For anyone in Sydney who loves the underground side of electronic dance music, Sweetchilli is an institution, and rightly so. For a few years now Sweetchilli has provided Sydney with quality parties choc full of local and international acts spanning progressive, tech house, electro, minimal and techno. Their latest party featuring 21 year old Swedish sensation Petter, signed to James Holden’s Border Community label was yet another jewel in the already oversized crown for the Chilli crew, and will go down as one of the best nights of music Sydney has ever seen.

Before jumping in to the music side of it, a word has to be said about the crowd and the venue. The Civic Hotel is the perfect venue: intimate, classy, and with a sound system to rival the Slip Inn’s Cave. Oh and the staff are the friendliest I’ve ever encountered. What more could you want? And the Sweetchilli crowd is one any promoter should hope for: loyal, friendly, musically educated, appreciative of the DJs’ efforts, open-minded, and most importantly, ready to have a fantastic time even if it kills them. And now on to the music…

Tim Culbert and Sari started the night off in style, spinning an eclectic selection of deep tech house and progressive grooves, with just a splash of electro house thrown in for good measure, to a steadily growing crowd who couldn’t help but get up and groove to their booty-shaking mix of sounds. Starting off with some very groovy deep tech house that eased the crowd into the night perfectly, including Frame 15’s remix of Timwriter’s latest cut “Yellow and Blue”, Culbert and Sari slowly took the set into progressive and electro house territory, dropping just enough bombs (for example Jona’s excellent remix of M.A.N.D.Y. and Bookashade’s “Body Language”) to get a solid crowd on the dancefloor, but ensuring not to play too hard or obvious for their set time. And it must be said: Culbert and Sari’s mixing was as tight as any chinstroker could want, and their sublime phasing, set progression and subtle effects use certainly did not go unnoticed, with quite a few heads turning in appreciation of the skills on display at several points during the set.

Next up Daniel Crocetti took over the decks, and proceeded to step it up a notch music wise, which the now sizable crowd definitely appreciated. Crocetti threw down a great mix of everything underground: minimal, tribal, techno, electro and progressive house, bringing together a variety of sounds into a coherent whole, not an easy thing to do by any means. His mixing was tight, his phasing was so scarily smooth I thought maybe he’d planned his set, his track selection was bang on point, and his ability to bring together such a diverse range of sounds is a credit to him as a DJ. Tracks such as the melodic, hypnotic “Domino” by Oxia sat perfectly alongside the glitchy “Worktabular” by Robag Wruhme, and the tribalicious “Turn It Off” from Raudive, and never once did any of them sound like they didn’t belong in the set.

By the time Petter prepared to start his live Ableton set the dancefloor was heaving. Unfortunately some technical difficulties prevented the Swedish wunderkind from playing his live set, and the poor lad seemed devastated. However, as a credit to Chilli’s professionalism, Daniel Crocetti briskly took over the decks for another half hour or so, spinning some more tough tech, minimal and progressive. He then reworked the set times, offering Petter an extended DJ set, giving him an entire three and a half hours to work his magic. This sort of professionalism is rare to see in Sydney, and it’s a testament to the passion the Sweet Chilli crew have for their music and the pride they have in their parties. I’d go so far as to say this was my personal highlight of the evening, as it really demonstrated there are still some genuinely music-focused and professional promoters left in Sydney.

After Crocetti finished his impromptu half hour, Petter stepped up to the decks and despite evidently being shattered about not being able to play live, he demonstrated just how professional and music-focused he too can be, and absolutely smashed the Civic in to little pieces. His set was everything. It was techno, it was minimal, it was progressive, it was acidic, it was electronic, it was melodic, it was deep, it was groovy, it was massive, it was ballsy, basically: it was three and a half hours of head-caving madness. Technically, he was excellent. His mixing was as tight as any other international DJ’s, he evidently knew his tracks inside out as his phasing was superb, his clever track selection and ability to construct a set were obvious, and his effects use was fantastic, particularly because it was restrained and he would only use effects when they would enhance a track, rather than going into overkill mode like so many DJs can.

Starting off quite subdued and groovy, Petter played plenty of loopy minimal/tech house cuts from the likes of John Tejada (“Eurotunnel”), Shinedoe (“Amsterdam Meets Berlin”) and Jona (an excellent unreleased remix of “Operation O”), before slowly building the set over the first hour into some tougher tech house and progressive sounds, including Alex Under’s superb “El Encuentro”. The first part of his second hour was marked by plenty of tough, melodic, techy, progressive cuts, such as the new Audion release “Mouth To Mouth” and the occasional drop into twisted minimal territory, taking the floor by surprise with tracks like Matthias Tanzmann’s remix of Marlow & Dehlia’s “Movin”. For a brief period at about the two and a half hour mark, he started dropping some loopy techno cuts, such as [T]ekel’s “Creteil Connection”, which the crowd ate up, going just a little bit crazy as he burrowed into their brains with thumping loops and punchy percussion.

Next came the thumping electro-tech, and boy was it good. Petter proceeded to test the limits of the sound system’s bassbins, and the limits of the crowd’s digestive systems, dropping wall of bass after wall of bass, including the bowel-shaking “Plan Deux” from Tomas Andersson. For the final portion of his set, Petter took it back down a notch, which was probably not a bad idea, as the crowd was starting to show the effects of being punished for about three hours. In the last twenty to thirty minutes he took it a little deeper and more twisted, piecing together patches of minimal, melodic tech and a few quirky left-of-center walls of noise, catering to the crowd’s more open-minded side.

As was said, this set was three and a half hours of head-caving madness. Interestingly however, not a single Petter tune got a run by the man in his set, but in some ways that’s quite refreshing, as there’s nothing more frustrating than watching a producer play a DJ set and go into self-indulgence mode and play all his own productions.

Carlos Zarate then stepped up for the closing set and played on a dark, twisted vibe, suiting his set time to a T. As was the vogue of the night, Zarate brought together a variety of sounds, stirring together a melting pot of tribal sounds, electronic grooves and melodic goodness. Zarate’s mixing was of course extremely tight and his phasing was excellent, he wouldn’t be a Chilli DJ otherwise! And while by the time he was about halfway through his set the crowd had started to thin out, those who remained were loving every second of it, appreciating tunes such as Peace Division’s sublime mix of Trancesetter’s “Roaches”. And for those who stayed to the very end, they received a special treat, hearing “Some Polyphony”, Petter’s latest tune, which was the perfect way to close the evening’s proceedings.

Sweetchilli, take a bow. This will go down in the annals as one of the best nights of music Sydney has ever seen. For those who were there, relive the memories for as long as possible, for those who missed out: come to the next Chilli, odds on it’ll be equally as good.