Gallery looks like a great club, but it doesn't feel like one

There are very few feelings in clubbing worse than spending an entire week looking forward to a night out, only to walk away wondering whether you should have stayed at home.

That's where I found myself on Friday after heading over to Gallery in Kensington to see Max Styler.

In truth, I'd been looking forward to this for much longer than a week. Styler's event had been on my radar for over a month, ever since I'd snapped up a £40 anytime ticket. Gallery, the 400-capacity club built around a 360-degree DJ booth that opened last year, felt like exactly the sort of place I should be giving a chance. It had generated a decent amount of buzz, impressed me with its bookings and even experimented with the occasional phone-free night. All the photos in this article are not Gallery, as I could barely move my arms in there to get a phone camera out.

I rolled up just after 11 pm, was waved inside without so much as a cursory search, and found myself in a venue that looked undeniably polished. Tasteful decorations, a cool lighting rig, a decent-sized dance floor, and a lineup that suggested someone had put genuine thought into building something special.

The frustrating part is that I wanted to love it.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of staying a tourist while clubbing. Trying new venues, taking a chance on DJs you've never seen before, of resisting the temptation to spend every weekend in the same handful of clubs simply because they're familiar.

Gallery felt like an opportunity to practise what I preach. It sat a little outside my usual orbit, but I was genuinely excited to give it a fair chance. Besides, I'd had Max Styler tracks in regular rotation for months, dropping various remixes of You and Me into my own tech house sets whenever I got the chance.

West London clubs have long had a reputation for attracting people who are there to be seen as much as they are to dance. It's an unfair stereotype in plenty of cases, and I hoped Gallery would prove it wrong. After all, the production was there, the bookings were there and, on paper at least, it had everything it needed to become somewhere worth travelling across the city for.

But clubs aren't built on how they look or their bookings. They're built on atmosphere.

One of the hardest things to manufacture in nightlife is that intangible sense of shared energy. You can spend thousands on lighting rigs, install the world's best sound system and book the biggest DJs out there, but none of it matters if the room never develops that feeling where everyone is invested in what's happening in front of them. Where strangers dance together, people grin at one another and nobody really cares what time it is. At Gallery, it never quite felt like that.

Instead, there was a sense that everyone was there for their own self-contained night, existing alongside one another rather than together.

The most memorable example was the couple in front of us. Barely 90 minutes after the club opened, they went from dancing together to an increasingly graphic display that culminated in him spinning her around, grabbing her chest and enthusiastically thrusting away, all less than half a metre from the DJ booth. My friend, tragically, discovered it was all happening at eye level. We quietly retreated to the bar instead.

Elsewhere, the mood just felt off. People were arguing with security to get into the VIP area, swinging fans with reckless abandon, barging through the crowd without so much as an apology and generally treating the dancefloor like an obstacle course rather than somewhere to lose themselves in the music. The only real moment of clubbing camaraderie came when a woman leaned over to warn me that someone had recently vomited on the sofa I was wedged against.

When that ingredient is missing, the whole event starts to feel oddly hollow. Which is a shame, because Max Styler deserved a crowd ready to meet him halfway. His set was excellent, full of the rolling grooves and infectious energy I'd been looking forward to for weeks, but the room never quite came with him.

Despite all the money that had clearly been poured into Gallery, the design, the production, the sound system and the bookings, it couldn't buy the one thing that actually makes people fall in love with a club: atmosphere.

Waiting outside for Uber's after, my friend and I both reached the same conclusion. We'd happily go and see Max Styler again.

Gallery? Probably not.

This week's mix is a B2B from our pair of In The Booth DJs, Hostmigrate and Massi NPL. As ever, it's available on Soundcloud, and if you're on the website you'll see it below. It's a pretty groovy mix, hitting the techno beats but also bringing a sludgy energy that I enjoyed as I was putting the newsletter together.

"The warm-up before the warm-up – a rhythmic, heated mix grounded in dub techno and layered percussion to recentre our energy before letting loose at the Greyhound." say Hostmigrate and Massi NPL, when asked to describe it.

Welcome to our first B2B In The Booth, bringing together Hostmigrate and Massi NPL in one interview to celebrate their upcoming night matter at The Greyhound on 17 July.

I first bumped into Hostmigrate at an open-air festival where he was watching along with one of my colleagues. I discovered that he was, at the time, also my colleague in that wild kind of way that big corporations can sprawl out. After that he encouraged me on my own DJ journey, eventually teaching me phrasing. All the while, he's been playing bigger and bigger shows across the capital.

Meanwhile, the London-based Massi NPL has spent close to a decade honing his craft as a producer and DJ in both the dance and ambient realms. First appearing in Los Angeles’ underground scene, he’s held residencies at various rave series and parties before going on to perform internationally from Hong Kong to New York. He currently hosts a monthly show on Noods Radio.

What’s the first track that made you understand what a dancefloor could do?

Hostmigrate: I had always been a fan of electronic music, but the first time I really felt the energy of a dancefloor was right after my first time DJing for one. Massi was playing the same night in a b2b with Tara Erizo, and I specifically remember them dropping the Floating Points edit of Back to Basics by Headie One. It felt like that captured the aura of everyone in the room, hearing a song I loved on huge speakers surrounded by people, it was really instructive.

Massi NPL: The first track that comes to mind is Sylvester’s “do you wanna funk”. I heard Teki Latex play it at Paris Pride when I was just getting into dance music. It’s a track I had heard thousands of times growing up and never thought twice about, but in that context, mixed between two techno tracks, it took on an entirely different form and carried so much more weight and energy. It was the first time that I truly understood the power of context in music, and that’s precisely what the dancefloor brings. There’s that running joke that when you listen back to the tracks you shazamed in the club they all sound terrible. It’s often true but that just means they sound bad that day, in your living room, listening on your phone. On the dance floor the previous night, they really were magical.

What is your earliest memory of dance music?

HM: The one that really set me on the current path was hearing Daniel Avery’s Dream Distortion for the first time during the pandemic. That pretty quickly put me onto the dance music wave after years of ambient and electronica by showing me that it didn’t need to be too extreme, or come with compromises. My mum was an OG raver in the 80s and 90s, so before that I heard loads of classic house and garage growing up, and still play a lot of those tracks out.

MN: growing up my parents listened to a lot of Moby, which is probably my first experience of electronic music and there are definitely a lot of dance elements in there. Later on, the first time I experienced it in person was at a warehouse party in LA where I went to uni. The DJ played a Galcher Lustwerk tune, I can’t remember exactly which one but I remember it was released on White Material. It blew my mind. That was my proper entry into dance music and I never looked back.

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

HM: There’s an art to noticing the gradations of movement people enter as a dancefloor warms up. You’re scanning for even the smallest change in posture or sway, something that engages with what you’re doing. It should be fun though, a guide rather than a rulebook. I think if you’re doing it right you don’t feel much different than anyone on the floor. You just happen to be doing something else, playing another role in the room.

MN: Nothing that the crowd wouldn’t be able to notice if they looked for it. It’s just that the preoccupation of a DJ is to have a larger view of the dancefloor in order to help set and guide the tone, while dancers should rightfully let go and focus on their immediate experience and the people dancing around them.

What part of you only exists on a dance floor?

HM: The part that refuses to remember itself. I think my biggest struggle is being too aware, so being able to lose myself in a pool of sound and move through it freely is really crucial. I’m honestly not much of a social dancer. I like to leave the outside self at the door.

MN: I don’t think any part of me exists exclusively on the dancefloor but I am able to tune into a state of pure emotion that I am not able to find in many other places.

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

HM: I think bass-heavy rap songs with female vocalists just have an insane energy about them at a certain time of night. I really like throwing in Bitch I’m Nice by Doechii between two garage tracks, it just flows in with such power. Also anything by Yung Bredda is pretty much surefire – I have a techy remix of How U Feelin that’s been known to shake things up.

MN: Mr. Ho’s Gagsteel starts in such an abrasive manner that it defies any transition. It’s just a hard cut into a loud “OH YEAH!” And then a heavy electro beat. Great for a quick energy switch.

How do you describe your sound?

HM: Techno mentality with ambient textures. I think coming into DJing from production really informs the way I do things. I like the way Carl Cox describes it, remixing in realtime, trying to make things collide in interesting ways. I think I lean on the pace and hypnosis that techno offers while looking for interesting sounds that offer some envelopment, a bit of distance from the world beyond the smoking area.

MN: I try to keep it eclectic but purposeful. There is definitely a techno aesthetic at the core but I don’t like to stick to one genre as it risks being predictable. I think there is probably a sentimental undertone to a lot of the music I like as well, and that transpires in how I DJ, even in the hyper and silly bits.

Who's your partner in crime?

HM: Right now I’m all in on working with Massi to make matter the best experience possible. Honestly some of the best b2bs of my life have been in the past few weeks getting ready for this gig, I genuinely can’t wait for 17 July.

Also gotta give a shout to ADHDJ – he and I are putting on a techno night at AAJA on 31 July as a new duo, Parallel Play.

MN: Hostmigrate for matter. We align on so many things. Hopefully this collaboration resonates with others as well.

Why do you dance?

HM: I wrote about this in a substack piece not too long ago – I used to think that the language of resistance attached to dancing was a bit pretentious, but the more life goes on and the deeper you get into your career, the more you realise that movement is something to be preserved and fought for. It’s a really natural, normal part of being human, but we’re told that being mature means moving less, staying still, being contained. I think dancing is a good reminder that you’re as much an external being as an internal one. It’s also a way to show up at the altar of really great tunes, to show an appreciation that can’t be delivered in words.

MN: to tune into the purer aspects of myself

How did you get your DJ name?

HM: The numbers, Mason! It actually came from Call of Duty, specifically Black Ops 2. When you lose connection to the server, it would come up with ‘Migrating Hosts’. I think I always responded to the idea of finding connection again, and I’ve always found the idea of invisible networks really alluring. I think DJing is an extension of that, the sense of connection. 

MN: I went by a few different names through the years but none of them ever felt quite right or I’d find out it was already being used by a rock band somewhere. I landed on Massi NPL before the release of my debut EP. It’s close enough to my real name that I can identify with it while being different enough that I can keep it separate from my sound and composition work outside of the club. 

You guys have been playing behind the scenes together for years. Why are you such good collaborators?

HM: I think we both share a music appreciation that does something new without overstating its presence, and try to embody that in the music we make and play out. Massi’s been a great mentor for that. We’re also similarly interested in process and how music gets imbued with meaning. Our b2bs can vary in tempo and genre but I think we’re always trying to unlock that meaning in new ways.

MN: There’s a genuine excitement paired with a lack of ego that comes out when we mix, produce and talk about music together that just clicks. Our collaborations deliver an equal mix of our strengths to create something we couldn’t do on our own.

Why did you choose to b2b for the entire 4-hour event?

HM: Personally, I’m just tired of short sets. The DJ circuit is really saturated of course but we shouldn’t let longer sets become a privilege for veteran or famous DJs. Crafting a journey and having the patience to let the music tell its story is an essential part of it. That’s how I contribute to a room, we both want to connect with our crowd and friends and family in the way we know best.

MN: Extended DJ sets are a win for everyone involved. As DJs, we are given the freedom to evolve gradually and take the set to interesting places. The dancers get a cohesive soundtrack to their night that is tailored to them and not several DJs trying to cram as much as they can in a one hour set.

Why did you choose The Greyhound for this kind of gig?

HM: It’s a staple of southeast London’s electronic music scene at this point – I’ve been to some great nights there and had friends put on really cool events. The sound system is also class for a venue of its size, and the shape of the dancefloor means it can feel as cozy or spaced out as you want it to be. The booking team has been really great to work with.

MN: We both have a strong connection to SE London and the Greyhound has a very open/inclusive ethos which rings true to what we are trying to achieve with matter.

What brings you together as DJs, and what sets you apart?

HM: From my side I think we both appreciate music that feels secure in its simplicity but can still really push a room forwards. There’s a genuine feeling of collage when we DJ together, the blends are long and additive.

On my side I think I’ll veer into faster tempos if given the chance. I’m a big fan of hardgroove techno and Ilian Tape-style breakbeat. But that raw energy blends really well with Massi’s insanely deep record collection and sense of transmission between tracks.

⁠Which elements of your experience will you lean on in this set?

HM: The set we’re playing for matter feels like a culmination of everything we’ve done together and everything I’ve done in the dance music space. With that said there are a couple of specific events I think I’ll pull from. I want to keep propelling the crowd as I did in my set at Corsica Studios a few years back, merging that curation with the sense of connection you get from smaller venues like Planet Wax and even house parties. From the production side I’m keen to use my years on the boards to bring together blends that feel both seamless and colliding in nature.

MN: I prefer not to plan DJ sets too much and react on the night. Especially with such a long one, it’s hard to tell where it will go. Hostmigrate and I have DJed together a lot though so I know we’ll be able to evolve cohesively and I’m excited to see what will come out of it.

What kind of prep have you been doing?

HM: A lot of really long DJ sets! And some digging of course, both in London’s record shops and online, looking for a lot of really unique and propulsive deep techno cuts. I’m also gonna buy some comfier shoes.

MN: What he said. We’ve also been sending each other a lot of memes.

Honestly, this is the first quiet weekend in a while, even this week's heatwave will vanish during the weekend. Says a lot about climate change when a 29C weekend is a cool one, huh?

Masses of people are likely to descend for Australian techhouse wizard Fisher, who's playing at Silverworks Island on Saturday. It does seem to have sucked the air out of the rest of the city, though, with the only "must-do" events being Manuka Honey and Tim Reaper on the Friday. Here are some events.

Friday

• Tim Reaper, Dwarde, Lady Passion, Moodswing, D-Dubz, T Dunn, BP (free party) Cu
• Flowdan, Ruff Sqwad, Novelist, Youngsta, DJ Maximum Phonox
• Manuka Honey, Suutoo, Pochola, OLUWA, XT1ANA Ormside Projects

Saturday

• FISHER with Gordo, Denis Sulta b2b KILIMAJARO, Oden & Fatzo (day party) Silverworks Island
• Lost Frequencies Open Air (day party) The Cause
• IKLECTIK 12th Anniversary Party Peckham Levels

Sunday

• Fossil Archive presents: Burden, DJ People's Princess, R.M.K The Glove That Fits

• Silverworks Island is going to show the England vs Norway match on Saturday night, for what it claims is London's biggest match screening. If you're watching Fisher, you can stay there for free. If you're not they'll be selling additional tickets for £11 so you can swing by and watch the match after. The World Cup has been pretty good for clubs this year, something I'll probably touch on next week.
• Glasgow-based DJ Bake's backpack was stolen in London on Saturday 5 July. The DJ was returning from playing at Ormside Projects the night before, revealing that the bag had most of my music collection inside it spread amongst laptops and hard drives, harrowing news.
• Four Tet has released a new album under the alias: "⣎⡇ꉺლ༽இ•̛)ྀ◞ ༎ຶ ༽ৣৢ؞ৢ؞ؖ ꉺლ", which you can listen to here.
• Another week, another shitty man in dance music - Andre King, one of the owners of Hoxton venue The Lion & Lamb, has been removed from the business after allegations of abuse coming in the wake of Lukas Wigflex pulling out of all shows last week after allegations about him from his ex-wife and former business partner.