Psychedelic Babylon launched Toronto into the fall season by bringing Reality Test to Bunker last weekend. Although this young promotional company only began throwing parties months ago, their eye for top talent has driven attendance up at their events. Saturday night was no exception!
It was cool that evening as I arrived at Bunker – a welcome break from the week’s sweltering summer heat. Located a hop, skip and a jump from Fly 2.0, Bunker has a cozy, two-room underground setup. Adrian Marshall (The Psyntist) was already on the decks as I entered the club.
As people began to arrive, they clustered at the bar in the main room at first. The Psyntist’s beats quickly drew everyone into the second room where the DJ booth and main dancefloor were situated. The popular Toronto local displayed his skills while warming up the growing crowd with high energy tracks including Phaxe – Angel of Destruction (Neelix Remix), and a few Astrix favourites.
I took a quick breather near the end of the first set on the seating along the main room’s back wall where I admired the UV and black light deco that was accentuating the psychedelic atmosphere and adding colour to the club. I didn’t rest long, however, as Hugo aka MagicMushroom soon relieved The Psyntist on the decks.
MagicMushroom never disappoints! Laying down a perfect mix of psychedelic and energetic beats, he deftly kept the dancefloor moving in preparation for the night’s headliner. Unfortunately, in order to get enough signal to share some of this talented local’s set on our team’s instagram account, I did have to duck outside and miss a few moments. However, Bunker’s ability to disrupt my phone’s contact with the social media world focused my night more on the amazing music and enjoying my time spent catching up with friends, all without electronic interruptions!
The crowd roared as we arrived at the moment we’d all been waiting for – Reality Test took over the decks. Nica Iliuchina is based out of Berlin, Germany, and this incredible young Psytrance artist has been producing music for ten years, first under her original project: Iluichina, and now under the name Reality Test. Her powerful basslines, perfect track selection, and captivating melodies gave me a new perspective on progressive psytrance and I thoroughly enjoyed (and exhausted) myself dancing to the expertly engineered set.
The dancefloor was absolutely packed through Reality Test’s entire performance, and the rising temperatures in the smaller room forced me to rest for a moment or two on the seats in the larger main room to cool off. Flow artists had taken over the center of the main room to spin poi, glove, and perform lightshows which added colour, personality and flare to the ongoing musical experience.
Abtunes eased into the final set of the night as the crowd bid a fond farewell to our headliner. Although the volume of people in the club had begun to thin after 3AM, and continued to significantly diminish as Reality Test took her leave, Abtunes – who was also celebrating his birthday that evening – continued to provide stompworthy progressive psy beats for those dancefloor warriors who remained to the very end.
Thanks to the team at Psychedelic Babylon for a fantastic night! Be sure to keep an eye out for details of their next event which will be happening on October 27th, 2018!
Links:
The Psyntist
Facebook
Soundcloud
MagicMushroom
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Soundcloud
Reality Test
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Soundcloud
Abtunes
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SoundCloud
Jade – EDM TOR
