Chapter

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In Residence

Warung Beach Club, Itajaí

Celebrating 12 of the world's best dance floors

RA's In Residence series is celebrating club culture by throwing a month of parties at 12 of the world's best clubs. Clubs are the beating heart of dance music, and these are the venues that keep their local scenes thriving. Week-in, week-out, they open their doors to play the music we love.

As we settle in for a month at each of the clubs, we'll be running features that, through a combination of different media, aim to provide lasting documents of these iconic spaces.

We're taking in the Brazilian summer at Warung Beach Club for our first In Residence parties of 2017. Run by a small group of friends from nearby Curitiba, Warung reimagines the south Brazilian coast as an analogue to Ibiza. Its main floor opens out onto the beach, lit entirely by the sunrise at the end of every party. Beyond the breathtaking locale, the crew behind Warung has also introduced the region to headier house and techno bookings. We're honored to program the main room and The Garden stage at Warung this month, working with a team that's built a thriving dance music outpost in an unlikely location.

Jan 7 RA In Residence, Warung Beach Club, Itajaí feat. Tale Of Us. Recondite, Eli Iwasa, Petre Inspirescu, Gromma, Ale Reis

Jan 14 RA In Residence, Warung Beach Club, Itajaí feat. Apollonia (Dan Ghenacia, Dyed Soundorom, Shonky), Matthias Meyer B2B Marco Resmann, Conti & Mandi, Diogo Accioly

Jan 21 RA In Residence, Warung Beach Club, Itajaí feat. Nina Kraviz, Renato Ratier, Ney Faustini, Cassy, Aninha, Ricardo Albuquerque

Jan 28 RA In Residence, Warung Beach Club, Itajaí feat. Mind Against, Gui Thome, Boghosian, Red Axes (live), Gop Tun DJs x Gui Scott x Caio Taborda, Leozinho

Chapter

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Key info

Warung at a glance

01
Address
350, José Medeiros Vieira Av., Praia Brava, Itajaí, Santa Catarina, Brazil
02
Club opened
2002
03
Dance floors
2
04
Capacity
2000
05
Resident DJs
Aninha, Albuquerque, Ale Reis, Boghosian, Dashdot, Fabø, Gromma, Leo Janeiro, Leozinho, Renato Ratier, Volkoder
06
Soundsystem
Ciare

Chapter

03

History

Riding the waves

Nobody says clubs are an easy business. Fickle crowds, noise-averse neighbors, meddlesome local governments—obstacles like these are the only constant. Enter Warung Beach Club, a massive open-air structure overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the Southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. It's here that a small group of friends overcame the odds to build what regulars call "the temple." "Here at the end of the world," founder Gustavo Conti says, "all the simple things are harder."

On a recent Friday, employees bustled around the multi-story club ahead of a night headlined by Sasha. Located off a barely paved road near the beach, Warung's A-frame looked imposing set against the starry sky. A massive garden area is usually reserved for house bookings. Upstairs, a long, narrow space leads up to a pointed ceiling—the booth on one end and, 75 meters or so down, a large balcony overlooking the ocean. During parties at Warung, everyone—the clubbers, the DJ, the staff—is waiting for the moment when the sun pokes over the horizon, in plain sight of the dance floor.

At the entrance, turnstiles tally the thousands-strong crowds. Fresh fish is fashioned into delicious sushi that's sold in a small restaurant. A Warung store offers punters the chance to fly the flag of the cities they've traveled in from—Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, São Paulo. Though Warung's only open a few times a month during the summer, and less than that throughout the year, there's a Warung Tour that takes in about 30 dates a year across Brazil and other countries. In short, an empire grows here in Southern Brazil.

How did a couple of surf dudes from Curitiba, a city a few hours north, accomplish this? Warung probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the time Conti and João Guilherme Michelin Mansur spent on their boards. "I have surfed here since I was 12," Conti says, gesturing towards the beach. "My hometown is up in the mountains, we used to come here and spend the summer."

Conti and Mansur were drawn towards the independent ethos of the surf lifestyle but with none of the usual slackerdom. In 1996, they launched Southern Brazil's first major nightclub, Rave, in Curitiba. Most of the small team running Warung now have been there since those days, childhood friends who fell in love with techno, progressive house and other dominant genres of the era. Along with Conti and Mansur, there's Gustavo Rassi, who's been booking acts since the beginning, and Luis Gustavo Zagonel, who looks after production and promotion.

Upstairs, warming up for Sasha, is Leozinho, one of Conti's best friends and a resident of Rave, then Warung, for two decades. To hear him tell it, embarking on a career that's spanned half his life took as much planning as a casual lunch. "In '96 we had this idea of opening up a club in the city where we were born," he says. "I was Conti's closest friend who enjoyed music so he said, 'Listen, want to become a DJ?'" Leo, who was living in London at the time, started to stockpile records. He returned home and became a crucial part of a team that was learning as they went.

Rave was where Conti and his friends cut their teeth. They brought large-scale house and techno events to South Brazil for the first time. The club ran for six years. Conti and his colleagues didn't necessarily anticipate remaining in the club business, but pure chance and the strength of their familial connections would lead them to Warung Beach Club.

One day in the early '00s, Mansur's father spoke to Conti's father about the plot of land where Warung now lies. At that time, it was a desolate stretch of beachfront property close to the port city of Itajaí. Most tourists visited beaches a little further south. Conti had just sold Rave when his father told him, "I have some land to show you, maybe you'd want to buy it? It's beautiful land by the coast." Conti couldn't believe the beach of his memories was for sale. "I thought this place belonged to the navy," he tells me. I was like, 'I can buy this?'"

Conti, flush with profits from Rave, bought the land as an investment, with no set plans, before again feeling the pull of the ocean. "Every time I don't know what to do," he says, "I go to Bali." There, he and Mansur spent time surfing and retreated to small beachside huts called warungs. The idea for a new club took shape. It would be something unique to Brazil, a large-scale club on the beach borrowing the architectural design of these tiny beachside homes. They had no idea if the concept was feasible, but Conti and Mansur filled three containers of warung-appropriate decorations and shipped them back to Brazil.

If they'd done a proper risk assessment, they might not have been so bold. The next ten years were marked by endless problems. For starters, raves, or anything resembling loud electronic music parties, were forbidden at the location. They got to work building the massive wooden structure, opened, and were quickly shut down for noise complaints. A prosecutor eventually handed down an order that the club be demolished. Thus began an ongoing struggle with local authorities. Warung could be shut down at any point, which prevented the owners from making costly improvements to the club for almost a decade.

In the early years, the club was shut down multiple times. Once it was shuttered for an entire summer. Deposits for DJs had been paid, and the owners watched helplessly as the summer season passed and their debts piled up. The issue, said local officials, was the sound booming out into the open air. But Conti viewed this as an attempt to stop beachside development in the area, scapegoating the club. When the club was open, nature sometimes conspired against it. The streets leading to the beach were unpaved at the time, so when it rained the crew had to order five trucks' worth of gravel to allow people to even access the venue. Conti, who says he's "a clubber who was forced to become a businessman," would eventually donate a bridge for safe passage over a nearby lagoon. The local hotels, restaurants and taxi services noticed a dip in business when Warung wasn't running, and so finally, in 2012, Warung won the right to stay open in a higher court.

But all of that was required for Warung to merely exist, not thrive. The crowds didn't immediately come. "No one used to come to this beach, in the beginning we struggled a lot," Leo says. Location issues aside, this was partly because Warung, like Rave before it, needed to educate its crowd. At the beginning, they booked some psytrance DJs (a genre that's still huge in Brazil) as a gateway drug to the techno acts playing upstairs. Sasha and Hernán Cattáneo were early mainstays who have grown with the club, but Warung has also grown the Brazilian audience for DJs like Jackmaster and Seth Troxler. Last year, Danny Daze and Carl Craig both played the club twice, with Craig sharing the stage with Marcel Dettman—proof that although it's a 5,000 capacity club that needs capital "h" headliners, Conti and Rassi are pushing their audiences, and therefore the region, forwards.

Over a decade in, the club is now peaking. Insulation and focused sound in the upstairs room ensures noise complaints are a thing of the past. The club's permanent status after years of legal troubles has allowed for gradual, noticeable improvements. And the crowds are almost guaranteed now. They flock to Warung for the bookings and the setting. It's an unforgettable night out.

Sometime past midnight, the club's garden and main dance floor are filling up. Sasha is in a car making his way through the dark, winding streets leading down to the beach, and the whole place is buzzing. Tucked away in an upstairs room, Rassi, Mansur, Zagonel and Conti are joking with each other the way old friends do. In this moment, it feels like a clubhouse, a small "warung" off the beach where they learned ride waves, both literal and figurative

Chapter

04

Residents

...in pictures

Chapter

05

Character profile

Mana

Steward

"She's like a mix of [Berghain bouncer] Sven Marquardt and David Mancuso," São Paulo-based DJ Du Ramos says of the woman affectionately referred to as Mana "Warung." During the early days of Warung, the club often stayed open til noon, but thanks to past disputes with the neighbors and local government, it now shuts at 7 AM sharp, just as the party peaks.

As a result, a healthy afterparty scene has sprung up in nearby homes along the beach and the neighboring city, Itajaí. The afters at Warung co-founder Gustavo Conti's house are infamous, in large part thanks to Mana. A longtime housekeeper for Conti, she's the one who decides whether the sunrise crowd stays or goes. When Ramos showed up at Conti's with Mano Le Tough, Mana, still tired from the week before, unceremoniously cleared the premises. On other mornings, she's the consummate host, preparing elaborate spreads of fresh food for the afters set.

Though she rarely sets foot in "the temple," most regulars have a Mana story. She's a beloved figure at the club. Mana looks after the close-knit crew, doling out discipline as she sees fit, an impromptu mother who actually knows what you've been up to during all those long nights out.

Chapter

06

Soundsystem profile

Sound can make or break a club, and this is especially true in Warung's case. The main dance floor is missing a back wall, fully opening onto the beach, while the downstairs Garden stage is fully exposed. Banging it out onto the beachfront at night is what makes Warung such a unique experience, and it's also what nearly sunk the club.

Finding a workable solution took years and a soundsystem specifically designed for the space. Warung is the only In Residence club without a permanent soundsystem. As it's only open four-to-six times a month during peak season, Daniel Sgoda, from Divulgasom Events, installs the custom rig each time Warung opens its doors.

Upstairs, 40 woofers and 60 drivers line both sides of the dance floor, facing each other, not out onto the beach. Each small VIP area is outfitted with its own system. It's not an overpowering setup. Zgoda has managed to keep the sound uniquely restrained to the main floor, with its A-frame ceiling. While the sound is an even 120 dB across the length of the room, it drops about 50% on the balcony.

There was luck involved as well. Founder Gustavo Rassi modeled the architecture after the après surf huts of Bali. The pointed roof keeps the sound in, while the almost entirely wooden construction has a natural reverberatory effect. Early on, someone explained to Rassi how he could provide world-class sound without blowing the roof off and incensing the neighbors: "'The beach is like an acoustic shell. And your club, with all this wood and thatch, is like a speaker.'"

Chapter

07

Mixes

The sound of Warung

Four of the club's residents step up

Warung's army of ten residents are experts at setting the table, often tasked with warming up for superstar headliners. The four mixes here span from the deeper techno sound that goes over gangbusters in the main room to the swinging tech house that's come to define the downstairs Garden stage. A welcome coastal warmth is also prevalent in the club's sound. As resident Leo Janeiro says, "The uniqueness of the club and its location near the ocean makes it a magical place to play."

Still haven't got your Warung fix? You can visit its club profile here, and there's more information on the series via the dedicated In Residence page.