December 27th, Coda. After the bright merriment of the holidays, I was ready for something dark. So with much excitement, I swapped my winter boots for Adidas Superstars and made my way to my favourite club, ready for a Techno vacation courtesy of heavyweight Nicole Moudaber. Pre-sale and door tickets were gone by the time we arrived so we cruised through the line thanks to Betty and Rodney of team Moudaber! Ascending Coda’s trademark glowing staircase we made our way into the club.
The air is warm and the smoke is thick and heavy as we enter Coda. I feel an ounce of pity for the poor souls stuck in the line outside; the club is well and truly packed, and Canadian winters are not kind. You can almost see the bassline reverberate through the haze, and the crowd bounce in beat to the music–and oh, the music.
A word on the music: the main reason why I love Techno is that it’s a genre greater than the sum of its parts. It’s stripped-down, and you can hear every single component working together, so that when one is taken away, or when one is added back in, the impact is even greater. It requires a deft hand to know when to add and when to subtract, how to create anticipation and set it off: much like people who throw grenades, Nicole Moudaber is an expert in timing. Nineteen minutes into her set and the crowd is already cheering like it’s a closer. Her sound is crisp, clean, elemental and highly impactful–perfect Techno. When she plays her “Plastic Dreams” remix, a track I recently reviewed, I feel euphoric. Analyzing the track and deconstructing it on my own is one thing. Hearing it live and feeling the bassline shake my bones is another.
At around 2 AM, I head to the washroom to fix my hair and dab away some of the sweat. Watching Moudaber tuck her mass of hair into her headphones has made me even more overheated. As I inspect my shiny appearance, I hear a conversation two mirrors down: “Literally EVERYONE is wearing black,” a girl remarks to her friend as they wash their hands. Walking back to the dance floor, I notice that she isn’t wrong. The bodies seem to meld into one another, only briefly illuminated by the occasional flash of a strobe. It fits the music to a tee; minimalistic, but with spots of bright energy. Much like many of its patrons, Coda’s interior lighting work to accentuate the dark space around it. The crisscross lights are a deep red: foreboding, menacing, yet inviting. Even Moudaber is a perfect expression of this dichotomy with her thick black hair and dark long-sleeved shirt, you could only catch glimpses of her face as she manipulated the decks. Her cool exterior in fantastic opposition to the intense beats she was laying down.
Back inside, I run into some shufflers in the back and we all groove in unison to the throbbing beat. We gush about the incredible set, and how much of a heavyweight Moudaber is. As she drops “Destination Mars” by Maceo Plex (the only Shazam I managed to get that night), the room erupts into fervent dancing as we all throw down. I give it my all, bouncing in time to the high hat and t-stepping to the bassline. As I finally come to, one of my new friends offers his hand in a high five, and calls me a “Techno princess.”
I consider it a high compliment. But, if I’m the princess, then Moudaber is the Queen.
