Children of Despacio: Relaxed at Volume (NYC)
Despacio inspires crews to roll their own dance parties -- this is the tale of one of them.
Despacio's magic so thoroughly changes some lives that those who enter leave the room with a dream of creating their own Despacio-style event series. One group of friends got bit by the Despacio bug at Coachella in 2016, and this is the story of how they went from loft parties to a regular event series called Relaxed at Volume, the next one of which is this Friday (Feb 28) in Brooklyn.
Quick info about the event:
When: February 28th, 8pm-2am
Location: The Meadows @ 17 Meadow St, Brooklyn, NY 11206
Discount code: DESPACIOFAN
Age: 21+
Dress: Wear what’s comfortable to dance in
Follow: Relaxed at Volume Newsletter and Instagram @relaxedatvolume
For this post, I had a conversation with Bo McGinniss of the Relaxed at Volume crew about how Despacio inspired their event and how they built the event over the course of years. As a bonus, when we reached out to John Klett (the man behind Despacio’s signature sound) for clarification about some of the points around his involvement, he chimed in as well.
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SDB: Who is the team behind Relaxed at Volume and how did you all meet?
Bo McGinniss (RaV): Me, Dan and Sim have been doing parties for a decade in NYC. Recently, our other Despacio-loving friends Gigi and Jay have been helping pull this together too.
Dan, Sim, and I were friends throughout college. But senior year, we really started bonding over music through LCD Soundsystem and the constellation of artists James Murphy would reference, new and old. Sim DJed and was really into dance music. I liked rock and punk mostly and so we met in the middle with LCD. We saw James DJ at the 930 Club when LCD was still retired and that really opened my mind to what dance music could be about because main stage EDM was peaking at that time and I just never really connected with it. We met him after and thought it was the coolest thing ever.
SDB: What was your encounter with Despacio like? What happened to you in there?
RaV: Sim, Dan, and I headed to Weekend 1 of Coachella for LCD’s return show in 2016. We heard about Despacio because we were so into Soulwax/2many and James as a DJ, so we just kind of stumbled in early on not knowing what to expect. I could be making this up but feel like I distinctly remember Ragysh and Lovesick playing and we just felt like we were home immediately. We still went to see LCD play but I think other than that we didn’t leave the Despacio tent the rest of the weekend. I think Despacio quite honestly changed me as a person, not to mention how it changed all of our understandings of what was possible to feel at a party. That contrast was particularly stark at Coachella… we’d leave the tent and just be like, “what is going on out here?” and go back in. Once we saw it, we just couldn't unsee it, you know.
Yeah. It's like being red pilled.
RaV: You know, it really is. I was just like we... we just can't go to parties anymore. Like everything else is terrible. That’s obviously not true as there is so much great stuff out there, but just not something for us in the same way. Nothing really felt the same or connected with us the way Despacio did after that.
SDB: Did you attend any other Despacios after that first one in 2016?
RaV: For a while, I got to claim that we'd been to every Despacio in the US because we went to Panorama [Despacio #10, July 2016] all three nights and we went to the Knockdown [Despacio #11, March 2018] all three nights. We recently made a one day strike mission to Coachella just for a full day in Despacio and I’ve been trying to catch it at III Points but for some annoying reason our schedules keep not lining up whenever that fest is on with Despacio.
It’s so infrequent that we decided to start throwing parties. I actually decided to learn how to DJ after seeing Despacio for the first time. Sim had DJed a bunch in college, but I was like, all right, I'm going to learn how to properly mix and got vinyl decks and learned by watching Optimo on Boiler Room.
Like that was the start of it all, you know, it all started at Despacio. We were just like, wow, if we can't experience this again, we can at least make our own very crude attempt at recreating the spirit of it.
From 2016 to 2019 Sim and Dan lived in this five bedroom loft in FiDi [Financial District, NYC]. It had this huge common room. We got as good of a soundsystem as we could. We actually had like one MacIntosh amp and some stacks. And we got four moving head lights and a big disco ball. And one of us would DJ and one of us would do the lights. And we would just try to do the disco ball to Another One Bites the Dust. It was this really incredible time where we threw dozens and dozens of parties. At one point the fire department showed up after years of it, and they were like, "we're going to come in here next time and give you guys tens of thousands of dollars worth of fines if you don't stop." And that was the last one. We're like, all right, we pushed our luck far enough. And that was where we cut our teeth and learned how to do it.
SDB: Where did you go next?
We found this kind of hole-in-the-wall bar called Post Bar. We used QSCs but then one night rented some Funktion Ones to use there. We were, you know, getting a little older and we're like, this has been fun, but how do we step the game up a bit? The better sound that night really enhanced the vibe.
And actually a couple years prior to that, in 2017, we were at the DFA summer hot dog party. And we looked up and saw John Klett across the party. And I was like, "holy shit, it's John Klett!" And went up to him and were, like, "you're John Klett. We're obsessed with Despacio!" And he was like, "this has never happened to me at a party ever.” I think he thought we were a little nuts.
John Klett (JK): I mean, the obsession with Despacio was expressed plainly, they had hearts in their eyes. It was a little disconcerting initially but, well -- and you can skip this if you like but it’s true -- I grew up on the grounds of a mental hospital (my dad worked there) and some of the staff living in this little village on the hospital grounds were, to my childlike senses, way crazier than the patients I would run in to. So unless I really have some place to go in a hurry I will give some respect and listen.
RaV: We were talking to him about the system and how it came together. I think we referenced the YouTube video we recognized him from. And then John was like, “you know that clip where James is like, ‘we didn't do any math?' I did all the math. That's why he didn't do any math."
JK: I did say that… though I should add that I was using what would be obsolete math for speaker design these days… not as many parameters.
RaV: And so we just explained to him that our dream is to open something like a Despacio or find a spot somewhere, somehow.
And we went back and forth with him over email for years trying to figure it out. He'd give us specs on rooms and we'd keep an eye out for rooms that fit the bill. But we didn't have any money until Post-pandemic, which is when we started Relaxed at Volume.
SDB: Where were the first Relaxed at Volume parties?
RaV: We did all those parties at the Post Bar pre-RaV and then, you know, we started getting more serious about the production side and that was when we found the Firehouse. We did six parties there, I think. For the first one, we rented an L-Acoustics system and then we rented some Funktion One systems for the next two. And we were spending like five grand to wheel a system in there each time.
We thought, why don't we just buy our own system? And, you know, we were still pen pals with John. And then we were finally just like, “John, we're going to pony up the money, will you come in and help us design a system?” And that kind of kicked off that project, which has been going about two years at this point.
And he wanted to work with us! And we're like, "this is insane. Why does John want to work with us?"
JK: Because they are crazy -- and crazy is not a bad thing in itself. I kept seeing them at Despacio events where pretty much everyone in there is happy. Despacio itself is kind of crazy. The economics are insane! Anyway the emails and communications were spread out. They weren’t stalking me… I’ve had that happen. The questions were dreamy and practical at the same time and not repetitive.
RaV: But, you know, we'd been emailing with him for years where he’d just go on these riffs and just drop so much knowledge on us. He'd be on a tear and have this one line that he slides in, such as "”a lot of [clubs] are tuned for all loud all the time as opposed to relaxed and hi-fi at volume." And we're just like, "that's the most brilliant thing we've ever heard!" That's how we named the system.
You know, it's funny because in that video, I think it's Dave or Steph that says, "we wanted it to be seminal." But actually we're now a decade into this, and look how many people Despacio is inspiring. And also how it's almost gotten further from the mainstream and more important at the same time, which is weird. The mainstream continues to diverge from Despacio.
JK: I’ve been seeing various systems people are building - the Despacio crew and friends send me links - I am not really on the socials much. I have not heard any of these systems so it’s just visuals at this point… it’s pretty cool to see though.
RaV: All that big room stuff can be cool and everything, even if I don’t really connect with it. And there are other great parties, but I think there’s still a need for proper Despacio-inspired clubs or events. Because I live in New York and I still can't find it. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places, but that's why we're still doing events. If we had it we’d probably just stop.
We've always wanted to eventually open our own spot. We're just trying to find our path to a room and a platform for getting the DJs that we like to hear play in that environment. Don’t get me wrong, I’d go to Despacio 100 times and still be happy, but at a certain point we'd love to see, you know, all these other great talents such as Optimo or Tiga in an environment like that. That's the ultimate aim because that's what we want to experience: all the acts we love and in a similar environment.
SDB: When Output closed, for example, I think it left a big hole in the market. So it seems like it makes a lot of sense the way you guys are building towards being able to have a space like that.
RaV: Yes, we loved Output and that's exactly what we're aiming for. Surprisingly, it blows my mind how hard it is to find a space. And also just like how homogenized DJ promotion has become. Kids are so desensitized that it's actually very hard to sustainably build an audience and a night that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. So, again, if you're renting a system and you're renting a room and it's like the numbers get pretty scary if you don't get your 300 people to come or whatever. It's just been so hard finding a space. I mean, we have some wild stories about like crazy owners trying to steal the system, getting the cops involved; it's really hard to find a home.
All we want is a consistent night. We haven't yet found that perfect room, but I think we've settled on something good enough for this next series while still being affordable enough that we could build the night around it. So this is the first one at our new location which will be a bit of an experiment, but we want to commit to doing seasonal parties, you know, and to just build it up over time and then at some point when, we'll start bringing in other DJs. We really shouldn’t be DJing, but we are for now as we get it going.
SDB: How does the system sound?
RaV: I honestly think it’s the best system I’ve heard in NYC in awhile, and it feels as close to Despacio as anything (although it still doesn’t even come close). I saw a DJ we love at Public Records. And then two weeks later, he DJed at our night in the firehouse. He and I both were just like, "this sounds way better than Public Records." Klett just has the master touch, you know? We have a lot of the right elements, but it's been really hard to make everything dialed in to perfection. Space. Crew. DJs. This new space is OK but it still isn’t quite what we’re after. Just the overhead makes sense and it’s easy.
SDB: How do you approach record selection over the course of your nights?
RaV: Let me start by saying I have never thought of us as DJs and I have too much respect for the people who are great at it to say we are selecting competently. At the end of the day we’re just having some fun throwing parties. But I think a fun part for us over the years is that we've actually thought of ourselves as like Despacio evangelists, because we love bringing a normie–which is a lot of our friends so I say this endearingly–who doesn't know anything about dance music in.
And you know how Despacio does it -- they make the crowd earn "Another One Bites the Dust," or another big tune like that. We kind of flip it around where we earn the right to play some of the depth that's in Despacio to people who are not necessarily well-versed in music. With our crowd, we have to bring them along slowly with some more familiar music. So the balance is actually flipped. But then we'll play Mafoom Bey and someone will be like, "this is fucking awesome. What the fuck was that?" And we're like, "oh, we'll show you the real thing." I think because we do that we can claim a pretty high number of Despacio converts.
SDB: Despacio is like omakase style. You don't choose the music. You don't make requests. You just show up with an open mind and what the chef lays down, you eat.
RaV: I love that. That's such a good framing of it. But to be clear: we are so far from Omakase chefs it’s not even funny. Hopefully one day we just build a platform to get the real professionals on. At our parties though I’d say we don’t really get requests which means we must be doing ok!
SDB: So on Reddit, someone asked a question that is worth repeating here as you shared a lot of great information about how it all came together. They asked, "How did Klett design a Meyers system?"
RaV: "Design" is not the best word. Spec would be better. There was a lot of work going into sizing the system based on the rooms we wanted to be in, the components (power distro, controller, etc), custom stands, tuning the stacks (most important), "tuning" the room with curtains + dampening (eg it sounded terrible and splashy the first night before he had us add this into the setup), making it all work and be modular for setting up and breaking down in a day, etc etc. The difference between John's tuning and the defaults made them sound like different systems--the first thing he did was scrub the factory presets. He spent many long nights with us staying through the parties to get it sounding right and each event it got better and better. The curves we have now feel basically like IP.
He asked us if we cared if it was custom or not, and we said no, we just want something that sounds absolutely amazing. He had the vision for that and executed on it top to bottom. He is really fun to work with and it sounds incredible.
JK: I didn’t design it - I spec’d it. I came on board and we started talking about a bespoke build but I walked the firehouse space and there were some issues… room size, ceiling height, cubic volume… and it was a rented space. If they were going to keep moving toward a more ideal situation it made more sense to go for an off-the-shelf solution.
SDB: So I don't know if you've seen my dance party scorecard -- but it was designed around what I learned from really obsessing over Despacio. I think I've boiled it down to a short list of essentials -- and would love your reaction to it. I see you as aspiring to the level of magic that Despacio achieves, and obviously doing that on a tighter budget and with more of an interative approach, so it's not necessarily fair to hold you to these standards, but would still love to hear how you think about some of these items.
RaV: I have seen it! I think it is spot on and I wouldn’t change anything about it. To your point on standard, I wouldn’t say we “aspire” to the level of magic Despacio achieves, at least not with what we’re currently doing. Maybe one day. But today it’s impossible for a number of reasons–it really just operates on a completely different plane–but it does help having an ideal to work off of.
Maybe a good way to answer this question instead is I’ll give you my DIY playbook, which aligns with your framework. Every room I walk into my mental checklist is just: dancefloor separate from everything else, DJs out of sight (it is funny but I really have found that people not being able to look at the dj changes a party substantially), sound quality, music selection (not just good tracks but I like an “arc” and some dynamics in a set), lighting centered on a big disco ball, haze, and crowd. I think that is basically a version of your scorecard. As long as you have those bones in place it’s going to be a great party, even if it doesn’t transcend to the extent Despacio does.
We started out in the loft for <$10k: smoke machine, 4 moving head lights and some form of control over them (self-teaching on the wolfmix is easy–long periods of dark to disco ball flash is essential), a disco ball (20” is fine, but the bigger the better), a great group of people, some decent sound (even just 2 QSCs and a sub will get you going), DJs who get it, and booth (you can just start with pioneer stuff but we now have Isonoe + vinyl decks). From there, as John says you try to just start asymptotically approaching perfection. Sound goes such a long way in driving the vibe so if there is anywhere to spend, it’s there. The new system has taken our events to another level for sure. But if you do all these things it very likely will create an experience that feels different than the norm and that people will appreciate.
One interesting thing I learned from John that I can’t unsee is that unless your room is large enough and you have a system that can fill it, you’re never going to get the physicality you get in Despacio. The reason it “rearranges your guts” without being punishing is the lower wave forms are longer and need space to express themselves. A lot of clubs will just beef up the low end and scoop out the mids to recreate that feeling but it ruins the dynamics of a system. So our system lacks the physicality you’d experience in Despacio and always will. Loudness does not fix that nor does scooping your mids. You need a system and room at scale. Without that, you can’t do what Despacio does because it’s literally the best club in the world, and that’s ok.
SDB: So final question -- some songs that define "Relaxed at Volume"? What are some of your signature moments that folks might hear at the coming event, or that helped you all figure out what's in and what's out of the repertoire for the evening?
We definitely play a fair amount of popular and contemporary stuff we like, but then have some Despacio stuff mixed in. It changes a lot and we all have different styles, but maybe here are some that have stuck around:
Chilly: For Your Love (Todd Terje re-edit) -- Chilly
Mindless Boogie -- Hot Chocolate
Feel Me (Greg Wilson & Derek Kaye Remix) -- Blancmange
Cosmic Swimmer (Soulwax Remix) -- Tendts
Inspector Norse -- Todd Terje
Boys Wanna Be Her -- Peaches
Deadlines (Thoughtful) -- Car Seat Headrest
Risky Biznizz (Joey Negro Bionic House Mix) -- Doug Willis
Don’t Leave Me This Way -- Thelma Houston
Love and Happiness -- Al Green
Freundchen -- Tensnake
All My Friends -- LCD Soundsystem
Inspiring to see the journey unfold. A good excuse to got to NYC.
Great to read about this party..can't believe they got JK on board..the ripple effect continues! And one more excellent reason to go to NY