Traditionally New Year’s Eve serves as a time for reflecting on the year gone by, but also as a chance to look ahead at what’s yet to come. For We Love… this sentiment could not be more true. With a double header of parties over the Hogmanay weekend, in Leeds on New Year’s Eve and London on New Year’s Day, we have invited some of our favourite guests from the summer parties here in Ibiza to kick start our winter activities.
We Love... Leeds
For New Year’s Eve we have teamed up with local party starters Asylum and BacktoBasics for some acid house festivities at Stinky’s Peep House. Headlining the event the Radio One’ “in new djs we trust” and Get Physical heroine Heidi will be bringing her Terrace sounds to the slightly less Balearic vibes of the West Yorkshire Pennines. Having wowed us at Space this summer it’s a pleasure to bring Heidi to this overseas event. Let’s see how her sound translates from the hallowed Space Terraza to the infamous Basics basement. The rest of the main room’s activities will be overseen by We Love… resident Jem Haynes who can’t celebrate too hard as it’s off down to London the day after where he’s bringing his label Loop Recordings to the Ministry of Sound second room. Adding the Basics touch, Buckley will be making his return to the We Love… fold after a 3 year hiatus.
The middle floor of Stinky’s will be taken over by Local lads Burnski, Tristan Da Chuna, James Holroyd Jon Woodall and Frenchy who have proven themselves countless times and are sure to celebrate in style.
Orchestrating proceedings will be PBR Streetgang; having slipped so gracefully into their role as Terrace residents this summer, it is only thanks to their help that we can put this party together. Asylum has been a Leeds institution for over seven years and we cant think of a nicer set of folk to bring in the new year with. Joining PBR Streetgang in the top room will be disco boogie doyen Greg Wilson, something not to be missed. And we are now pleased to announce the special late addition of Kitchen Sink Disco king Jamie Fatneck.
Then its off to bed, or perhaps not, before jumping on the train, plane or automobile and heading down to London and the Ministry of Sound.
We Love... London
If we are to believe the Mayans, then come New Year’s day we only have one year left to live. What better way to start the year then, than with three of our standout summer residents stacking up in the Ministry Of Sound main room? James Zabiela,Simian Mobile Disco and Joris Voorn have all excelled on the Terrace and in the Discoteca this summer but this is the first time we’ve managed to get them all playing in the same room. Expect a masterclass in house, techno and technical wizardry.
The 103 bar plays host to We Love residents Mat Playford and Jem Haynes along with his Loop Recordings partners Ian C and Martin ‘Smut‘ Wood. Over the summer Mat and Jem went beyond the call of duty at our summer home Space and away on our international events, proving why they are the most in-demand touring residents on the We Love roster. Jem’s closing Terrace set on the night of Spain’s World Cup victory was one of our summer highlights and Mat’s impromptu warm up for Groove Armada at Ministry impressed so much he’s been called back for each and every tour since. This will also serve as a jumping off point for the infant Loop Recordings, the brain child of Jem, Ian and Martin. Having introduced their label to Ibiza on the Sunset Terrace this summer where all three performed side by side, it’s now time for London to see what they have to offer.
And they say nurses have it bad… This summer our roving brand evangelist Andrew Livesey took to the skies taking the We Love… party with him. Taking in London, Montenegro, Croatia and parts of the world only accessible by boat, the summer series of We Love tours featured standout performances from Groove Armada, DJ Hell, 2020Soundsystem, Ewan Pearson, Todd Terje and Lottie to name only a few. A special mention must go to Mat Playford and Jem Haynes who fulfilled their role as touring residents spectacularly. Along the way Andrew managed to break himself away from sampling the local cuisines for long enough to take a few photos of what was going on.
In and out of the mayhem that is Ibiza, two We Love… Space residents have been preparing for a winter musical onslaught. There has been a lot more going on than ‘just’ performing at what they consider to be the best party in the world.
The story started with Ian.C being invited by Martin ‘Smut’ Wood (also a We Love regular guest) and Jem Haynes to “come and have a jam in the rave cave with us”. Tracks were already in progress and a new label Loop Recordings was in its embryonic stage. The rave cave turned out to be a very nicely equipped studio in the countryside of south east England and with no outside distractions (or windows) to stop them, a series of many long, experimental and purposeful sessions ensued. Eight months later a bold new label is on the verge of being launched.
“All three of us bring something different to the table both live and in the studio. Martin plays guitar, Ian the drums and I am from a DJ and producing background,” says Jem. With that broad scope in mind, Loop Recordings makes total sense and actually came together pretty quickly. “We have the first 6 releases scheduled, (many of them road tested on the hallowed We Love dance floors by Jem) the first of which ‘Baby Come Back’ will be released in October after the We Love summer madness has ended.” To celebrate the end of “phase one”, Jem Haynes Sunset Terrace performance on the 12th of September will be joined by Ian.C before he performs with Alfredo. “We have all put in a great deal of effort and had a lot of fun creating the Loop sound”, says Smut, “it’s fantastic that new label tracks can be tested somewhere as special as We Love.”
Click flyer for more info
As a pre-emptive strike to what is to come, the guys have given us a taster of their forthcoming sounds with a cheeky little audio / video remix of Gorillaz – Dirty Harry, which you can download here, and check the video below.
The end is nigh! There’s still time to book flights from wherever you may be for this party of epic proportion. The line-up speaks for itself, including an Ibiza debut from Aphex Twin in the Discoteca and a return to the venerated Terraza with Basement Jaxx. Big up to David Tazzyman. See you there! x
The Italian invasion is here! Ferragosto, an Italian celebration originally commemorating the end of hard labour in the fields is now a national holiday where Italians of all walks of life leave industry and the cities behind them and head for some well-earned recreation. We’ve joined up with our friends from the Torino underground – Savana Potente to give a home to the multitudes of Italians currently populating the island of Ibiza.
Hard animals
They’ll be taking over the whole top floor of the club – both the Premier Etage roof terrace and noisy back room the Red Box. Expect smooth electronica from Cipi, Ela Gee and our own residents Jon Howell and Ian Blevins on the ‘Etage’ while the Red Box will be struck by the sounds of Yaya, Gambo, Vincent, Drent along with our Andy Carroll and Jem Haynes. You can find some great mixes from the Savana Potente crew in our DJ mixes section. Check out Savana Potente on facebook, here. It’s a returning the favour kind of deal after they kindly accommodated us in their home town of Torino in the spring, check the video below for some great shots of how things went down there.
In the mountains overlooking Budva Montenegro a new club has been built. The completely out door venue ‘Top Hill’ with stunning panoramic views across the top of Budva will play host to 2 We Love… Parties this summer.
Setting the Stage
So new is this venue in fact that so far all we have to offer you are these pictures of the “under construction” stage. We can only imagine how good it’s going to look when its finished!
Monday saw the release of Vitalik003 – Gobi’s Paradise, by We Love… resident Jem Haynes and Jamie Funk. This is the first time Vitalik has released the pair’s work but the connection between Jem and Vitalik goes back a long way. Jem has kindly taken the time to answer a few questions about this release; being the busy man that he is we don’t often get to speak to him so we took the chance to see what else he has been up to over the winter.
Having lived in Ibiza for the course of the summer and being a weekly resident for We Love.., what were some of your highlights?
The first one that sticks in my mind was closing The Terrace after Steve Lawler, that was something I will never forget and hopefully one to be repeated this summer. Also playing before Martin Buttrich doing his Live show in the Redbox was also really special for me as he is in my opinion, the best producer out there! Lastly, as it was the last sunday of 2009 for me in Ibiza, was the joint closing of We Love and Space. Thousands of people, loads of rain and everybody raving hard well into the early hours….SPECIAL!
A real Jem
What have you been up to since you left the island?
I have been working on two new projects in the studio aswell as continuing to play gigs in as many weird and wonderful places as possible. The first project is an artist album with my studio partner Jamie Funk and also a Live show that will follow on from the album. The second project Im working on is called Loop and that’s alongside Martin ” DJ Smut ” Wood from Chew the Fat! and Redbox fame.
What is your relationship with vitalik?
I produce for their record label and am a resident DJ alongside Ryan O ‘ Gorman for his Burlington Project parties @ We Love aswell as us being villa housemates. I work in the Vitalik studio during the week, while Ryan floats around the swimming pool in his Samalian pirate style Dinghy, plotting to take over the world!!
What can we expect from this release?
I think there’s a good variety on this EP and we are all really excited about it. “Rogue Spirits” and ” Kingdom Come” are both Groovey/Techy numbers that really work the dance floor everytime I play them. I have also done stripped down DJ tools of these two tracks for those that like to get stuck in a loop! Gobi’s Paradise is very percussive, there is so many random percussion tweaks in there I don’t think we could make another track like that if we tried. The Inxec remix has got people talking about summer Terrace Anthems already. The bass hook on this is so catchy it will have you whistling in the shower for days!
Do you have any more releases planned in the near future?
Yes like I mentioned before I have just finished an artist album with my studio partner Jamie Funk due for release on 1Trax in April so keep an eye out for that… We also have our “Gobis Paradise EP” out now on Vitalik aswell as ” Final Frontier ” out now on MN2s records. One for the future to look out for is Loop recordings, the forthcoming label from myself and Martin ” DJ Smut ” Wood. We have got some great music lined up for that!
Not strictly something for the weekend but it is a public holiday in Ibiza, so no one has to go to work for a few days – it seems to be the thing to do in the Spanish winter. This week, Andy Baxter will be joined by another We Love… resident to the turntables at Ibiza winter staple – Pachatronica on Monday night. You can download for free in high quality MP3 a mix album which Jem has provided for We Love… consisting of the best remixes from this summers remix competition. With tracks from labels such as 2020:Vision, Southern Fried and Vitalik it’s not very often such a thing comes up officially, so get it while you can. Jem regularly raised the roof of the Red Box in Space this summer, and stepped up to the mark when asked to close with a set on the infamous Terraza after Steve Lawler.
