For most techno enthusiasts, My Aeon is a club that barely registers a blip on the radar. I discovered this club via recommendation hardly a month ago, tucked between shop fronts on the secluded end of Sydney Rd.

Friday, the 24th of July was called Machine, featuring Melbourne techno stalwarts, Mike Callander and Simon Slieker. And yet, as great and as deep as the music was, I feel obliged to review the venue itself, for it added an incredible amount to the music and the night.

As Dennis Denuto would say, “It [was] the vibe of it”.

The front room, filled with comfortable mismatched couches, belies the nature of a club. You’d be forgiven for thinking you were at a bar or lounge if it weren’t for the soft pulse of techno wafting through from the back room; loud enough to enjoy, but soft enough to have a conversation without straining the voice box.

Skipping through to the dance floor bathed in red light, I felt cozy. It would be appropriate to refer to it as a dance room and it is exactly how I imagine Berlin’s techno club, Tressor, to be. A bunker, where beats are dropped, and people outside the room are none the wiser.

It surely appeared that no one knew of the night, because Mike Callander was playing to an empty room at about 12PM. I sat to the side with my hoodie on, nodding my head to deep tech. I felt as though I had the DJ of Honky Tonks fame all to myself, playing for me, to me, in my own lounge room, such is the intimacy of the place.

Callander’s set was similar to Drone, his release on Haul Music. His dark, driving progressive techno drilled melodies and beats into my brain. Listening to this release in retrospect, Machine was, perhaps, an appropriate name for the night.

When Simon Slieker took over at 1PM, the place was hardly packed, but the music was still kicking arse. Then again, I didn’t need other people there to enjoy the music. I was enjoying the music. That was all that mattered. People at My Aeon enter an introverted trance on the dance floor. Patrons cloak their bags and jackets on the floor and having found a spot to boogie, they stay there. The sound is incredibly clean and even though the music was pounding with the intensity of a sledgehammer, talking wasn’t a problem if you managed to break from your hypnosis.

The DJ booth borders the dance floor so trading glances, thumbs-ups and even words with Slieker was not beyond anyone. Neither is the booth raised, which adds a certain air of equality – Slieker was a fellow party go-er, not some sort of demigod. There is something charming about being at arms length from a person who is controlling your experience and Slieker was putting on an exhibition. Slowly, but surely, a sizeable and eclectic crowd had turned up; fun, harmless punters looking for nothing more than a good time. They found it.

Machine was a perfect example of the joy and tragedy of My Aeon. Joyous for the music, the venue and the crowd, but tragic for the people that didn’t know about it.