Any given Friday night, there's only one place in the world where a gaggle of Saudi teenagers shopping at H&M, drunken collegiates just back from Ibiza, sex workers, drug dealers, and machine gun-carrying gendarmes can all share the same street: Istanbul's Istiklal District. The evening's last call to prayer rings out around the same time as the nightclubs get started, crossfading the city's 11:00 ambience into a melody of mosques and the beat of an EDM track.

"Everyone needs a place to escape," a disheveled graphic designer named Saïd says to me as we walk down the street. For Saïd and his friends—a jumbled crew who share in common their distaste for the mainstream life in Turkey—it's a dancefloor so dark you can't see how crowded it is, and a bass that rattles the oxygen molecules in your lungs. It's getting harder to find such a place, but they know all the right spots.

As usual, the gang is heading out in search of the sugar man, a dance floor, and a steady beat. They have to tensely avoid police who randomly stop to check IDs, because most of the group doesn't have any. "The cops don't bother you as long as you're consuming," Saïd says, with a jaded shrug that hides a hint of worry. "Istanbul is starting to feel like Damascus used to feel."

Rolling past the tide of tourists, they find a disappointing sight: another club gated shut.

"All roads lead to Kasette," the saying used to go. It was little more than a DJ booth overlooking a covered alleyway, but revelers forgave the venue's tenuous zoning for the late night destination's consistent lineup of local DJs. At the height of the August rush, police came through and cut the music with to check IDs. Everyone cleared out, and the owners decided to close. It wasn't the first. Five of Istanbul's biggest nightclubs have shut their doors in recent months.