Dancing in the rain

On Saturday afternoon, the heavens opened. I was celebrating my birthday at The Cause and it was abundantly clear I was about to get drenched.

The rain came in waves: sometimes thick sheets that turned the open-air spaces into puddles and obstacle courses, sometimes a stubborn drizzle that seemed determined to outlast everyone. People scrambled for shelter under awnings and smoking areas. Others pulled jackets over their heads or sought the safe, rain-free embrace of The Workshop.

And then there were the people who stayed exactly where they were.

Dancing in the rain is one of clubbing's great truth serums. Nobody looks cool doing it. There is no carefully curated outfit anymore. No pristine trainers. After twenty minutes of heavy rain, everyone looks equally ridiculous. You're soaked through, your hair is ruined, and the only reason to remain on that dancefloor is that you genuinely want to be there.

Watching the crowd at The Cause last weekend, I was reminded how different that feeling is from what you often find in some of London's more central clubs.

There's a certain type of venue in Zones 1 and 2 where dancing feels almost optional. People queue for an hour to get in, spend another hour in the smoking area and then eventually arrive on the dancefloor only to stand in small circles shouting over the music. The club becomes a backdrop rather than the main event, something to be consumed rather than participated in.

The Cause has never really worked like that. Getting there requires a degree of commitment. If you're out past midnight and the DLR is down, you're facing a 20-minute walk to Canning Town. You're unlikely to stumble into it accidentally while looking for one last drink before heading home.

The Cause has spent years cultivating a crowd that actually seems interested in the thing that brought them there in the first place: the music. People drift between rooms to catch DJs, then gather outside to dissect what they've just heard before heading off to find the next thing.

As a result, the rain never killed the mood. Early in the afternoon, a handful of dancers kept moving in the open air regardless, sheltering beneath umbrellas, raincoats or sheer optimism. As others drifted back out to join them, the energy only seemed to grow. Transparent macs were handed out. The dancing continued.

There's something strangely bonding about enduring terrible weather together. Every soaked T-shirt and waterlogged shoe becomes part of a shared experience. By 10PM, the rain was a distant memory. The dancefloor had become a community united by collective bad decisions and excellent music. Sometimes that's all club culture really is: a group of people deciding the music matters more than staying dry.

Not every festival needs to be a sprawling corporate behemoth with £300 tickets and a VIP area larger than some stages. Baltic Weekender remains one of the strongest arguments for doing things differently. The Liverpool festival has built its reputation on underground music, local support and pricing that feels almost anachronistic in 2026.

At £70 for two days, it's difficult to think of another festival offering comparable value. The Friday-Saturday format leaves Sunday free for recovery, sightseeing or one final trip around Liverpool before heading home. Combined with affordable hotels and transport, Baltic Weekender remains accessible in a way many larger festivals no longer are.

The site layout has shifted dramatically from 2025's edition, where stages were individually gated with security and staff had to remind punters to desperately keep off the streets as many of the roads were still in use. They’ve now shifted to a layout where the majority of the stages are covered by a festival site boundary where you pass through security and then can freely move between the stages within the area.

They’ve also moved away from the main venue from last edition, Camp & Furnace which was regulated to showing Arsenal vs PSG. I thought this was a good move, Camp & Furnace was my least favourite venue with overbearing security and a strict capacity limit that would lead to the venue being 1 in 1 out often meant that people would just set up camp in the venue, leading to the venue feeling constantly packed and toilet queues that took women up to an hour to get through.

Drinks weren’t allowed to be taken to and from these areas, which caused frustration as this wasn’t communicated clearly and meant that one mate who can’t quite finish his drink can (and will) hold back your entire group from moving between a non-festival and festival area. Baltic likely had to move to this model to satisfy licensing requirements with the council. It also means that security is pooled between stages, whereas individual stages would previously be overwhelmed by demand for a specific guest leading to long lines.

Unfortunately, with the capacity and the changes to the site, I felt like I explored the festival far less, people often didn’t want to lose the drink they just paid for and queues for some areas felt overwhelming. However being from London I didn’t mind buying drinks here too much, they were reasonably priced. A shot of Jagermeister was £3.50 and a beer was around £5 which is fair for a festival. You’re also welcome to grab drinks from a shop or pub elsewhere and head back in.

In terms of music it also felt like the weakest lineup in recent memory compared to the variety and notoriety of acts they’ve had in previous years. While Baltic Weekender was able to curate a great mix of headliners, these all clashed, with timeslots on or very close to each other.

I seem to have terrible luck with Fish56Octagon. Previous years saw him booked onto stages so busy I never got in. This year, I finally made it through the crowd, only to find the sound turned down so low I took my earplugs out. The set was great, but the volume wasn't. And once a dancefloor gets chatty, it's game over. The crowd talks louder, the music feels quieter, and the atmosphere tanks.

So we bailed and headed back to the KS Block Party stage, our favourite from last year. The sound there was immense: punchy, bass-heavy and loud enough to remind you why sound systems matter. The crowd was smaller, the music hit harder. Well worth the walk.

I feel like Baltic Weekender really came into itself on Saturday, when we headed over to the newest stage on Jamaica Street, which blocks off a chunk of the main road into Baltic and offers a ton of space. Chaos in the CBD and Job Jobse offered some serious reasons to commit with groovy sets that got the crowd really moving. With Baltic Weekender so close to Liverpool's city centre and shutting down at 10PM, we saw a lot of people refuel and then head out to keep partying, flooding nearby venues with eager partiers and giving them a boost.

Liverpool can often fall by the wayside when it comes to discussing cities with great music scenes, but Baltic Weekender proves it can still pull off what other cities can’t. Even without the promise of stacked headliners, they curate a huge number of underground DJs, many of whom are local to Liverpool, which is great to see. Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle feels unique in that it can deliver a festival experience that punches above its price tag without causing disruption that other cities would likely struggle dealing with. With such a focus on value it is visited by a ton of locals, many of whom feel frustrated that so many festivals and events often require travelling to Manchester or further down south.

It shows that when you curate an event for locals with affordable pricing it can attract even those from London like myself to come check out a festival that doesn’t monopolise a park for once. I’ll be there next year for sure.

This week's mix is from Selen, who's In The Booth below. As I write this on Monday it's the perfect antidote to the weekend's excesses. I squeaked with delight, apparently a thing I do now, when I heard JPATTERSSON's Balcony Talk cut in at 35 minutes.

Here's Selen, to describe the mix:

"Unexpectedly experimental sounds. There is always a groove. It may or may not make you overthink a little."

Selen, a London-based DJ originally from Turkey, has been on the ascendancy in the last year. I saw her at June 2025's Dancing Circles, a dance event in a sweaty railway arch on the hottest day of the year.

The smart thing to do would have been to stay as immobile as possible, but her B2B set with Adela made it impossible not to dance. Selen’s sets are, in her own words, "all about connecting people through the emotional power of music." In practice, this often means hypnotic grooves, deep vocals and sets that feel less surface level and more of a journey that you'll emerge from, blinking, at the end of the set.

What is your earliest memory of dance music? 

Going to a local pub as a teenager in Turkey was my smooth introduction to dance music. The music would start out as rock at the beginning of the night, then slowly transition into pop edits and an indie kind of vibe. It was all over the place, but I remember the first night my cousin took me out there, where I was just overwhelmed by how like-minded and connected everyone seemed on the floor.

What do you notice from the booth that no one else sees? 

I’m never entirely sure what everyone else is seeing, so I can’t really speak for them, but I love watching people's movements evolve throughout my sets. I see some people start slow and hesitant, while others come in fully invested from the first beat. Watching that energy shift and change across the room is really interesting.

When was the last time a crowd surprised you?

I played at an AM event at Number 90 in December. I was the second DJ of the night and with a 9:30 PM set time, I didn’t really expect the crowd to lock in that early. But about 15 minutes in, I could see everyone vibing. There was even a big group of people by the bar who told me later they were about to leave, but ended up staying and dancing hard throughout my entire set. I was so pleasantly surprised, I love me a completely locked-in crowd with minimal yapping!

What part of you only exists on a dancefloor?

It’s the physically uninhibited, loose part of me. Between sitting a lot for my work and studies, or doing highly structured, high-intensity exercises like spin classes, my day-to-day life is not as free (physically). The level of purely loose, random, free-flowing movement is unique to the dancefloor for me.

What song do you keep in your back pocket to cause trouble? 

Mjane - Bombay Adelaide (Fausto Remix). It’s such a perfectly layered remix, and I fell for it the very first time I heard it. I absolutely love the constant shifts in momentum and motion, it never fails to move the room!

How do you describe your sound? 

I’d say it’s provoking. It’s meant to provoke desire, anger, release, or tightness. I rarely play purely "happy, hopeful" music, because I think we get a bit too hooked on chasing happiness in life. It’s wonderful to feel comfortable, but I want to create comfortable spaces for uncomfortable feelings, too (the psychologist in me has entered the chat).

Who's your partner in crime? 

It’s got to be my teletubby, Natali. She’s a true music head. Throughout our friendship, we’ve bonded over many things as well as music and are constantly discovering different sounds through each other. She’s the absolute best partner in crime!

Why do you dance?

Part of me wanted to answer this in a super poetic, deep manner, but I feel like there’s already too much of that going around. I just love music and moving with like-minded people. Especially when a track has a strong melody and deep emotion, dancing just becomes this incredibly powerful physical expression that I love to practice.

Last year, you played B2B with Adela at Dancing Circles; this year you're doing it again. What should people expect? 

Adela is a wonderful DJ and a great friend, and I love sharing music with her. We are opening the night, and we both have little weird corners in our selections. So expect us to surprise each other with our tracks. It’s going to be a contrast, we don’t like predictable sounds too much. You’ll definitely see two friends having an absolute blast in the booth together.

What’s your favourite controversial opinion about dance music?

My previous answer about why I dance gives a hint on this one. There is so much chat about what dance music is, what it should be, how it used to be… all with good intentions for the sake of the community, of course. Before I started DJing, I never understood why people complained about everything in this industry. I get it now, but now I’m complaining about people complaining! Dance music is great, so my controversial opinion is really about how people make it their entire personality. I’m gonna sound like an old white man for a sec, but it’s really not that deep. Just enjoy what you enjoy, and leave people to it when you don’t. It is exhausting to watch people trying to be ‘someone’ by criticising certain genres and communities. 

What is a genre or style of music outside of your usual sound that secretly influences your sets?

I listen to a lot of traditional and ethnic music, even if I don’t understand the vocals. The cultural references, the unique percussion, and the raw emotionality definitely sneak their way into how I select and layer tracks in my sets.

If your DJ sets came with a mandatory warning label, what would it say?

Warning: It might hurt! I’ve actually been made fun of by friends recently because of the names of the playlists I have on Rekordbox, things like "dark slap", "tension", and "progressive thoughtful". My sets will definitely take you through the wringer.

What gigs do you have upcoming? I’m playing my first headline set on Friday the 12th of June at HWK with Raven and Camimi. We will play outside, with a street party kind of vibe from 6pm till late. I'm really looking forward to it!

We also have Dancing Circles at The Last Arch on the 26th of June. I’m playing b2b with my dear Adela, Tris b2b Nour and Ziying b2b GYS. This is the second time we are doing this event, and last year’s memories are still living in our heads!

It's a huge week for music events. Bradley Zero brings The Rhythm Section to The Carpet Shop after a month of tearing up Palais, while Selen is playing in Hackney Wick at HWK.

Saturday has DJ Nobu, Philippa Pacho and Rene Wise at The Cause, new party Another Thought is taking over a string of venues in Blackhorse Lane and Fold is running another Tech Couture that looks phenomenal.

If that hasn't exhausted you just by reading it, Fossil Archive returns to The Glove That Fits

Friday

Rhythm Section London with Sam Goku, Alex McCracken + Bradley Zero The Carpet Shop
Bait presents: the dubstep - tech house connection Venue M.O.T
Selen and Friends (free party) HWK

Saturday

⁠D.Dan & Freddy K curate w/ DJ Nobu, Philippa Pacho, JakoJako, Rene Wise + more (day party) The Cause
Another Thought 2026 (day party) Blackhorse Lane
Tech Couture // Chlär, ANNĒ, Mac Declos, Pablo Bozzi, Blasha & Allatt, BLANKA, Amphia, S3BA Fold

Sunday

Fossil Archive presents: Inigo Kennedy, bbecks, R.M.K The Glove That Fits

• A Soho residents' group has voted to oppose all new and renewed licenses for Soho. The group is also going to object to any venue that wishes to open beyond "core hours", which the Westminister Council has decided wraps up at 11am. Bonkers behaviour, and bad for the nightlife in Soho. Sadiq Khan, London's Mayor, has described the group's decision as "bad for London."
• You can listen to this bizarre Thomas Bangalter set on The Lot radio, which my friend Daria sent to me. It bounces around in a few different places, but I got a kick out of John Carpenter's Escape From New York theme popping up in here.
• Zohran Mamdani, New York City's Mayor, granted a 30-minute curfew extension to Chris Lake's Under The K Bridge show in NYC after the Knicks' won in the NBA Finals. Hard to imagine Sadiq Khan doing the same after Arsenal won, isn't it?