What Happened at Skatefork, Pitchfork’s Holiday Rollerskating Party

You have two options at Skatefork: Immerse yourself in the sea of talking heads by the bar or grab yourself a pair of rollerskates. You can tell everyone’s at least a little nervous at Pitchfork’s holiday rollerskating party about busting their ass on the hardwood; the skaters on the floor are few and far between. Regardless, the energy at Xanadu Roller Arts in Brooklyn is jubilant: Drinks are flowing at the Jameson Black Barrel bar and lounge, four-on-the-floor beats are thumping, and LED light beams are bursting from the ceiling.

After a long, fruitful year of scene reporting, interviews, news, cover stories, and reviews, Pitchfork staffers, contributors, and friends of the site converged at Bushwick’s premier roller rink to let loose. Those who opted not to skate crowded around gazebos and tables with new friends and familiar faces. It felt like everywhere you turned there was something to engage with: flying saucers full of cauliflower bites and mini crab cakes; a live t-shirt press with neon pink “P4K” iconography; a DJ booth soundtracking the night from the middle of the skating rink. Bobby Beethoven and Nick León set the tone behind the decks before a monstrous live set from the duo that made our album of the year, Los Thuthanaka.

To call it a mixed bag of attendees throughout the evening would be an understatement: Everyone from The Kid Mero and Jon Caramanica to keiyaA and Marcus Brown of Nourished by Time shared laughs and floated around. Of the brave souls who decided to lace some skates up, Pitchfork columnists Kieran Press-Reynolds and Alphonse Pierre were out there moving gingerly across the rink (take a guess which one of them took a tumble). Some attendees, like myself, stayed glued to the wall to avoid breaking a limb, while others twirled and rolled backwards like it was second nature.

Around 10 p.m., the roller rink transformed into a venue, and Chuquimamani-Condori and Joshua Crampton took the stage. Behind the sibling duo, the zany anthropomorphic clock on the cover of their self-titled album jumped along to their chugging rhythms on a massive LED screen. DJ tags, maddening piano stabs, militant drums, and violent guitar fuzz meshed into one large mass of sound that never stopped until the set was complete. As “Phuju” shuffled along at ear-splitting volumes, admirers in front of the stage swung themselves as if locked in a dream state; some danced alone, others spun their partners like it was prom night. Then, when Los Thuthanaka transitioned from recorded material to riffing on extended waves of ambience, my friend tapped my shoulder and said, complimentarily, “This shit sounds like it’s bouta climax and then it keeps goin’.” In a way, the camaraderie of Skatefork brought that same feeling of excitement, building up until that final wave goodbye for the night.