One Last Weekend in Corsica Studios

The thought of going out for three on the spin felt stupid. Even now, finishing this article up a week on, having been sidelined by a nasty cold (presumably caught in the mixer, compounded by no sleep and dreadful nutrition), I feel the same way – but there’s a wry smile there too. Worth it. Friday, Saturday, Sunday was the task: back-to-back-to-back in the legendary Corsica Studios, a couple of weeks before closing.

Another one bites the dust. Like many 30-something Londoners, I’m used to venues popping up for a short period of time, shutting down, or relocating entirely. This one hits different though. Probably my most visited late-night venue, Corsica Studios, has been a constant throughout my adult life. I would have been 19 or 20 when I first went – just a little baby! – and I’ve had my mind blown by many artists many times in those tiny rooms. (Shout outs to Motor City Drum Ensemble, DJ Sotofett and Romare in particular.)

Corsica have been really cramming the events in since they announced their closure towards the end of last year. Everyone wants one final chance to play in that little sweat box, to crank that imperious system one last time. In the week and a bit since I was there, they’ve hosted wall-to-wall titans: The Bug and Maribou State took over midweek nights, Antal, Hunee and Soichi Terada headed up a Rush Hour takeover. Dresden (ft. a classy Room 2 headed up by Tia Cousins and Matt Cowell) provided hypnotic vibes, and Bicep took over a Sunday night with the inimitable JG Wilkes (Optimo) in support. Scroll back through their listings on Resident Advisor for the year: it’s a real who’s who of electronic artists. Yet looking forward, all that’s left is the Hyperdub takeover (lineup of the year so far), Rupture (unannounced, but you can bet that’s gonna slap), and the closing event – a near-30 hour marathon, the poster showing some 40 obfuscated acts, all variations on “XXXXXX”.

Admittedly, I haven’t stepped foot in Corsica since before COVID (having been based in Manchester for a few years), but strolling through the non-existent queue on Friday night and slotting through the swinging double doors – glass peppered with stickers from a glut of record labels – an immediate familiarity washes over me. Some things have changed, mind: back in my day you could slide out of Room 2 into the smoking area, and the DJ booth has swapped sides in both rooms too. That’s also kind of the magic of Corsica – it’s small, yet somehow labyrinthian. It’s a little different from the last time you came but you can’t quite put your finger on what. It’s shifting. The cloakroom is outside. It’s fun.

Friday and Saturday nights are both playing host to Evian Christ and his TranceParty brand. These cult-like events come round a few times a year and play host to a wild range of artists: Evian’s roots are in hip hop, and there’s grime and distorted SoundCloud rap, alongside pummelling techno, ambient, and of course, trance. These are my first TranceParty events, but I’m with a regular who constantly bumps into people he recognises from previous events, exchanging pleasantries and knowing grins throughout the weekend. The first thing that hits me is the diversity of the crowd – representation from goth girlies through to massive lads – and how much of an effort people have made. 

The second thing that hits me is that a dozen people have seemingly snuck in with Costa Coffee cups. We ask, they reply: “Oh, it’s the special drink tonight”. What appears to be an espresso martini in an XL Costa cup – topped up with Coca Cola – is ours in exchange for £12. “Nothing Lasts Forever” is printed on the three mirrors opposite the bar. This beverage (of sorts) represents the direction of travel over the next two nights: TranceParty is somehow whimsical, not taking itself too seriously – yet so specifically curated. It’s an impressive balance to strike and they do it well. There’s definitely a lot of in-jokes that I don’t get, but you know what – that’s fine. Take me for a ride. 

We kick things off in Room 2 with DJ Lostboi. Well, in theory – apparently it’s not actually DJ Lostboi (they’re playing in the USA under another alias) – either way, the night starts with something fairly ambient. The lighting is a feature of TranceParty: here the slow-moving geometric projections hit the heavy smoke – some people’s eyes are closed, soaking up the gorgeous sound system – some people are playing with the lasers.

A necessary word for Room 2 here, by the way. The system is unbelievable: you feel it in your chest, yet you can catch the ear of your mate next to you. Mirrors down one side, a smoke machine that works overtime, crammed into a small box with a couple of hundred bodies. The club doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. It’s quite the tempo shift immediately after the ambient finishes: Amber D goes straight into hard house. Within 15 minutes, we get the timeless Club Caviar remix of ‘Blow Ya Mind’, while in parallel Room 1 is hosting live hip hop (one tune gets played four times in a row, I am told: deeply unserious).

The headline attraction is Clouds playing back to back with Evian Christ (billed as Evi Cristo) from 1 til 4am. This is masterful crowd work, building tension slowly through noise, always circling back to something resembling trance before flinging you in the opposite direction. As the set progresses, recognisable tunes are teased in more and more – at about 2, Evian’s ‘Miami2Ibiza’ remix sends the crowd into a frenzy having been pummeled by strobes for the past hour. The strobes are phenomenal, by the way – possibly the best use of lighting I’ve experienced in a club. The music is fast and intense, yet you can only see at 4 frames per second. You look side to side and see faces frozen in sheer ecstasy as they are flashed by white lights – the red-blue effects cause heads in the crowd to split in three like those 3D glasses you had to wear to watch Avatar. At times it’s like sensory deprivation. It’s genuinely astonishing, and so uniquely immersive.

The 3 hour set flies by: euphoria in the form of Robert Miles’ ‘Children’, comic relief in the form of a Club Caviar reload, bubblegum in the form of ‘Six Days (On The Run)’, hands in the air for the Seretide remix of The Saturdays’ ‘All Fired Up’. They’re not afraid to drop big tunes to give crowds those big payoff moments, but you do work for it. People hold up branded scarves like they’re at the football as Clouds and Christ close with a cut of Bicep’s ‘Glue’ and Styles & Breeze’s clubland stomper ‘You’re My Angel’ (we’re pissing ourselves, obviously).

Vuncle (yes – that guy from TikTok who cosplays as a charva) plays for an hour while we cool down. Room 2 has shut by this point so there’s no alternative programming, and a lot of the club have the same idea. Seretide and Evian Christ come back on for 5am til close at 7 – this set is slightly less hard work. I’m guessing the philosophy is “you’ve got this far, you’ve earned it”. This is track ID after track ID: bouncing from Milky to Guru Josh via ‘Show Me Love’, Pink Floyd, the Hardfloor remix of ‘Yeke Yeke’, the Gibson Brothers’ ‘Cuba’… and it works. More is more. ‘Put ‘Em High’ about 10 minutes before closing is cuddles and smiles, before it descends into heavy strobes and noise until the lights come up.

A stint on the northern line, a long sleep until the afternoon and a couple of lucozade sports later, we’re back in the pub anticipating the Saturday set times. A side note here – Elephant & Castle is so easy. I can arrive from North London in about the same time as my mates in the South East. As clubs get pushed out further and further, dancers have also got to factor in the cost of an hour-long Uber home as well as the £8 cans of Estrella and increasingly expensive door prices. Enjoy your local London nightlife while you can folks, before it’s entirely in Canning Town.

Once again there’s no queue on arrival (the TranceParty fans are already packing the joint out) – we arrive in time to catch the end of Seretide’s set. Truly there’s only one headliner tonight: Kelly Llorenna. Billed for 30 minutes, singing for 20: ‘True Love Never Dies’, ‘Heart of Gold’, ‘Tell It To My Heart’, ‘Set You Free’. That’s how you do it. A couple get engaged in the front row.

Dark0 and missingno pack out Room 2. This appears to be where the TranceParty regulars have piled in, definitely a lot more boisterous than the Friday crowd. The duo oscillate wildly between trance, grime, and hip hop – lots of it incredibly distorted (testing even those sublime Room 2 stacks) and a fair portion getting huge receptions from the crowd. It’s very clear that the pair are trying to build something fractured and stop-start – and people are digging it, to be sure – but a combination of never feeling like I can disconnect (compared to the night before for example) and the crowd being a bit on the pushy side, I dip back into the main room.

It’s punishing. Yet another Evian set, today billed as “Heavy Christ”. The novelty of the strobes still haven’t worn off – far from it. It doesn’t take long to get sucked into the sound and the spectacle, rudely thrown out of it to a Labrinth’s ‘Earthquake’. This is one of those songs my lot would have been used to hearing in crappy nightclubs, not on one of the best systems you’ll get, but it works. It’s somehow high concept yet reductive.

Another clubland classic in Hixxy’s ‘More & More’ hits like a sugar rush at about 3, but it’s the finale that’s memorable. The drone finally seems to subside, then suddenly, it’s instantly recognisable strings. ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ blasts out whilst the strobes flicker, Evian Christ standing above the stage like his namesake redeemer, soaking in the atmosphere. Just like last night, this finale feels like we’re in a football stadium – people arm in arms, bellowing tunes. Someone unfurls a flag.

One more sleep, one more dance. Sunday is a daytime event: 5-11pm. It’s You’re A Melody, a night whose genesis was just over a decade ago in Plastic People (another beloved London club that is no more) – the first lineup was Floating Points, Red Greg (who is here this weekend), and Jeremy Underground. Serious. (Highly recommended listening too - it’s all recorded).

This one is a tone shift. This one is a healer. While the Friday and Saturday crowds recognise large swathes of the songs, I leave You’re A Melody having identified basically nothing. It’s rare soul, funk and disco records, played out by people with deep crates and sensational ears. 

This is Corsica more as I know it: groovy, funky, sexy. It’s a slightly older crowd, far less intense, and far more dressed down. Instead of selling novelty drinks, they’re selling sandwiches. The vibe is so opposed to TranceParty, it’s amazing that we were being blinded by strobes some 12 hours prior. And even though in many ways the crowds do differ, there’s so much that unites them. There is still the same willingness to be taken on a journey by the DJ, the same friendly smiles and mini chats with strangers, the same reverence for this venue and the soundsystem.

It’s funny how much less there is in my head from You’re A Melody than TranceParty, but I think that’s because the first two nights were so intense – so detail-orientated – whereas this is nourishment. This is eyes closed and swaying, or giving your mate a spin and a grin. It takes me back to the South London Soul Train at Bussey Building (RIP), transports me to hazy, half-full festival tents. It’s the afters at your nice friend’s house. It’s a perfect way to say goodbye.

I leave the club on Sunday evening feeling warm and fuzzy, happily dragging myself to bed. I’ve spoken to people over the course of the weekend who have been attending for far longer than I have, I speak to people who are experiencing it for the first time. Nobody felt like an outsider in those walls. London will miss Corsica Studios, but just like many before, the city will adapt and evolve. As for what happens next – the team are still running the venue, but it’s not going to be reopening as a club, we know that. As for me – I’m still basking in the afterglow, happy to have left a piece of my heart (and a few brain cells) on that dancefloor, pondering whether to rock up for some on-the-door tickets on Sunday morning for one final farewell.