No matter who is behind the decks come 7am, Warung Beach Club always has the same headline act. The main room of the 2,500-capacity temple to dance music on the Brazilian coast faces east towards the south Atlantic, which means God herself does the lighting. “When the sun comes up, it’s magical,” says club founder Gustavo Conti, standing on a terrace overlooking the beach. “That’s because nature is magical, and we’re here in it.”
The club, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, emerges from the Atlantic forest where the land meets the sea, enclosed by vegetation on all sides and built from wood, like a particularly ambitious treehouse. Next month, Warung celebrates its 16th anniversary. DJ Lee Burridge has been coming to play here for almost that long. “It’s one of those endlessly wonderful places that you never want to leave,” he says. “Where it is and what it’s built from give the sound a really warm resonance. Inside you can be hit over the head with a shovel musically, and outside you can be cuddled musically. There’s also a lot of beautiful, beautiful people dancing their asses off.”
The Collected Works of Kevin EG Perry 