.

DJ Falcon & Thomas Bangalter's Together aka Together - Together: Just give it a listen, and imagine this playing after about five and a half hours of dancey, sweaty fun with people who had, like you, been through crucible of Despacio in which a bunch of separate elements are dumped into a container, brought to high heat and shaken until emulsified into an entirely new substance called community and togetherness.

At iiipoints Miami 2023, we heard this French House banger when they mixed into it from The League Unlimited Orchestra / Human League - The Things That Dreams Are Made Of, and mixed out of it into the palate-cleansing Atomic Rooster - Play It Again before playing a Despacio-specific edit of Fischerspooner's Emerge -- the finale song of the night.

Stephane Sévérac - Hold On: Despacio's top slow-dance number -- at least according to a Despacio community vote. At 101BPM, it's on the slower side, and it's often played in the refractory period after a faster, bigger more climactic number. I'm including it as the final track in this list because it's one of the several songs that haunts people for months or years after they experience it on Despacio's magical dancefloor.

Whether you're there with friends or a lover, this song is one for wrapping your arms around each other and feeling the imminent dissolution of your dancefloor bond. Just hold your person or your people and extend the moment a bit longer before time rudely ends the bliss. This isn't typically the last track of the night -- it's more often played before the final hour as a reminder that the night can't last forever and that the hour to come is the last we'll have together for the next several months ... until the next Despacio.

If you're counting, that's a baker’s dozen, because Despacio always delivers more than you expect it to.