Berlin-based producer, DJ and label magnate Cinthie Christl is formally recognized as the Vinyl Princess, and she held that mantle proudly at Bass Coast. Noted as one of the leading figures in German house, her studio creations come from banks of synthesizers, knobbing the likes of Moog, Roland, Behringer, Novation, all that 909, 808, 707, and 303 stuff. She spends a couple hours each day crafting her own original sounds, so Cinthie is indeed synthy, but her performance at the Slay Bay stage this evening cleanly tapped into the original spirit of the rave disc jockey.
At risk of being melted by the blistering daytime heat, she brought an actual stack of wax in order to serve it properly old school to the commoners. It looked like she was using four decks from where I was dancing near the bar, but she was definitely delivering a real vinyl house set as she would often duck down out of sight to grab the next selection from her stash.
On a night following the intense absurdity of Conducta and the hardcore Detroit techno bludgeoning of DJ Stingray 313, Cinthie mellowed things out, providing a consistent ballroom disco house bounce in an age of genre ADHD. Where pre-EDM producers tended to focus on trying out different sounds within a particular genre, main stage bookings these days often have a signature sound that they apply to a myriad of styles. As such, there is a certain comfort in hearing a clear vibe and a singular beat celebrated throughout an almost two-hour set. This is how everyone used to do it, and it's a dying art that deserves its reverence.
Unfortunately, Cinthie's set did not start off so smoothly. There was a trainwreck mix a handful of minutes in, followed by an incident where an overly enthusiastic partygoer dancing in front of the stage fell over backwards into the photo pit, the impact of which caused the record to skip. After that, an understandably frustrated dude came on a mic to say, "Please, everybody stay off the damn speakers! Stay off the speakers, please! Thank you!"
While it is customary for DJs to have a whole gaggle of friends, fellow performers, and various hangers-on grooving around behind them as they paint the silence, everyone cleared out from behind Cinthie after the speaker event. The rabble would eventually find their way back behind her as the set progressed, but this reprieve allowed Cinthie to get into the groove deeper than Madonna, producing clean, extended mixes from that point on, and she rode that momentum out to its conclusion.
She worked up a sweat a half hour in, shedding a layer of clothing in the lingering heat of the early morning. Granted, it was in the low thirties every day, and it didn't get all that much cooler by the time she took the stage at 4AM, but she definitely created a heat of her own. All hail the Vinyl Princess!