Justin Aulis Long in Los Angeles

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  • At some point during Justin Aulis Long's set at Black Lodge's Halloween party, I looked back and saw a dancer wearing a cartoonish pink elephant mask, vaping through the snout. Up front, a couple dudes wearing cow costumes cut a rug. Throughout the night, a smoke machine bellowed and balloons filled the upstairs room. Fake cobwebs lined the staircase leading up to the dance floor, while actual fog rolled through the empty streets outside. For a couple years now, Black Lodge has championed live, dark and acidic techno, first out of a tiny former leather bar in Silver Lake, and now, occasionally, in the vacant warehouses that dot downtown Los Angeles. Saturday's Samhain session, with Long, Vereker, 400PPM, Vexation and residents Force Placement, Kosmik and Simonowsky, was their most ambitious party to date. Vereker, a New York-based producer loosely affiliated with the fledgling Through Greater Evil label (which co-promoted the party), first emerged with releases on L.I.E.S., Berceuse Heroique and The Trilogy Tapes, but he's been relatively quiet since launching the Endangered Species label in 2014. His set consisted of creepy ambient interludes and thundering, 140 BPM-plus Belgian techno, mixed casually, if at all. Shawn O'Sullivan started his excellent 400PPM set with creaky haunted house sounds and an anemic kick drum. It was as though everyone—from Force Placement and Kosmik, who dropped Tyree's "I Fear The Night," to Vexation, who opened his live performance with blood-curdling screams—was gleefully celebrating their favorite holiday with piles of wax and analog gear. While the music was dark and comically aggressive, it was balanced out by a silly, celebratory vibe on the dance floor. A vampire bat cackled with anime characters. A man danced in a giant sombrero. Force Placement donned a terrifying baby mask. Chicago veteran Long was the night's master of satanic rites, opening his vinyl-only set with Ministry's "Isle Of Man." He gave equal footing to Chicago acid and Wax Trax! Records. After a barrage of slamming dance floor cuts from Armando ("151") and Traxx (the remix of DJ Hell's "Passionate"), he slowly worked in a wave of classics old (The Normal's "Warm Leatherette") and new (Streetwalker's "Future Fusion.") As dawn crept in, he wrapped up the pagan holiday with a suite of jangly death rock. Photo credit / Neal Reinalda
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