1.Chill Out / special part (Intro.) by The KLF 2.A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld by The Orb 3.Cloudwalker ll by Biosphere 4.Terrasury by Sad World (Ramin & dr Atmo) 5.Caravan by Intergalactic Federation (Dr Atmo & Deep Space Network) 6.I will fight no more by Peyote 7.Paradise by Atlantis 8.Earth by The Orb 9 .Underwater by Intergalactic Federation (Dr Atmo & Deep Space Network) 10.Morphic Fields by Earth to Infinity 11.As Time Goes By by Carl Craig 12.Baby Interphaseby Biosphere 13.Everlasting Pictures (The Way I See)by B-Zet 14.Into The Paradise by William Orbit 15.ILove You by Electrotete 16.Beginning of Life by Mike Perras 17.Belfast by Orbital 18.Higher In The Sky by The Mackenzies Club XS lived in the shadow of Frankfurt’s 1990s techno temples Omen and Dorian Gray—and that’s what allowed it to service relatively more niche clubbing scenes. It became a hub for the emerging ambient scene as well as an early adopter of jungle outside the UK. This dare-to-be-different mentality came from its founders, veteran house producer and DJ Mark Spoon and local club promoter Alex Azary, who both felt the range of sounds they heard around the world weren’t well represented in Frankfurt, where techno and trance reigned supreme. They enlisted Amir Abadi, otherwise known as Dr. Atmo, to be one of their principal residents, and his strong connection to Pete Namlook and the Fax Records fraternity helped to establish Club XS’ credentials as a haven for ambient music. “In the evenings during the week, Mark Spoon, Azary and I used to meet and hang out at my place and listen to really deep chill-out stuff,” says Abadi, “so we felt that Frankfurt needed a new small and cozy place that really worked as a club in the sense of a youth club: open every evening as a place to meet and hang out with cool music as the connecting element, but also open for experiments of all kinds of arts.” Club XS opened in December 1991 and featured a diverse musical programme across five nights every week with décor to match the mood on any given night. The club attracted a cult following very quickly, and they instituted a strict door policy to maintain the convivial, family-oriented atmosphere they wanted inside. Wednesday nights were dedicated to European techno, featuring leading figures of the era such as Carl Cox, Laurent Garnier, Paul Van Dyk and Dave Angel. Friday nights saw XS team up with Mannheim club Milk! (which we featured in a previous edition of Anthems From) to bring in a more breakbeat-focused sound. Milk! residents Bassface Sascha and Groover Klein brought a forward-thinking range of jungle and drum & bass artists over before they were widely popular outside the UK, including LTJ Bukem, Grooverider, Storm, Kemistry and DJ Hype. Saturdays focused on house music, with Frankfurt mainstays Ata, Heiko M/S/O and Joe Jam inviting guests such as George Morel, Tony Humphries, Ron Trent and more. It was Thursdays and Sundays when Atmo and Alex took listeners deeper into the ambient sounds the club is best known for. On the opening night, XS featured a special dub DJ set from The Orb’s Alex Paterson, and they led live sheep into the club as a clear nod to the classic album cover to Chill Out by The KLF. Abadi looks back fondly on another particularly memorable night when a friend returned from travelling in South America with a bag of fresh magic mushrooms, which were promptly distributed around the club. Within the hour between 300 and 400 people—staff included—were all “completely tripping.” “One night nobodoy realized that the fog machine was going non-stop,” says Alex. “It was even streaming out of the door onto the street. Suddenly there was an emergency fire squad with about a dozen firemen with torches in full outfits walking through the crowd looking for the fire. This was the most bizarre scene you could imagine. People were completely freaking out. They really thought the aliens had finally arrived. Un-fucking-believable, and until today one of the most cult scenes that happened at XS,” he said. As is often the case with clubs that become the it-spot, XS started to attract unwanted attention from pimps, dealers and others not aligned with the club’s intimate and friendly ethos. Meanwhile the venue’s finances didn’t match the ambitious music policy, and Azary (who was primarily responsible for running the club) was drawn towards other projects. They decided to close the venue in December 1994. For a short time, this unconventional space was an emblem of the open-ended possibilities presented by electronic music in the early ‘90s. Below, Abadi selected some tracks that will give you an idea of the ambient sound of Club XS’s famous chill-out nights.

• published: 25 Feb 2018
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