A preponderance of fun in an unexpected setting: Moxie in the Atrium
Does every party have to be a journey into the depths of one's soul? Moxie emphatically says "no" to a fully-locked crowd at Public Records
How many parties would be too many to attend in a single weekend? While I never originally intended to find out, I discovered this past weekend that the answer for me in my current incarnation is somewhere just shy of three.
Based on what I’ve published so far, it may seem like I only ever go to raves as part of some quest for greater purpose and meaning in life. The truth is, that’s neither my preference nor my intention for most nights out. This type of set just happens to be in vogue in today’s rave scene. Like the Instagram-driven, Michelin Star-chasing, tasting menu-ification of fine dining, selectors want to challenge your notions of taste, make you think big thoughts and feel big feelings, and take you on a journey you won’t soon forget. But what if all I want to feel is “really good,” and all I want to think is, “Wow, this is so much fun!”?
Alice “Moxie” Moxom is one of NTS Radio’s longest-tenured residents, with good reason. Since NTS went live in 2011, her two-hour Wednesday broadcast brings listeners the best of what’s on offer in the world of UK garage (pronounced GARE-uhj), house (along with all its subgenres), and dub music.1 Much of it’s new, and some of it’s from her imprint—On Loop Records—but the old school hits (from the likes of Todd Terry, Ron Trent, Carl Craig, etc) and lesser-known vintage tracks she resurfaces during digging expeditions also make frequent appearances. The show is tied together by Moxie’s sonorous and soothing presence on the mic—she even has a side gig as a voiceover narrator. I don’t listen every week, but when I do, it always puts a spring in my step and a smile on my face.
The first and only time I saw Moxie perform in New York was in 2019 at one of Elsewhere’s “Elseworld”-branded club nights, which were multi-room, DJ-led parties seeking to establish this rock venue’s reputation as “the Berghain of New York”—a laughable notion since it’s impossible to imagine even the worst European club charging anything near $20 for a tall can of Pacifico. That night, as with most events in New York, no set times were posted, so we arrived at the reasonable and early hour of 12:30 AM, just in time to catch her last song as she left the stage. It was a huge disappointment seeing as she plays so rarely in the States. Indeed, this past Sunday’s party at Public Records would be her first in New York since 2019.
Most Public Records parties take place in the Sound Room–– a fancy-looking, birch-clad, windowless club space with four-point sound, and a hardwood dance floor plagued by many quiet zones created by inter-speaker interference that encourages people to talk instead of dance. Despite this fact, it’s widely “known for having the best sound in the city”, largely due to the reputation of the system’s designer, Devon Turnbull of Ojas Audio—a talented protege of the late Virgil Abloh.
It’s rare for a venue to gain a following based on its sound designer, but that is very much the case at Public Records, as evidenced by the demographics of its clientele. A typical crowd on any given weekend leans straight and male. Any given attendee might be wearing a vintage graphic tee purchased on eBay for over $60, a pair of limited-run Nikes that you have to buy using an app, a Rolex watch, or, as is often the case, all of the above. Consequently, opportunities to lock in are few and far between, and I know many scene ravers who refuse to go there on principle. You either have to come to a co-promoted event on an off night—such as Dweller’s excellent Thursday night party featuring Tim Reaper this past February—or, as was the case this past Sunday, buy a ticket for one of their Sunday afternoon outdoor Nursery parties and hope it gets rained out and moved into the Atrium.
The Atrium is situated inside an old, brutalist industrial building with soaring concrete ceilings featuring huge skylights and a minimal, albeit effective, dose of color-adjustable mood lighting. Typically, it’s filled with tables and seats for its day job as a vegan restaurant. But from time to time, all of that comes out, and the monolithic, green-painted, Turnbull-designed speakers from the Nursery get wheeled in. The Atrium is an objectively large space for Brooklyn—probably twice the size of Nowadays’ indoor area, but it’s still not big enough to fully contain the power of these green monsters. They are so loud that there can be no talking overheard within a 20-foot radius of either stack. It can even be difficult to place an order over their booming bass and sparkling treble whilst standing back at the bar. Perhaps most interestingly, if we consider the speakers to be at the front of the room, the DJ booth is situated orthogonal to them at stage right. This makes for an interesting dance floor dynamic because the DJ is working within the same sonic environment as the audience—even though they also have separate monitors.
We step into the venue, already tired from a long weekend of other great parties. But we’re here for a good friend’s 31st birthday and would not have missed Moxie’s stateside return unless we were physically incapacitated and prevented from doing so. I didn’t even think twice about buying tickets as soon as they were announced, despite the venue. While waiting for the birthday girl and the rest of the crew to arrive, I ordered and inhaled an $18 vegan burger served with furikake potatoes and harissa ketchup. You won’t find that at a DIY venue.
Despite the distinctly Public Records demographics of the rather small crowd, it was a cute scene. Most of the roughly 50 attendees were dancing beneath the skylight and in front of the speakers, and those that weren’t were hanging respectfully back by the bar or outside, where conversations belonged. Surveying the crowd, I spotted one person I’d maybe seen once at Nowadays or some DIY show. They wore Salomon sneakers, black cargo pants, vintage wire frame Oakleys, and a black bandana as a head scarf. Or it could have just been their raver costume for the day.
At one point, I clock a ginger man stealing glances in our direction from the other side of the bar who is the spitting image of a Kiwi friend and coworker of one of our best friends who lives in Berlin. But this particular ginger is in New York and wearing a black-on-white G-Star logo baby tee with extremely low-rise, wide-legged, bootcut cargo jeans framing the entirety of his bare midriff. Surely, this was his gay döppelganger. I thought about sneaking a pic to send to our friend but ultimately decided against it. Only later in the evening did he approach me to confess that he was in fact who I’d thought he was and that he was in the midst of a little solo vacation across the pond. We sent a selfie to Berlin and I got the explanation back that this guy had decided to entirely change up his look in the past year after being denied entry to Berghain one too many times. He is still as straight as ever but hasn’t been denied entry since the wardrobe refresh.
The party had officially started at 2 PM and was originally scheduled to end at 8, so by the time 5:30 rolled around and there was still no sign of Moxie, we began to wonder what was going on. It was no skin off our backs because the Montreal-based Regularfantasy was doing a great job on warm-up duty and kicked it up a notch in the last hour. Her house-forward set was easy to eat, striking a nice balance between getting people excited to dance more while keeping things vibey and chill. She kept the melodies flowing but held back on the bass and percussion, leaving a little something in the tank for after sunset. Her biggest moments came in the form of a couple of trancey house edits of older pop hits: a totally untraceable “Barbie Girl” remix that we recognized from her set at Horst 2023 and a similarly vibey edit of Crazy Town’s “Butterfly”, which was identified on the CDJ display as “A1 Crazy Vilage [sic] VINYL ONLY.” Good luck finding either.
By the time Moxie arrived a bit after 6 PM with her husband Leon Vynehall in tow, the sun had begun to set, causing the mood lighting around the rim of the skylight to take on new prominence in the space. What had felt like an indoor version of an outdoor party for the past couple of hours began to cohere into a clubbier environment that was heavy on vibes and blessedly lacking in artificial fog. It was, however, heating up. As Regularfantasy handed over the controls to her successor, she got a round of applause led by Moxie herself. It was a cute reprieve before Moxie decided that between the changing light and her late arrival, she was going to make up for lost time.
A funny thing often happens when a headliner takes over from the opener. The sound just becomes bigger, not necessarily louder, but everything hits harder and clearer. Kick drums and basslines feel deeper, and more embodied. Snares simultaneously get crisper and less grating. And vocals feel warmer, ringing out more sonorously. I am not sure how or why this happens. Part of it must be psychosomatic on the part of the listener anticipating the changeover, but at least some of it ought to do with all the knob fiddling that happens on the mixer’s EQ. Like any other instrument, each sound system has its quirks and strengths that must be learned, accounted for, or highlighted. The more experienced deck players are just better at feeling this out.
After Moxie takes the lead, the music gets much more intense. We are still squarely in the realm of happy house music, bopping along around 125 BPM and there would be no pitch-fader trickery tonight. But the tracks being played have an edge to them that felt new and invigorating. No pop edits will appear from here on out, which was a bit disappointing to me on account of my desire to hear the “Nasty Girl” - Tinashe remix she’d opened her September 18th radio show with. Although she did at one point early on drop a yet-to-be-released deep house production by Wallace feat. Love Letters, containing a menacingly seductive vocal hook about “Craving,” which unbeknownst to her, felt a bit on the nose. I loved it.
At this point, there were about 60 people split between dancing indoors and chatting outdoors. Within the next half hour, about 20% decide that they’re too tired to keep going and go home. The rest end up inside, shaking their bodies as close to the speakers as possible, despite the now overwhelming heat of the dancefloor. The demographics hadn’t changed, but all inhibitions had been shaken away by the bass, proving that even people who exclusively shop the Ssense sale section can lock in under the right conditions.
While taking a breather outside, I spot Leon Vynehall having a smoke with a friend and decide to say hi. “You must be Mr. Moxie,” I opened. This gets the desired effect of a quick chuckle and immediate disarmament. We talk about the state of the local scene, his last few shows, and what he’s doing for the rest of Moxie’s tour (head groupie, Instagram husband). Before heading back inside, I ask his real name and he gives it to me. A classic British name with a very British spelling. What a gent.
Around 7:15, we got a message from J asking if it was still worth coming given there was only an hour and a half left in the set, to which I responded affirmatively, explaining, “I don’t think security is even checking tickets.” I’d spotted the only doorman on a smoke break about an hour ago and hadn’t seen him since. My wife then offered to pay for J’s cover if they ended up needing to pay. Sure enough, when they arrived some 20 minutes later, they were told to buy a ticket at the Sound Room’s coat check, but simply turned the corner and joined the party instead.
We embrace in front of the speaker, letting out a little yelp of joy but it’s of no distraction to anyone because the sound is just so massive. Moxie is reaching to the bottom of her deep house bag in search of the low-end limit of these massive subwoofers. But there is no end to the amount of bass they can produce. The highs were similarly impressive, with the sax riff accompanying the vocal hook from Jon Cutler’s “It’s Yours” ringing through the horn array on top as if the instrument was being played live in the room with us.
By the time 8 PM rolled around, only a few dozen dancers remained, but Moxie had every last one of us in the palm of her hand. Even Leon was on his feet, dancing by the booth, stopping only every so often to take little videos of the scene. Perfect Instagram husband.
Meanwhile on the dance floor, despite my best intentions of taking it easy, I have been fully sent for the third time in as many days. Not too long after J’s arrival, their high school friend A appears during a water break. We greet as old friends and he comes bearing good news: He has a fresh vape. However, the mouthpiece had broken off, leaving a gaping hole, surrounded by sharp plastic shards. This widened hole also has the effect of increasing the vape’s throughput so that it hits much stronger and quicker, akin to a bong.
Back on the dancefloor, with my back to a concrete support pillar by the left speaker, I carefully gum the broken vape and take a deep pull, feeling the vapor enter my chest, and expand outward from there, leaving a sparkling, shimmering sensation in its wake. I close my eyes and relax into the concrete, reveling in the deep satisfaction of getting exactly what I wanted at just the right moment. Craving. I drop it back in A’s open pants pocket while he’s still dancing, eliciting a chuckle. Get this thing away from me.
The night wouldn’t be complete without a piano house moment, and it arrives right on time, shortly before the finale. The crowd goes wild. Everywhere I look, there’s a smile on every face and a groove undulating through each body. Not a single person stands still in the back, to the side, by the bar. Everyone is moving, and I can tell what they’re thinking because I’m thinking it too: Wow, this is so much fun!
Toward the end, she treats us to the dulcet tones of George Michael in one of the rare vocal tracks of the evening. (“Flawless, absolutely flawless.”) Her last song finishes at 9:00 PM on the dot and is met with raucous applause. “One more song!” I shouted, out of habit more than anything else. She obliges immediately and drops one last house track structured around an ethereally reverbed analog synth arpeggio. The perfect soft landing. Another round of applause, this time louder than the first. She lets out a laugh and claps her hands over her head, both with us and for us.
When the dust settles, my friends and I take turns paying our respects at the booth, fangirling about the set she’d just played and recounting the time we ran into each other at Eris Drew’s last club night in the Sound Room in April 2022—during which we all contracted COVID for the first time. And then there was the last time we saw her headline the first night of Horst Music and Arts Festival in the spring of 2023 alongside her besties as part of the B2B2B2B NTS host super group SASS2. We tell her how fantastic the sound was in the Atrium compared to previous parties we’ve been to in the Sound Room, and she expresses relief since it turned out her left monitor had been malfunctioning all along. It’s a good thing the booth was in front of the speakers, after all! Then security is on us. We don’t have to go home, but we can’t stay here.
Throughout the evening, friends, new and old, had been asking if we were planning to go to Mansions afterwards, where PLO Man, whose outdoors closing set I had thoroughly enjoyed at this year’s In the Open, would be spinning until 3 AM. To be clear, I love Mansions—with its impeccable wine program, carpeted dance floor, and its “someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying” level custom sound system relative to the rest of their build-out. But there was a 0% chance that I was going to continue past my apartment, all the way to Ridgewood, to ruin whatever chance I might have had at finally sleeping well tonight. And as much as I love looking around a dance floor and seeing familiar scene faces from all around me, tonight was a good reminder that sometimes, a bit of anonymity can be fun too. Perhaps the true saving grace of these Public Records parties is that I probably won’t ever see any of these people ever again. We’re all just there to have a good time for one night only.
I suggest out of habit that we might walk home to wind down a bit, but am filled with immediate regret when my wife instantly agrees. J comes to my rescue, offering a ride home, which I ravenously accept like a trained monkey snatching the lit cigarette out of a tourist’s fingers. It’s been a long enough weekend filled with a heretofore unimaginable amount of fun. Healthy habits and routines can resume tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll take all the help I can get.
If there were any deep revelations to be had about the evening, it’s that there might just be such a thing as too much fun for one short weekend. Yet I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Just give me a few weeks to recover.
Correction 10/7/24: Amelia Holt reached out after publication of this review to tell me that she stopped doing bookings at public records during the summer of 2023. She now books and promotes her own Honey Trap party series, which has appeared in venues all over NYC and also abroad in Berlin. You can learn more about that on Instagram.
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Her Garage Special, released in June 2020, got me and many others through the pandemic. This summer smasher featuring Aussie house DJ Jennifer Loveless recorded back to back and live in the studio at the end of July is another instant classic in heavy rotation across the whole NTS archives. And her recent solo return to the airwaves after about a month away marked a true return to form.
Saorsie, Alice (AKA Moxie), Shanti [Celeste], and Serena (AKA Peach) are individually among our friend group’s favorite DJs, each with their own uniquely impressive range and impeccable taste within the broader umbrella of house music. And they’re all close friends with each other in real life. So when they come together behind the decks, it is pure magic. Maybe someday I’ll write about it.