“… like all friendships, one cannot fully describe to anyone else.”

Dear Friends of Fictions, 

Thank you for all the replies and reactions to the last newsletter. Truly. Your collective energy encouraged me to go full steam ahead. The current shape of a probable transatlantic trip (and ways you could help) appear at the end of this letter.

[I'm writing from Neukölln, Berlin, processing the results of yesterday's German federal election. As anticipated, the far-right AfD has made significant gains nationwide. However, Ferat Koçak of Die Linke (The Left) secured 30% of the first votes in Neukölln, earning a direct seat in the Bundestag. (The first time Die Linke has won a constituency in former West Germany!!)]

As I reflect on these shifts, I also find myself thinking about personal resilience. Wherever you are right now, I hope that you are healthy, regularly making space to process grief and surrounded by loved/loving ones, whether they are humans or more than humans. 

In the last two months, I’ve been trying to write about 2024, waiting for the year to grant me permission. In his novel, My Friends, Hisham Matar writes:

“An artist encounters an untranslatable experience and it causes in him such violent wonder and disquiet that he must try, with what will he can, to overcome the gulf,  [...]. Here we have two untranslatable experiences. The first is the friendship, which, like all friendships, one cannot fully describe to anyone else. The second is grief, which again, like all forms of grief, is horrible exactly for how uncommunicable it is.” 

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘And do you have friends? I mean, real friends.’ […] ‘Do they give you pleasure and do you trust them?’ [Hisham Matar, My Friends]

In 2024, I played 39 club gigs. Here is the first part of my attempt to capture 12 months through 12 songs and 12 places. It is dedicated to my friends and to their grace. Always and forever. 

1. Fictions in Sameheads, Ormside and Cashmere Radio

Berlin (Germany) and London (UK) - May, June and September 2024

Aside from my monthly slot on Berlin’s Cashmere Radio, I’ve been running occasional parties - both under the “Fictions” banner. 

Ambitious spring roll projects, last minute line-up changes, financial uncertainties, handmade mushroom choco balls, transport problems, poster puns, venue struggles, the hurriedly printed zines and, especially, those that never made it to paper …

These gatherings wouldn’t exist without the angels who bring them to life:

Aaron, Arnav, David, Jojo, and Pietro who covered the radio show, Sinan, Bakläxa, Xin and Ophélie who played at the party in Ormside in June, Mika Oki and tobha who performed at the event at Cashmere HQ in September, the dancers at the all-nighter and all those who showed up for the other celebrations. And Ugo, thank you. It was a collaboration <3

2. An annual gathering from and for free spirits 

Berlin (Germany) - June 2024

As was the case when I documented DIY/DIT parties in 2023 and 2022, the TVS crew deserves a special shout out for their annual free party in the Berlin outskirts. Just a few friends dropping a sound system and a pin for a special open air: Long live the volunteer sessions! 

The volunteers invited me to play a late afternoon slot, soundtracking the transition between sunny laziness and sensual dance. I was deep in a François K phase around that time and I remember playing his Afro Dub version of Femi Kuti “Sorry Sorry”:

“If my eyes no decieve me And na true be the things my ears dey hear Politicians and soldiers make meeting Our country dem wan repair Dem dey make like say Dem no know”

Although it was released in 1998 and its lyrics address the Nigerian (and African) political context of the time, I kept returning to this song in 2024. A few weeks before the TVS open-air event, the 'All Eyes on Rafah' campaign had begun spreading. Then, just days before the event, the Israeli military targeted a school in Nuseirat that had been converted into a shelter for displaced people. I remember it as a Spring of despair, disgust, and anger.

3. Devil’s Dance in Brittany 

Brittany (France) - June 2024

All my French friends had been hyping Théo, Justine and their crew’s Dañs An Diaoul. With no public social media event and held deep in the Breton countryside, this year’s edition of the festival unfolded under copious amounts of rain. Through the thick mud and low temperatures, local hero Théo kept muttering “adaptation, adaptation !!” 

In France, too, then, the far-right was gaining power. After the Rassemblement National (fka Front National) secured a decisive victory at the European Parliament Elections, French president Macron dissolved the National Assembly, calling for legislative elections on June 30 and July 7. The tension was palpable and on several occasions, the crowd chanted Les Béruriers Noirs’ anthem “La jeunesse emmerde le front national”.

Dañs An Diaoul means “devil’s dance” in Bretton. Halfway through his set on Saturday afternoon, Théo Müller played a pop hit by cult singer Etienne Daho which goes:

“Quand le démon de la danse 

Me prend le corps, je fais n'importe quoi. 

Tout va bieeeeeeen”

“When the dance demon takes over my body, I’m a mess. All is well”

There’s a sweet nostalgia in the song: All is well, and well, actually not really …  Everyone sang along, through tears and smiles. Théo himself turned into a fountain. From behind the decks, he pointed towards his partner, the mother of his daughter, his lips signifying that the event could never have happened without her. I shared a three-way hug with the two dancers beside me, and I don’t think there was a single person on that floor who wasn’t a weepy, grateful mess by then.

The rain didn’t matter, but the tears did. These are the occasions that make me feel most nervous as a DJ. It’s not the big stage or the famous venue that unsettles me—it’s playing for an event that a few friends have poured their hearts and souls into, fighting against all odds. It’s about holding an undeniable direction, channeling the energy of adaptation and resistance.

3. Meakusma or the new fave fest

Eupen (Belgium) - August 2024

I’d been dreaming of going to Meakusma for years. I certainly won’t wait to be invited as a performer to go again. One minute, you walk into a room to find a Lithuanian poet lying on the floor whispering a poem into a mic and the next you’re sat in a nearby church listening to saxophone. In between, one bumps into old and new friends, nerding about the things they just caught. I think I remember a conversation where someone had just heard a choir “imitating insect sounds by making complex lip movements”. On Sunday, Nosedrip played one of my favorite sets I heard that year. Those four days could have lasted forever.

I was closing the “big” room on the Saturday after Upsammy and Carrier (who were both amazing). I played an hour of fast, furious, nearly angry psychedelic music, pitching Shackleton up or layering two drum tracks on a third drum’n’bass tempo roller, building up towards Dan Nicholls’ Prayer, which includes a field recording from a pro-Palestinian protest.

When the recording came to an end, silence seized the room and I let it breathe, allowing space for tears and hugs, before a last hour of music.

Note: The producer asked for permission to use the sample and 100% of the proceeds are divided between charitable causes in Palestine and solidarity groups in London. Dan Nicholls turned out to be at Meakusma, too, performing with Plants Heal and by themselves (the set includes words by James Baldwin and bell hooks!). They had invited me to play at their cult event free movements on 23.03.2025 but last-minute schedule changes mean I won’t be able to go. If you’re in London, you should!!

5. Berlin’s one and only Subglow

Berlin, Germany - October 2024

We like to think of Berlin as the mecca of electronic music culture. Yet, I’ve been living here for over a decade now and, when it comes to actual dance experience, I would say that it’s a bit more complicated. Venues with a good sound system, decent politics and which are also accessible and affordable actually turn out to be pretty rare. Also, the crowds can be a bit touristy, gentrified or snobbish.

BUT. We have Subglow! CCL has been hosting their parties in Ohm for two years with the utmost care. To be asked to play the anniversary on a line up which included DJ Storm, Soraya + Dmitra, ibu 600 and Ceci themselves was a huge honor. Then to be closing the party from 8am until midday on a Sunday morning was … pure perfection.

I woke up in the early hours and, as I often do, I pulled a tarot card to orient myself in the narrative of my set. “Death” came up. Big card! I knew it to be a grieving moment for many of the folks who were going to come. There were heartbreaks. It was Luz and Tobha’s last (or almost) dances before they would leave Berlin. And, of course, there were the ongoing pains of the political struggles. 

As an introduction and through the set, I interspersed excerpts of Cami Sapara Barton’s podcast Dancefloor as portals. Halfway through the set I played Madonna’s 1998 song “The Power of Good-bye” (“freedom comes when you learn to let go”). Funnily, it does have a drum’n’bass version which is far less satisfying than the original mixed in with other d’n’b tracks. I played Vardae - Jamaican Mule out of it which was a surprise match made in heaven.

If you look at the Death card in the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, there is sunshine in the corner. Is it possible that there may be light after grief? I closed with Oceanic’s Sunshine, dear and Idris Muhammad - Could Heaven Ever Be Like This. 

Gonna get over Got to get over Gonna get over Got to get over

Subglow was, hands down, the most emotional, vulnerable and daring set I played in 2024. The recording failed. Some portals can’t be captured. 

6. Serious sound systems in Amsterdam

Amsterdam - October 2024

I played in Amsterdam in February, September and October 2024, landmarks like little brackets around a weird year.

The first time, k means and I played b2b for Dusty Cabinets on the Krackfree Sound system in De Sering. The venue also hosts a vegan people’s kitchen and Extinction Rebellion events. The third time, I took part in the POS weekender in the Centrale Markthal on the Kantarion sound system.

On the Sunday, Amir & Ayed shared and discussed Palestinian music (a recording of a similar talk they gave at Waking Life is available here - highly recommended). It was probably the least-ADE-party that happened during ADE. I’m grateful the POS crew put it together and I am grateful that I followed the unfolding of their efforts over the whole weekend.

As I was playing the last set of the event, I opened the performance with Attila Csihar’s Void Ov Voices: Baalbek. Csihar, also known for his work as Void and for his collaborations with Sunn O))) recorded the two 25-ish minute pieces on top of the Stone of the South in Lebanese ancient roman temples. I first heard the inimitable Marylou play this in one of her sets, shortly after Israeli airstrikes targeted the northeastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, with bombings occurring as close as 300 meters from the temple complex.

It's one of the few precious records I allowed myself to buy this year. It’s amazing on its own, as well as layered with other sounds. At POS, I played it alongside voice notes from my friends. In one of them, my beloved Sarj read Arch Budzar’s quote: “Yes, the grief is never-ending but so is the warmth of breath and so are the strange ways love will find you again, again, again...” I had just lost a childhood friend, yet another unexpected passing during a year that often felt like a crash course in learning to say goodbye.

Here, again, I’ll borrow Hisham Matar’s words about grief: “It takes a long time to learn the meaning of a word, especially a word like that.”

I have not been on the app since January 3^rd

I’ll get there eventually. Or maybe not. 🐊 Either way, wish me luck, and in the meantime, here’s how the next months are shaping:

27.02 - I am hosting my show on Cashmere Radio this Thursday. I’m short on time until the trip and won’t be able to do all the one-to-ones. So come through if you want a hug and a catch up. Also, I’m taking a break from Fictions indefinitely after that :)

mid-May early July: US

27.07 - Pe:rsona Festival (Bourgogne, France) with Wheel Of Fortune (CCL b2b Marylou b2b Nono Gigsta b2b rRoxymore!!!!!!!!)

16.08 - TBA, France

30.08 - TBA Vienna, Austria

31.08 - TBA, Siena, Italy

I’ll cross the Atlantic on a sustainable wind-powered freighter. This specific journey and the whole project is pretty expensive and I'm running it on a tight budget.

HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP:

• I’m trying to avoid paying for accommodation. If you know anyone who could lend a sofa or host me in any kind of way for a day or 2, I would be so grateful to be put in touch. I like to cook and to listen. 

  • Looking at New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, Denver, Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh and anywhere in between.

• I’d also like to meet souls and visit places that might share my interests so I could document them the way I did above. Not only for hosting or playing, just curious how resistance might look like in D.I.T. scenes in the current U.S. context. (Note: I’m not planning to come back to the Americas after this pilgrimage.)

• Some readers have pledged their support to the newsletter. Thank you. Somehow, I haven’t yet found the courage to unlock the payments. (*blush* I guess I still have another 10 months to learn how to accept generosity.)

• My room in Neuköln would be available from mid-March until mid-July. 

A final word of forgiveness: For anything I may have written, played, said, done—or left undone—that may have hurt you, I apologize. Answering this email is always possible and I will try my best to reply back, may you have specific questions. 

With a bow,

Nono