Next on our whirl wind stop on the White Isle was a trip to one of the newest parties on the Island, HYTE. Making it’s home in the powerhouse of Amnesia on Wednesdays,the Berlin outfit has put together huge lineups there this season. Wednesday July 8th was no different. Maceo Plex headlined the terrace after Agoria, Barnt and the man who recently played Twisted Pepper for our first WWD night, Shall Ocin.
In the main room the lineup was just as strong : Pan-Pot, Mar-T and Caleb Calloway. For anyone that may not know the latter names, get involved!
Whereas for Cocoon we knew we’d be spending the majority for he night covering the main room, we had a sneaky suspicion we’d be catching up for lost time on the terrace, especially with initial set times suggesting the Pan-Pot men would clash with the mighty Maceo Plex. We’d seen both before a couple of times, but Maceo is something special when he gets going.
With that being said, when we returned to the central Ibizan club around 1.45am we were delighted to see the set times had been changed. Everything on the terrace stayed the same, but Pan-Pot were already on playing til 4am, presumably they themselves did not want to have to compete against Maceo, especially as the island in general was notably quieter during this week compared to the same week in previous years.
We walked straight into the mainroom to check out Tassilo and Thomas’ thundering sounds. Immediately we were hit by something we hadn’t been hit with at Cocoon, lasers. Lots of lasers. The bright red red lights spiralled around the room as the boys spun those Second State sounds. The familiar sounds of a good few Second State production’s hi-end rang out and left the crowd itching for more.
We ventured into the Terrace to check out Agoria. We’d last seen the Frenchman when he played at the Drumcode London event at Tobacco Dock last Halloween. He was impressive there so we were expecting big things. With the main room busy but far from full for Pan-Pot, and the club taking a while to fill, Agoria was really having to work to get the buzz going on the Terrace. However, the couple hundred that were dotted around the Terrace were definitely grooving and gradually Agoria was roping in more dancing feet. In fairness, he was playing tunes that were hard not to dance to. Snilloc’s ‘Elso’ definitely did just that as the French Kiss samples bellowed out into the eardrums of the knowledgeable European crowd.
The dancing feet were gathering and dishing out the appreciation for his huge ‘Love Letters’ remix. Can we just take a moment to appreciate this one? We caught Amê’s Kristian dropping this in the Twisted Pepper basement for Bodytonic & Room19 back in November and it’s been a firm favourite since. Hearing it on the terrace – top.
We ventured back into the mainroom to catch the last of the Pan-Pot set and wait for the Terrace to pick up a bit. The mainroom had since filled up a bit more and we were picking up Pan-Pot where we left off, lots of lo-end filters paving the way for big builds and blasts of the CO2 cannons. Sidney Charles’ ‘Cave Rave’ was an appropriately named track fill the dark room but the boys were saving best for last. The track that ruled Ibiza last summer – Doch. We can confirm, that Stephan Hinz number still does the business. A huge tune to bring the Pan-Pot set towards a close.
We stayed for the changeover with Mar-T who perfectly mixed in a nice techy number with a heavy bassline.It was definitely a sign that the HYTE resident was certainly not gonna go down quietly. However, we knew how good Agoria was, and how good he’d been playing earlier so we moved back to the terrace to catch the last 30 of his set before Maceo took over.
Agoria was still on point. Killing it. Highlight of his set for us was arguably when he dropped &ME – Woods. A huge track with some great builds and even better arpeggios. We loved Agoria’s set and we pencilled him in for 2 from 2 thinking we must catch him again for that third strike.
Maceo took over at 4.30. The terrace almost full with people. The air full of excitement. He got things going quick with Conjure Sex pretty early. Always a crowd pleaser. There are few better producers out there these days that are better producers than Maceo. Be it remixes or originals, the man always kills it. Unfortunately it’s a bit of a double edged sword though, as the productions are so highly regarded he’s almost forced into playing a lot of them in his dj sets.
Don’t get me wrong, we absolutely love hearing him play them out, but it can get a tad repetitive when his productions are THAT good every dj you see out plays some Maceo out, so we were giddy at the thought of new material and it was about 30 mins before we heard what we came for. And it didn’t disappoint. With a big long breakdown and long emotive keys, this new track got a huge reception! He’d played it at Sonar and Solar Detroit has since been announced as part of the 29th release on his esteemed Ellum.
Things were really moving when the dark sultry sounds of Sam Paganini’s ‘Rave’ rumbled through the system at about 5.45. If there wasn’t a sense of how good this was before, the eery driving bassline definitely did the trick.
Just after six saw the return of Agoria and it seemed we’d be getting our wish to catch him for a third time faster than we’d expected. Welcomed back into the the booth by Maceo we saw the pair go back to back for the last hour. Exchanging heavy bassline after heavy bassline, the pair kept the tempo nice and steady. Nothing crazy.
Enrico Sangiuliano and Secret Cinema’s recent Drumcode release Trrbulence made an appearance before a huge crowd pleaser rang out, Solitary Daze. Need we say more?
Now at this point we didnt think the night could get any better, but it did. A track we had never heard played out until Oniris played it at Piknic Électronik Cannes only days previous. But that was not to detract from the excitement when we heard one of the seminal dance music tracks of the last decade being beautifully mixed in on that majestic terrace. Oxia’s ‘Domino’ is simply a mammoth production. It had the Ibiza virgins in awe and the veterans in ecstasy. The perfect production to round off our first experience of a HYTE party.
HYTE continues to run with huge line-ups weekly on Wednesdays at Amnesia and Maceo returns tonight for the first time since our visit. Trust us you do not want to miss him. He never disappoints. Not to mention the other enormous names on offer..
Check the seasons lineups HERE
More Info : HYTE//Amnesia//Agoria//Maceo Plex//Pan-Pot