If you've slammed yourself neck deep into a season here, the words 'searching' and 'Solomun' don't exactly belong together because it hasn't been a struggle to find the Balkan on the White Isle, let me tell you. I've had the opportunity to see his face behind the booth on no less than 20 occasions after he kicked off 2016 at Pacha with Solomun+1. Between transforming the Ibiza Town club into his own underground realm, he's been hurdling over the weeks with gigs at Ushuaïa, Destino, Amnesia and DC-10.
Solomun's dance floor deliveries, at whichever Ibiza haunt he's landed in, are easily a source of obsession for lovers of the beat, and when a Google search aligns his name with the words 'Ibiza king', it's evident he's cracked the Balearic recipe. I haven't bowed to his bass transmissions as regularly as some, but I did jump through the rabbit hole for what I deemed would be a very special date – Diynamic's 10th anniversary at DC-10. The crew from his Hamburg-based record label were out in force, with the likes of Adriatique, H.O.S.H, Kollektiv Turmstrasse, Thyladomid, Johannes Brecht and Magdalena all raring to go for a heavy one.
I knew this bad boy would throw out something eargasmic, but what I left behind blew me away – I was honestly mindblown - and I don't use that term lightly. I felt like I'd just been launched from a NASA space mission, experienced the gravitational pull of a black hole suspended in the universe and been spat back out. At one point I doubted the intensity of my feelings and wondered if I'd been malnourished on mediocre beats, but from the buzzed looks on the faces of most of the punters, Solomun's one-off Diynamic takeover for 2016 had launched them through the same celestial experience. I heard post-party that Bradley Cooper and his Russian model squeeze, Irina Shayk, had also been lapping it up on the terrace – man, I'd have relished having an intense stare at their faces of sweaty pleasure.
It was tune after tune after tune in both rooms, and at some points I was sure I could have spewed from the sonic storm that had ravaged my central nervous system. My body movements coming off that disco bus at Playa d'en Bossa were probably something like Leonardo DiCaprio's tortured sliding scene into his Lamborghini in The Wolf of Wall Street – bones replaced with blubber to become one floppy, lose-limbed human. It was now Saturday, with dawn having kicked in and at this point I'm thinking my face is staying away from any club tonight because no specimen can compete with that so soon, maybe not even Solomun himself. I wanted to treat it as a tightly encapsulated moment and leave it suspended in the air to gather matter, before I felt it was time to crack on, regardless of where the night might be positioned on the highlight scale.
Despite what are perhaps irrational and unrealistic notions of putting the fiesta aside in fear of being heavily disappointed by way of comparison, on our way home we knew that the party 100% could not have ended at 6.30 AM, and we were already thinking of ways we could send out the bait and fish out an afterparty. As those gigs usually kick into action around 11 AM, it was only a couple of hours until people would be rolling with the music mill to see off a stellar DC-10 date. But, as we live in a digital age that thrives on knowing absolutely everything, sometimes we have to sacrifice these duties to keep you guys in the loop. So, with a top tracks hitlist to compile from the night and still being in the dark on the afterparty front, my fellow Spotlighter, Ruby, and I crawled into bed, dipped into Shazam's matches and waxed lyrical about Solomun's label pack.
Post top tracks feature spin and a brief siesta, our eyeballs began seeing the light of day again around 4 PM and I had a message spelling out the words everyone wants to hear - Solomun afters. YAAAAAAS. Game on. The venue is a relatively well kept island secret, so it will remain unnamed, but you can understand how gagging we were to get ourselves in there. There was one big problemo - we weren't on the list, and despite the perks of this job, getting on it at that hour in the day was about as likely as Scotland winning the World Cup. However, this island is a place for blagging and trying your luck when the odds are against you, so what are you going to do - regret what you did do or didn't try to do? It was a fair trek to the other side of the island, with no guarantees dangling at the end of the rope and at this point in the month, I'm broke as a joke, but after two bus trips and a cheese toastie, by 7 PM we were in the town near where the little haven is hidden. The location had been sent to me and I assumed it would be a straight-in-the-back-of-the-cab-job and BOOM - we're off situation, but, the first blow was dealt when the driver said he needed a name of the house and the information I had only drew more bewildered looks that said “Sorry, doll. No idea.” At this point, there's doubt creeping over both of our faces. We're weighing up the skint factor with a potential waste of a taxi fare in the case we're dealt the knocked back card, and that's even if we can eventually get more details on this wee rave spot, or find a taxi driver in the know.
After a wander through the local town to mull over our options, asking an 8-year-old kid if she´d go - to which she said no - we got the info we needed on the address. Did we decide to go for it? Aye. The entrance revealed itself like a 1950s' pinup girl demurely sliding her leg around the bathroom door, and I was hoping that I'd be making it in far enough to see her red garter. One optimistic glance between Ruby and I, and my best Spanish lingo was dealt. I cracked a crap joke to warm the chico on the door up, he gave one back, and then the ultimate – those nice blue wristbands. Blagged it a beauty. Inside, we're both on a similar wavelength of YAAAAAAAAAAAAAS, but you can't high five your pal if you make it through Berghain's notorious door and similar rules apply here – show some restraint, or you'll look like a right eejit. Getting access to a hotspot that was originally off bounds is much more satisfying, and it's even better when the location in question has a free bar.
Solomun had got there at 3 PM, and of course he was still cruising with the crowd by the time we got there at 8 PM. We'd no idea what time this baby would crash on until, so it was straight into the free bar and into the throes of the afterparty. Mission accomplished.
WORDS & PHOTOS | Aimee Lawrence
