Berghain Nights: A Journey through Techno and Berlin Club Culture

by Liam Cagney

Liam Cagney is residing in a Berlin squat when one night he finds himself at Berghain. Fascinated by the strange techno and even stranger dance floor, he sets out to explore Berlin’s unique club culture in all its intensity. Berghain Nights is the result, the first major literary exploration of Berlin’s club scene.


Blending essay and memoir, Berghain Nights features interviews with major electronic dance music artists like Ellen Allien, Rrose, Luke Slater, Eris Drew and Function, alongside other figures from Berlin’s night-time economy and the history of techno. From kinky parties at KitKat Club to the industrial gloom of Tresor, from the queer garden of Buttons to the gay psychedelia of Cocktail d’Amore, Berghain Nights not only captures the excitement of Berlin’s clubs, it explores how spaces like these can help one find a truer self.

Genres: Memoir, Music

304 pages, Hardcover

Published December 8, 2025

Reviews

[Sawyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow—a lot of brilliance here that definitely made the book worth it. cagney does a great job describing the berlin club scene as gesamtkunstwerk and modernism as an archaic revival, which are both very persuasive. there’s a lot of too earnest theory things parsed here and there but it’s ultimately fine. the book gets SCATHING at the end in a great comedown-to-earth denouement that follows the peak drug experience of the mystical world. makes something i already had an intensely complicated relationship with even more complicated

[Aldo De Luca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this!

[Natasha Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful, poetic, funny diagnosis of techno & clubbing in Berlin!