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[Report] A Decade of Enzyme (DE)

The third Enzyme of the decade is happening this year, and the second time it was held in Germany. After club Zak, the Dutchies of UHM decided to pay a visit to the End Art culture factory, located just outside of Aachen, near both Belgium and Holland. This meant a lot less travelling than in May, but at the same time, the date could not have been worse. Everybody knows the third week of September is always packed with events (Project Hardcore and Mindcontroller to name a few classics), but still every year organizations seem hell-bent on a date clash and this year was no different.

After the unexpected cancellation of Project Hardcore due to administration errors, everything seemed possible again. At least the Limburg posse would be in now! After lots of doubts, we made a last-minute decision to visit the Enzyme party instead of Mindcontroller or Elements Festival in Bruges. It took us about an hour to get there, and the line hadn’t moved a bit between us parking the car and arriving at the door.

After about ten minutes, things started to change and we were in pretty quickly. The token system was interesting and consisted of 50 cent tickets, which meant you had quite a big bundle in your trousers or wallet. Drinks were cheap too, 3 tickets or rather 1.50 euro for a coke. That's hard to find these days! The main area was located on the first floor, but there was too much light and not enough people (probably because you don’t expect to find the main area upstairs, so everybody automatically walked into the second and third area, which were located right next to each other).

The “traditional” area had to share the room with two merchandise stands; these being the usual suspects: UHM and Music Machine. This meant lots of light, in addition to the overkill provided by the lights around the small dancing stage. Luckily, this was picked up and improved throughout the night. A killer set to begin with: Lyrix played such tracks as “Feed The Aliens”, “The Great Strife”, “Fire & Blood”, “G-Town Madness – Gangsta Trippin”, “Syskwahor” and “Ophidian – Black”. The two latter were some of the tracks we were hoping to hear tonight, so this guy made sure our evening started out great!

Next up was The Outside Agency, performing a crazy set from old (“Vive La France”, “Guyver (TOA Remix)”, “We Move As One”, “Streets Of Avalon”, “Turbolenza - I Am The Creator”) to new stuff (“Industrial Cooking Spray” in the mix with “Primitive”) and right back again (“Break It Down”, “The Scrumbleheads – How It Sounds” and “Terrorizers – Straight From The Heart”). Of note was the crowd’s reaction to “Streets Of Avalon”, as this one is much less well-known than “Flowers Of Intelligenze”, which is on the same release. Everybody loved the acid sounds and wanted to know the track title.

A few days prior to the event, word got out that Triax had signed with Enzyme! For this occasion, the former UHM-producer and DJ would perform in all three areas and, although we were a bit skeptical at first, he delivered the goods! After building up his set with industrial songs like “Church Of Pentagram”, he quickly switched towards darkstep and crossbreeds like “Tormented VIP”, “The Resistance”, “Current Value – Faith” and the immortal classic “Cleansed By A Nightmare”. If he keeps this up, he will prove to be a worthy addition to the Enzyme-imperium indeed.

Then, for the second time during the night, Lyrix took over the turntables and was later joined by Ruffneck. As if two DJs playing under the Gangsta Alliance moniker wasn’t enough, Ruffneck decided to let an audience member join in on the fun. This meant a big shot for long-time fan DJ Humanoid, who eagerly took this opportunity with both hands, together with another talent who was invited later on. The crowd loved this spectacular and original twist and had a blast when listening to tracks like “Ganjaman”, “I’m A Ruffneck”, “Artcore DNA”, “In The Darkness I Was Made” and “Evolution Theory”.

The incredible record choices (sometimes it really seemed like the DJs were reading our mind) meant we never set foot outside the second area. Therefore, we also watched Synapse play a set full of rarely heard records, such as “Punishment Beyond Death”, “Apocalypse”, “Life Is Pain”, “Angel”, and “Cameltoe”, proving the important history of Enzyme Records. Too bad Ophidian (who was there as Enzyme-X), wasn’t granted a real chance to perform, as both areas on the ground floor were shut down at around 6.00 AM. Nevertheless, the party was great and definitely brought back memories of the first Enzyme-party by UHM, held in the Platte Zaal 8 years ago. We never once regretted our last-minute decision and felt this was one of the better parties of the year.