Decibel After Dark started a half-hour late. When we finally entered Exhibition Hall at 10 pm, Seattle DJ/producer Pezzner (Dave, of Jacob London fame and one of Seattle's foremost ambassadors of classy, hedonistic dance music, in DJ mode tonight) had a downtempo, prettily dreamy song going that sounded like Hot Chip in a pensive moment. Soon, though, he was precipitously cranking up the bpms to near-peak-hour tempos, probably to make up for lost time.

As mentioned before, Exhibition Hall lacks atmosphere and charm—and it keeps drinkers confined in a “beer garden,” so boozing on the dance floor (a venerable American tradition) wasn’t on the agenda. Decibel at least tried to make Exhibition Hall look like a hint of a simulacrum of a superclub. But it was a losing battle. You can only do so much with a 34,000 square-foot concrete rectangle full of thick white pillars and… not much else. So Decibel sheathed the pillars in sheer white curtains and illuminated said pillars with lavender, electric blue, and lime-green lights. Thankfully, the music made such lacks an insignificant irritant.

By 10:20, Pezzner’s tracks were topping 130 bpm. His approach allows individual cuts to play out a long time and then he gradually and smoooothly mixes in the next one. The direction changes were subtle, with only a couple of drops in tempo and one mildly dubsteppish tune in the mix. The prevailing sound was trippy, big-room techno and house that made you feel as if you were on a rapidly ascending escalator to heaven. Using CDs, Pezzner unspooled a series of functional, heady, non-cheesy jams… and I couldn’t ID a single one—not even the cut with the luscious sample from Blondie’s “Rapture.” Nobody on the floor seemed to care that nothing very familiar was booming out of the speakers, as the few hundred there were too busy burning calories.

Pezzner ended with his best track, a sassy hip-swiveler elevated by angelic female vocals reflecting in a hall of mirrors, as metallic percussion and a low-slung, elastic Roland 303 rippled the air. [Turns out it was Pezzner's re-edit of Cornelius' "Beep It." It was an ideal lead-in for the next act, the Miracles Club, and their voguing-augmented avant-god house music.

[Good news! The accommodating Mr. Pezzner came through with a partial tracklist, although not in the order played. He says, "A whole lot of this stuff either isn't out yet, and a few edits I did that are just for people to hear in my DJ sets." Check it after the jump.]

Gavin Herlihy - C'mon People (Ryan Crosson Mix)
Koreless - Lost In Tokyo
Body Spasm - Twenty Radios
Seye - Mexicana Dance
A1 Bassline - Copper
Kill Frenzy - Push Up
Tom Middleton - Penrose Steps
Andre Crom - Body Dreamin
Cornelius - Beep It (Pezzner Re-edit)
Phoenix - Twenty One One Zero (Pezzner Edit)
Ruben De Ronde - Stoer (Poze Remix)
Tom Flynn - With Flowers
Para One - Every Little Thing
Dbridge - Lied To Be Loved
Mark Romboy - Larc-En-Ceil (Pezzner Remix)
Stephen Day - Sueno Latino (Pezzner Remix)
Johnny Fiasco - Infinite Disco