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The Guardian
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It can bring you to tears': is this the world's most beautiful sounding nightclub?
It's 8pm when DJ Lag steps up to the booth for his sound check at Open Ground, a dance venue in western Germany. It has been described as the 'best-sounding new club in the world', and when the first track plays you can hear why. Rotund bass lines roll across the acoustically treated room, propelled by an extraordinarily powerful, horn-loaded bass enclosure named the Funktion-One F132. High-pitched melodies and intricate textures develop with startling clarity. And as for the call-and-response ad-libs – they sound as if the vocalists are standing only metres away. Open Ground certainly knows how to make a great first impression. 'I remember the moment exactly,' recalls Eddy Toca, AKA Piccell. The Angola-born DJ, who is now based in Dortmund, is here to play alongside DJ Lag and the rest of Barulho World, his afro-electronic collective. 'It was a flash. It was a bang. We couldn't compare it to any other place we've ever played. It's like a dream.' Open Ground is located in Wuppertal, just outside the Ruhr valley, a location known predominantly for its 125-year-old suspended monorail and as the home of the late Pina Bausch's famous dance theatre. It's a five-hour train ride from Berlin, a city that has often stolen the electronic music spotlight from the rest of Germany due to its mythologised hedonism and notoriously selective scene, credited to clubs such as Berghain. Yet since opening in December 2023, Open Ground has become a pilgrimage site for nightlife enthusiasts and DJs from all over the world. British musician Floating Points has called it 'probably the greatest-sounding club in the EU.' Drum'n'bass DJ Mantra said: 'It can almost bring you to tears.' There are more than eight decades of embodied music knowledge between Open Ground's two founders, Markus Riedel and Mark Ernestus. Prior to the club, Riedel worked for 20 years at the esteemed Berlin-based record label Hard Wax, which was founded in 1989 by Ernestus, who is known for his pioneering work in dub techno with Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound. In 2008, Riedel relocated with his family back to his native Wuppertal to take a position at his brother's company, a global communications firm that lists Formula One, the Fifa World Cup, Eurovision, and the Olympics as its clients. Eight years later, the city approached the Riedel brothers with an idea to convert a decommissioned second world war bunker near the train station into a nightclub as part of its urban renewal efforts, though the project itself has received no cultural funding. Entirely financed by Riedel's brother Thomas, the renovation took seven years and involved big recalibrations: they had to consolidate several smaller rooms, saw out the concrete ceiling, and account for an unexpected water reservoir space that now serves as the ventilation room and the smaller 'Annex' dancefloor. The team even changed the air-conditioning system to accommodate for the ideal positioning of the sound design. Riedel, Ernestus and Open Ground's music curator Arthur Rieger take me on a tour before its opening hours. Stepping inside the space, divorced from the usual chatter of patrons, there is an immediate, monastic hush that envelops the entire club. The acoustician, Willsingh Wilson of Wax Acoustics, installed wall-to-wall grey fibre panelling throughout the entire space (rather than only in the music areas, as is the case with most clubs). This patented material absorbs disruptive sonic reflections, providing a prime container to exalt the Funktion-One and its full spectrum range, from high-pitched bird chirps of 20 kilohertz to low, vibrating frequencies that stoop to 24 hertz. Open Ground is also one of the rare indoor installations of the potent F132 subwoofers. Ernestus does not consider great sound a luxury, but an imperative. 'When humans were hunters and gatherers, our ears were our alarm system,' he says. 'The ears are one of the first organs that develop in the embryo and are hardwired to the parts of the brain that process stress. Even 50 decibels, which is a quiet room with a fridge, for example, can be damaging in the long run. It increases your risk of cardiovascular disease. Basically, there's almost no healthy noise.' Prolonged exposure to poor-audio quality and inadequate acoustic treatment in particular is an occupational health hazard. The human nervous system perceives distorted, harsh or poorly balanced sound as a low-level threat, triggering a cascade of physiological stress responses that can manifest as increased cortisol production, muscle tension, cognitive fatigue and sleep disruption. Compounded long term, this can lead to an increased risk of heart disease and metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes. The brain also compensates for the dissonant auditory input with headaches and eye strain. Yet paradoxically, poor audio quality will often cause DJs to increase the volume of the monitors to compensate, only to further aggravate the body. This is why, in its most extreme forms, sound has been used by military forces as psychological sonic warfare to induce anxiety attacks, ear pain and hypertension. Ernestus has had tinnitus since the age of 18, so he is intimately aware of music's physical toll. 'Normally if I am in a club for most of the night – tinnitus aside – I can feel just how knackered I am the next day from the stress level. Here, I sleep only an hour longer maybe, but I feel fit.' If acoustic investment is so vital, why is it systematically undervalued? According to Ernestus, the barrier isn't necessarily financial, but a matter of misplaced priorities. 'We take in about 90% of sensory information through our eyes, and I think it is because of that that the visuals are always overrated,' he said. 'Club owners who I know would typically rather spend €50,000 on an amazing LED installation than the same amount on acoustic treatment.' At Open Ground, there also appears to be a commitment towards artist welfare that can only be intuited by people who have spent a greater part of their lifetime at raves. Backstage, artists have private showers to freshen up after long, irregular hours on the road. There's a bathroom adjacent to the booth for DJs pulling night-long shifts. Before the show, artists gather backstage for a catered vegetarian dinner because healthy meals are hard to come by on tour. 'A lot of the planning came from our own experience. If you give an artist or DJ ideal working conditions, it translates into a good performance,' Riedel says. Optimising for every detail ultimately benefits audiences, too, in subtle ways that the casual clubgoer may fail to notice. Annex and the main dancefloor Freifeld are strategically designed and lit for individuals to dance comfortably on a sparse floor. In the indoor sitting area, there are small monitors playing out the set from Freifeld in real time, so clubbers can rest while still engaging with the music. Throughout, no one needs to raise their voices to converse with one another. Returning to the dancefloor after my tour, I watch a twentysomething woman in the front row flail her entire body to and fro, losing herself in a wild, interpretive dance. The night is still young and the main floor still semi-empty, but she moves as unselfconsciously as though it is peak time. Gazing at her, I think back to what Markus's wife, Christine, told to me earlier in the night: 'The sound is so good, you don't need drugs.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It can bring you to tears': is this the world's most beautiful sounding nightclub?
It's 8pm when DJ Lag steps up to the booth for his sound check at Open Ground, a dance venue in western Germany. It has been described as the 'best-sounding new club in the world', and when the first track plays you can hear why. Rotund bass lines roll across the acoustically treated room, propelled by an extraordinarily powerful, horn-loaded bass enclosure named the Funktion-One F132. High-pitched melodies and intricate textures develop with startling clarity. And as for the call-and-response ad-libs – they sound as if the vocalists are standing only metres away. Open Ground certainly knows how to make a great first impression. 'I remember the moment exactly,' recalls Eddy Toca, AKA Piccell. The Angola-born DJ, who is now based in Dortmund, is here to play alongside DJ Lag and the rest of Barulho World, his afro-electronic collective. 'It was a flash. It was a bang. We couldn't compare it to any other place we've ever played. It's like a dream.' Open Ground is located in Wuppertal, just outside the Ruhr valley, a location known predominantly for its 125-year-old suspended monorail and as the home of the late Pina Bausch's famous dance theatre. It's a five-hour train ride from Berlin, a city that has often stolen the electronic music spotlight from the rest of Germany due to its mythologised hedonism and notoriously selective scene, credited to clubs such as Berghain. Yet since opening in December 2023, Open Ground has become a pilgrimage site for nightlife enthusiasts and DJs from all over the world. British musician Floating Points has called it 'probably the greatest-sounding club in the EU.' Drum'n'bass DJ Mantra said: 'It can almost bring you to tears.' There are more than eight decades of embodied music knowledge between Open Ground's two founders, Markus Riedel and Mark Ernestus. Prior to the club, Riedel worked for 20 years at the esteemed Berlin-based record label Hard Wax, which was founded in 1989 by Ernestus, who is known for his pioneering work in dub techno with Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound. In 2008, Riedel relocated with his family back to his native Wuppertal to take a position at his brother's company, a global communications firm that lists Formula One, the Fifa World Cup, Eurovision, and the Olympics as its clients. Eight years later, the city approached the Riedel brothers with an idea to convert a decommissioned second world war bunker near the train station into a nightclub as part of its urban renewal efforts, though the project itself has received no cultural funding. Entirely financed by Riedel's brother Thomas, the renovation took seven years and involved big recalibrations: they had to consolidate several smaller rooms, saw out the concrete ceiling, and account for an unexpected water reservoir space that now serves as the ventilation room and the smaller 'Annex' dancefloor. The team even changed the air-conditioning system to accommodate for the ideal positioning of the sound design. Riedel, Ernestus and Open Ground's music curator Arthur Rieger take me on a tour before its opening hours. Stepping inside the space, divorced from the usual chatter of patrons, there is an immediate, monastic hush that envelops the entire club. The acoustician, Willsingh Wilson of Wax Acoustics, installed wall-to-wall grey fibre panelling throughout the entire space (rather than only in the music areas, as is the case with most clubs). This patented material absorbs disruptive sonic reflections, providing a prime container to exalt the Funktion-One and its full spectrum range, from high-pitched bird chirps of 20 kilohertz to low, vibrating frequencies that stoop to 24 hertz. Open Ground is also one of the rare indoor installations of the potent F132 subwoofers. Ernestus does not consider great sound a luxury, but an imperative. 'When humans were hunters and gatherers, our ears were our alarm system,' he says. 'The ears are one of the first organs that develop in the embryo and are hardwired to the parts of the brain that process stress. Even 50 decibels, which is a quiet room with a fridge, for example, can be damaging in the long run. It increases your risk of cardiovascular disease. Basically, there's almost no healthy noise.' Prolonged exposure to poor-audio quality and inadequate acoustic treatment in particular is an occupational health hazard. The human nervous system perceives distorted, harsh or poorly balanced sound as a low-level threat, triggering a cascade of physiological stress responses that can manifest as increased cortisol production, muscle tension, cognitive fatigue and sleep disruption. Compounded long term, this can lead to an increased risk of heart disease and metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes. The brain also compensates for the dissonant auditory input with headaches and eye strain. Yet paradoxically, poor audio quality will often cause DJs to increase the volume of the monitors to compensate, only to further aggravate the body. This is why, in its most extreme forms, sound has been used by military forces as psychological sonic warfare to induce anxiety attacks, ear pain and hypertension. Ernestus has had tinnitus since the age of 18, so he is intimately aware of music's physical toll. 'Normally if I am in a club for most of the night – tinnitus aside – I can feel just how knackered I am the next day from the stress level. Here, I sleep only an hour longer maybe, but I feel fit.' If acoustic investment is so vital, why is it systematically undervalued? According to Ernestus, the barrier isn't necessarily financial, but a matter of misplaced priorities. 'We take in about 90% of sensory information through our eyes, and I think it is because of that that the visuals are always overrated,' he said. 'Club owners who I know would typically rather spend €50,000 on an amazing LED installation than the same amount on acoustic treatment.' At Open Ground, there also appears to be a commitment towards artist welfare that can only be intuited by people who have spent a greater part of their lifetime at raves. Backstage, artists have private showers to freshen up after long, irregular hours on the road. There's a bathroom adjacent to the booth for DJs pulling night-long shifts. Before the show, artists gather backstage for a catered vegetarian dinner because healthy meals are hard to come by on tour. 'A lot of the planning came from our own experience. If you give an artist or DJ ideal working conditions, it translates into a good performance,' Riedel says. Optimising for every detail ultimately benefits audiences, too, in subtle ways that the casual clubgoer may fail to notice. Annex and the main dancefloor Freifeld are strategically designed and lit for individuals to dance comfortably on a sparse floor. In the indoor sitting area, there are small monitors playing out the set from Freifeld in real time, so clubbers can rest while still engaging with the music. Throughout, no one needs to raise their voices to converse with one another. Returning to the dancefloor after my tour, I watch a twentysomething woman in the front row flail her entire body to and fro, losing herself in a wild, interpretive dance. The night is still young and the main floor still semi-empty, but she moves as unselfconsciously as though it is peak time. Gazing at her, I think back to what Markus's wife, Christine, told to me earlier in the night: 'The sound is so good, you don't need drugs.'
The Guardian
08-06-2025
- The Guardian
Riding high in Germany on the world's oldest suspended railway
It's easy to be seduced by the romance of train travel. Think of sleeper trains, boat trains, vintage steam railways, elegant dining cars. But it's rare that an urban transport system can capture the imagination quite as much as the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany caught mine, and that of anyone else who's clapped eyes on the world's oldest suspended railway. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. In October it will be 125 years since Kaiser Wilhelm II took a test ride in the Schwebebahn, just a few months before the hanging railway officially opened for business in March 1901. It was an incredible feat of engineering then, and remains so today. Even with sleek modern carriages having long replaced the original ones, it looks like something imagined by Jules Verne, with carriages smoothly gliding under the overhead track. They have even preserved the first 1901 carriage, nicknamed Kaiserwagen, which can be hired for private occasions. A childlike feeling of glee filled me as I sat in the rear of the long carriage and watched the city reveal itself as I floated anything from 8 to 9 metres (26ft to 39ft) above it. At the railway's westernmost end, Vohwinkel is the first of only four stations whose carriages run above the street, between iron arches. The rest of the railway, which in total runs for just over eight miles, follows the route of the river Wupper. As the hanging train curves and sways above the serpentine river, it turns this commuter service into something like a fairground ride for its 80,000 daily passengers. My hitherto unknown train geek had been unleashed and was utterly delighted. The Schwebebahn came about almost by accident. The Wupper valley, about 15 miles east of Düsseldorf, was a major textile production base when Germany was undergoing its own Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. As workers flooded to the growing cities of Barmen and Elberfeld – which merged in 1929 and were renamed Wuppertal in 1930 – the authorities realised a public transport system was needed. Other cities were going underground, but Wuppertal's rocky soil and narrow, steep valley made any sort of U-Bahn impossible, forcing the Schwebebahn's inventor, Eugen Langen, to look up instead. At Schwebodrom, the railway museum that opened in late 2023 near Werther Brücke station at the line's eastern end, the rich history of the Schwebebahn is laid out in three galleries, revealing one fascinating detail after another. One gallery tells the story of Tuffi, a young circus elephant loaded into the Schwebebahn for a publicity stunt in 1950. Poor Tuffi was so spooked by jostling journalists that she bolted through a window and tumbled into the river. Luckily she was only lightly bruised and lived for another 49 years, her landing spot in the Wupper now marked by an elephant statue between Alter Markt and Adler Brücke stations. You can't move in Wuppertal without seeing Tuffi on some souvenir or another – even on milk cartons. Among the museum's films and displays, the highlight for me was the reproduction of an original carriage, where I sat glued to my VR headset and found myself in 1920s Wuppertal. After riding the rails in real life, I was able to go back in time to see what had changed. Much of Wuppertal had to be rebuilt after heavy allied bombing in the second world war, and the railway itself has been completely reconstructed – including its art nouveau stations – while keeping the original steampunk-style design in the iron girders. But there is a Wuppertal beyond the Schwebebahn, and this city of about 350,000 people was as full of pleasant surprises as its railway. Local guide Heike Fragemann took me to the tree-lined streets around Laurentiusplatz, a square dominated by the austere-looking 19th-century basilica of St Lawrence, dedicated to Wuppertal's patron saint. Popular with many of the 23,000 students at the University of Wuppertal as well as people of all ages, the cosmopolitan streets hummed with cafes, delis, boutiques, bars and restaurants run by some of the many nationalities that have settled here over the decades – Italian, Turkish, Greek, Indian, Vietnamese and Spanish among them. In fact, the range of restaurants throughout the city was huge, and also included Lebanese, Chinese, Croatian and traditional German fare. Pointing out an example of Wuppertal's distinctive style of architecture – slate cladding, green shutters and white window frames – Heike led me along the narrow streets behind Laurentiusplatz as we steadily walked uphill. Not only was Wuppertal Germany's Manchester because of its industry, Heike told me, but it was also compared to San Francisco thanks to its steepness. 'We are the city of steps,' she said as we came to yet another one. 'We have 500 staircases, more than 12,000 steps within the city. This is the most famous one.' She pointed to a sign with the captivating name of Tippen-Tappen-Tönchen, in honour of those 19th-century workmen clopping in their wooden clogs towards the riverside factories – hence the tipping-tapping sound. One to add to my list of adorable street names. Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion It was the wealthy 19th-century industrialists who shaped the city, not just with their comfortable hillside villas, but also with Wuppertal's cultural institutions. The Von der Heydt Museum, named after an art-collecting banking family, houses its impressive collection of 19th- and early 20th-century art in what had been the neoclassical town hall. The entrance is flanked by two large sculptures by the Liverpool-born Turner prize-winner Tony Cragg, who made Wuppertal his home in 1977. The Historische Stadthalle concert hall, marking its 125th anniversary this year, had Richard Strauss as one of its first conductors and Sir Simon Rattle rated its acoustics among the best in the world. Public gardens fill many of the gaps in the city, including the vast hilly Botanical Garden. As I sat in the warm, bookish surroundings of Café Engel in Laurentiusplatz, I was reminded of Friedrich Engels, the son of a wealthy Wuppertal textile manufacturer, who turned his back on his bourgeois background to co-author The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx after seeing the appalling working conditions in mid-19th-century Manchester. Engels died in London six years before the Schwebebahn opened, and it was many years earlier that the city's industrialists had already implemented social reforms for working-class residents that were ahead of their time. The Schwebebahn, too, looks like something from the future, but its story is purely of Wuppertal's unique past. Here, in Germany's old industrial heartland, the high life is yours from €3.60 a ticket. This trip was provided by the German tourist board and Le Shuttle, which has return fares from Folkestone to Calais from £155 per vehicle. Further information at Doubles at Holiday Inn Express Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof (some with views of the Schwebebahn), start at £79B&B. Schwebebahn 24-hour tickets €8.80, and €4.40 for additional passengers. Schwebodrom adults tickets €16.50
Top Gear
26-05-2025
- Automotive
- Top Gear
The ‘MH4 900' is a BMW M4 CSL with more power than a McLaren P1
The 'MH4 900' is a BMW M4 CSL with more power than a McLaren P1 Manhart's got its hands on yet another Bimmer, and the results are predictably wild Skip 17 photos in the image carousel and continue reading Turn on Javascript to see all the available pictures. 1 / 17 This is the Manhart 'MH4 900': a G82-series M4 CSL with a terrifying 909bhp running through its straight-six veins. Yes, more than a McLaren P1. Only a bit more, but still. Yeesh. The additional yeesh comes courtesy of a new intercooler, forged pistons and carbon intake, plus new turbos supplied from TTH. There's also the not-so-small matter of 878lb ft of torque. This thing could probably generate its own black hole if the conditions are right. Advertisement - Page continues below No mention of any acceleration figures, but considering the regular CSL can do 0-62mph in 3.7s and 191mph flat out, expect the MH4 900's to be 'very' and 'yes loads'. The 900 also gets Manhart's go-to colour combo of black with champagne accenting - the latter used to highlight that grille more clearly. There's a lot of body happening here: an 18-piece carbon fibre body kit with new bumpers, aprons and louvres, 21in alloys and fatter 110mm tailpipes. Pricing is yet to be confirmed, but do consider the CSL was a limited-run model that's no longer on sale. So you'll need to source one first before you send it to Manhart's main workshop in Wuppertal, Germany. Advertisement - Page continues below Top Gear Newsletter Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox. Success Your Email*
