Roman Flügel – an elder statesman of the techno scene; a DJ of unfaltering professionalism and talent; another to take their place behind the decks at Wire for an All Night Long shindig.

The night started as they always do: the punters bopping and swaying to the tunes as Flügel revved up and the crowd got into the swing of things. As always, there were some unlikely additions to the crowd, having clearly stumbled from Call Lane obviously looking to ‘take things to the dancefloor’, not appreciating the techno lair they had ended up in.

Once they had had their fill, the space cleared and things really got going. On and on came the techno, an ebb and flow from more gentle to heavier tracks allowing the crowd to keep up and Flügel to maintain momentum. Naturally, there were some better tracks and mixes, a few crafty Shazams and exploits of the Identification of Music Group allowing us to revisit the night the next day. These included the marvellous Daniel Avery track ‘Sensation’ (Daniel: please come back to Leeds?), ‘DMTF‘ by Telephones and ‘Tachyon‘ by Man Power.

By 5am, the only thing I could really think of was how Flügel had managed to last 7 hours, without a break, not even to go to the loo! This may seem a peculiar thing to go through one’s mind in the small hours of Saturday morning in an underground club in a soggy Leeds, but his stamina was really impressive to someone who struggles to concentrate for 20 minutes at a time in a lecture.

Without fail, his heart and soul went into every vinyl selection and mix, carefully matching the beats and occasionally breaking his reverie to gaze over the audience with a bespectacled smirk. The more I look back, the better the night gets – at the time it didn’t blow me away, but his consistency, care and control over the room was admirable. As were his abilities to focus and control his bladder (!)

Flora Tiley

(Image: Elliot Young)