Cielo

Overview

Intimate Meatpacking District club (2003–2018) built on a Funktion-One sound system, a sunken dancefloor, and long-running residencies, François K's Monday Deep Space, Louie Vega and Kevin Hedge's Wednesday Roots NYC, and Willie Graff's Friday Heaven, that made it the anchor of New York's 2000s deep-house scene.

Cielo opened in early 2003 at 18 Little West 12th Street, when the Meatpacking District was still a working slaughterhouse neighborhood. Owner Nicolas Matar, a DJ since age fifteen, formerly the resident of Pacha Ibiza's 'El Cielo' room (the source of the name) and the son of parents who moved in 1970s New York club circles, built the room around a single small main floor whose defining feature was a sunken dancefloor surrounded by padded brown banquettes and a low-slung ceiling. The room held roughly 300 people. The AV integration firm Sound Investment fitted it with a Funktion-One system, four AX88 skeletal main cabinets, two F315 mid-bass enclosures, four BR218 deep-bass boxes, plus a Resolution 2 / Minibass 212 DJ monitor rig, powered by MC2 amplifiers and XTA/Funktion-One processing, making Cielo among the first North American clubs to adopt the British speaker brand. The result was ranked the top club sound system in the country in a Beatport survey, and the room quickly became a place where DJs could play 'very delicate and sensuous' music at volume without sacrificing clarity. Cielo's programming was anchored by residencies rather than one-off bookings. François Kevorkian (François K) (co-founder of the Sunday Body & Soul parties at Vinyl and a Paradise Garage-era figure) launched Deep Space on Mondays in April 2003, alongside producer Erica Ruben. The party ran without interruption for thirteen years, becoming New York Magazine's 'Best of New York 2006' and one of Do Androids Dance's 'Ten Best Club Nights in the US'; by 2015 it had staged approximately 600 weekly editions. Deep Space was deliberately eclectic: François K mixed dub, reggae, soul, rock, and dance music in a single set, and around 2007 was among the earliest New York parties to book London dubstep DJs including Mala and the Rhythm & Sound duo. Wednesday nights were anchored by Roots NYC with Louie Vega and Kevin Hedge (of Blaze), a weekly house residency that ran the full fifteen years of the club's life and became one of the longest-running continuous weekly parties in the city. Willie Graff (who also served as a co-owner or co-principal in the early period, per contemporaneous reports) held Heaven on Fridays; Tedd Patterson's Vibal party ran for thirteen years on Saturdays alongside Matar's own Paradizo nights. Benny Soto's Dance.Here.Now occupied a further slot, bringing in guests across the house and disco spectrum over more than a decade. The room's design held almost unchanged from 2003 through closing: semi-tubular brown cushions lining the walls, warm amber and low lighting, a large mirrorball above the dancefloor, and a terrace. Awards accumulated (Village Voice 'Best Nightclub' 2006, New York Magazine 'Best Deep House Club' 2006) and the club released a series of compilation albums on Tommy Boy Records charting its sound: Cuatro (mixed by Matar and Graff), Cinco (2008), Seventh Heaven (mixed by Matar and Graff), and Volare. Nicolas Matar also co-founded Output in Williamsburg in early 2013, extending the same programming philosophy to Brooklyn. Cielo closed in December 2018, shuttered by the very gentrification it had inadvertently helped catalyze. The Whitney Museum of American Art relocated to the Meatpacking District in 2015 and the High Line had transformed the neighborhood into a daytime tourist corridor; rents became 'sort of impossible to survive in that climate,' in Matar's account to Pollstar. The final Deep Space event was held on a Monday in mid-December 2018; Roots NYC played its closing party on December 19 with Louie Vega and Kevin Hedge; Output closed on New Year's Eve the same month. The end of both venues simultaneously was widely reported as the close of a distinct era in New York underground dance music.

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