Heart Ibiza is the kind of clubbing lair that urges you to adorn your slickest threads, but altitude breaking high heels are a thing of the past for me since I lost the skills to rock them. To witness me in a pair of heels is like observing a rare astronomical event, so to chuck on a set of four-inch bad boys was a pretty big deal, especially with a music billing that included electronic dance music wardens, Nathan Fake and Robert Miles. I was hoping I wasn't going to end up head deep in a champagne ice cooler.
With OpenLab's unique concept, we've got another Heart Ibiza venture that's got a firm footing in pushing innovation and creativity. Andy Baxter and Robert Miles are your main men behind the night, which is from Ibiza's premiere alternative radio station of the same name, in collaboration with Dilemme Ibiza and Ibiza People. Before I'd had a chance to get in there among it, I heard it pitted as cerebral dance music, and this description found itself to be spot on, especially when heard reverberating across the venue's walls, which were lit with Oliver Cartwright's live visuals. Also on stage, while Dance Spirit's focus was dexterously tuned to the melodic flavours of electronica, you had an artist sat pushing a pencil through its paces and I'm not entirely sure what ended up on his A3 spread. It was a heavily mixed crowd. You had your stag do to the right, sexy young hotshots all over, and an older generation Serbian eccentric who I spent enough time with to earn him the Sugar Daddy title. I tried to mimic a bit of the pro dancers' stage sensuality, and then remembered my heel game is absolute nonsense, so stuck to eyeballing the absorbing 3D visuals that chucked you into jungles and waves and other earthly elements.
Dance Spirit increased the tempo before Nathan Fake took control with a higher octane pace that embodied deeper, heavier pulsations - his set was an edgily experimental monster. He's a visual feast when in control of the wires, with ninja brick-breaking head slams, and when you see them getting off to their electronic tricks, you're right behind them with the energy buzz. Fake left the zone to make way for resident, Robert Miles, to a good channeling of whoops and whistles. It was time for the final hour. The floor in front of the booth had quietened, but what he had left was a crowd willing to let themselves go a little looser, which is the best kind in my book of characters. Self-consciousness should be left at the door and it appeared that none of this lot suffered such a disorder. He cranked out the tunes on various levels, with the melodic being spliced in with acid turns - a flavour right up my dance alley. Admittedly, my knowledge of Miles as a craftsman doesn't go much beyond that inescapable '90s classic, 'Children', but he's getting put on my hitlist for future sessions.
OpenLab opened with aplomb and it's got a cracking line-up over the season. So if you lean to cerebral forms of dance music sessions, it's well worth a peek to engage the grey matter.
WORDS | Aimee Lawrence
