Ryan provided us with a fantastic podcast this week to showcase the DJ he has become in the years he's spent on the island. In previous years he has currated the Red Box at Space with the Burlington Project (for We Love), and run parties with his Vitalik label. This year things have changed up a bit as he moves in to the main rooms to DJ, with an amazing Vitalik event on the 2nd September. Enjoy this short interview as we catch up with Ryan.
Thanks for the podcast! We loved it... could you just talk us through the mix?
Sure… The first track on the mix is a spotlight exclusive preview of the next track in the Vitalik gold series, a vinyl only project we have been working on. We kicked off the series with Jimmy Edgar and The Mole last month, this next one is from Franklin De Costa and is in my humble opinion.. spectacular. The mix is (without sounding too cliche) a bit of a journey… it starts off expansive then gets stripped back to the minimal soul of Darling Farah, into the sublime beats of Matthew Burton, followed by some unadulterated house joy from Maxi Mill and Genius Of Time, ltaking you into some epic Juno business from Xosar, followed by some weirdness from Jacob Sory and Peter Van Hoesen… rave from George Fitzgerald, then I finish off with something wonderful from Joy Orbison. It's not a club mix, it's stuff I like to listen to, music and producers that I am excited about at the moment, self indulgence basically, there is a nice dynamic to the mix though, I hope you enjoy it.
We did, thanks! You've been ever present over the years with your Burlington Project… what's happening with that now?
Well burlington project is in essence a website, a guide to good music and events, we are still bringing some of the more interesting figures in electronic music to peoples attention, little has changed except the development of the site. We do events also, which I guess is what you are referring to here. For the last 3 years we held court in the Red Box for We Love and we made the events an extension of what we try to do with the site… ie bringing interesting people in electronic music to a wider audience. We brought people like Wolf + Lamb, dOP, Appleblim, Levon Vincent +++ to Ibiza for the first time and the Red Box was the perfect testing ground for this. I think it will be hard to top what we did at Space so anything we do with burlington's events in Ibiza will have to be pretty forward thinking and different from anything that is going on here at the moment. We are looking at an option for this right now so watch this space.
How did the whole thing start up, I imagine your background helped?
I met some people in a brothel and they offered me a load of cash to make this happen, why not right?
Erm, fair enough. How does it feel to move into being a regular resident in the main rooms of Space?
It's amazing, I mean… it's funny because I have been in Ibiza for over a decade relatively quietly doing what I do. I have been part of the We Love family since we started doing Vitalik with them in 2006 so they know what I am about. I don't think it was until last year when I first played the terrace that they really thought it might be quite good to have me out there on a more regular basis. I am first and foremost a DJ and I think when you adopt different roles (ie promoter, label boss, editor) that can be overlooked, last year was a good opportunity for me to remind people how I got here in the first place. So yeah I am incredibly proud and joyous about the whole thing.. I mean it's perfect, serendipity, fate or design.. whatever, I feel very much at home.
Looking over the lineups for We Love this season, there are some massive gigs. Any highlights for you?
Well yeah, the line-up's are immense, the best so far for me personally, I take my hat of to Mark and Darren for that. Highlights, yes there are many but the 2nd of September is pretty huge for me, Vitalik will be hosting the terrace and the line-up is off the hook.. Carl Craig, Caribou vs Fourtet, Paul Woolford and me and jozif playing a back-to-back set. The last time we played together at Space we tore it up, it was a lot of fun…so we are very excited about this one, it's going to be good.
Cool, so update us on all the Vitalik goings on…
We have some amazing music on the way, I have literally just this moment confirmed a new release from Agnes, this is something I have been working on since he remixed our first release on Vitalik 3 years ago, it's one of my favorite releases to date and the music he has given us for the next release is outstanding so I am really pleased about that. We have the next in the Gold series coming up which you can hear on the podcast, there is a super deep remix from Anonym on that release too. We are also working on a really interesting edit project in the lead up to the Vitalik date at We Love, we will be teaming up with Pulse Radio and We Love and giving away edit's from jozif, Pezzner, Soulade, Franklin De Costa, Hugo Barrit, Paul Lorraine + more tbc. It's going to be a fun musical exercise, we already have some of the edits in and they are sounding really hot.
And finally for yourself, what does the future hold? Will you be releasing under any other aliases?
Ah! yes indeed, secret aliases…. top secret : )
