IMS IBIZA DAY TWO HIGHLIGHTS
“If you don’t put your complete heart into one thing and decide that’s what I want to spend my life on, it’s hard to justify that it could ever become successful. When you decide this is your craft, this is your art, success finds you.” – Kölsch
THE SECOND DAY SAW MEMORABLE DISCUSSIONS INCLUDING:
Keynote Interview: Renaat Vandepapeliere (Founder, R&S Records) interviewed by Nick Decosemo (Mixmag, UK)
Keynote Interview: Erick Morillo (Artist, USA) interviewed by Pete Tong
Introducing ‘The History of Electronic Music Exhibition’ presented by Darren Henderson
Striving For Excellence & The Art of playing differently with Black Coffee, Dubfire, James Zabiela, Nicole Moudaber, Carmine Conte (Tale Of Us) and Richie Hawtin
The Making of Pete Tong’s Ibiza Prom: Jules Buckley “In Conversation” with Pete Tong
Keynote Interview: Yann Pissenem (Founder / CEO, Ushuaïa, Spain) interviewed by Grego O’Halloran
AFEM presents Market Focus – France
Keynote Interview: Who Is Funding The Music Business? Jörg Mohaupt (Head of Music, Media & Technology, Access Industries, UK) interviewed by Bobby Simms
Keynote Interview: Julien Temple (Film Director, UK) interviewed by Craig McLean
Visionaries Contest Winner, Inder Phull, Presented By IMS and Mixmag
Mixmag Presents The New Breed with Danny Daze, Danny Howard, Francesca Lombardo and Kölsch
YGN: Young Guns Network presents Millennial Messaging – Are Chat Apps the new Social Networks
As the opening day of IMS Ibiza was eclipsed with a Legends Dinner in honour of Space’s Pepe Roselló, day-two once again provided a wealth of business, event and artist-related topics across the conference. Covering a varied programme that ranged from music industry funding, to artist individuality, talks came from the likes of R&S Records founder Renaat Vandepapeliere, Ushuaïa founder Yann Pissenem – plus a host of acts across the electronic scene – with a heartfelt discussion from Erick Morillo that detailed his experiences with addiction during his career.
Beginning with an insight into R&S’s tastemaking trajectory that has spanned over four decades, founder Renaat Vandepapeliere explained to IMS Ibiza:
“It takes your heart, takes risk and you have no idea where it’s going to go or how the feedback will be when it comes back to you. But this is me, this is what I do.”
Erick Morillo chose to lay bare his highs and low within the scene, offering a frank account of his relationship with drugs and how he overcame his demons.
“When all these young DJs were all of a sudden blowing up and eclipsing me, my ego couldn’t take it. My ego couldn’t take that I wasn’t the top dog anymore. That’s when things started to unravel. Then I started making music I didn’t love and playing music I didn’t love. That’s when things started to get really bad.
It was ketamine. That was the one. When people ask “why ketamine?,” I say thank god it was ketamine, because it was one of the drugs that isn’t physically addictive. It was a mental addiction. It was about ego, I had to let it go.
Stay true to yourself. Stay true to the music you love…I’m just doing it for love – literally. I used to say that, but now I fucking mean it.” – Erick Morillo
Darren Henderson unveiled The History of Electronic Music Exhibition, whilst a range of forward thinking artists compiled of Black Coffee, Dubfire, James Zabiela, Nicole Moudaber, Carmine Conte (Tale Of Us) and Richie Hawtin discussed the topic of ‘Striving For Excellence & The Art of Playing Differently’ – centred around the recent launch of Richie’s MODEL1 mixer by his PLAYdifferently company. Speaking of the MODEL1 mixer, Richie explained:
“I felt that we were maybe going in the wrong way with equipment, especially with mixers which were becoming more and more complicated. Attention was going to bells and whistles and effects, and I felt that sound quality and beautiful components and the idea of a mixer as an instrument had been lost. In a way, it was going back to basics. Giving something that was playable, and allow people to play differently.”- Richie Hawtin
Contributing to the conversation, various artists shared their experiences with equipment and desired approach to DJing:
“I struggle to press play and just wait for the song to start and finish. If I feel like something needs to be highlighted in a song, I do that and accent certain parts of the songs.” – Black Coffee
“Half of it is about technology, but half is about your natural ability as a DJ. Along the way, you learn the artform of what it really is to be a DJ.” – Dubfire
“Feeling one with your instrument and feeling one with your crowd, that’s what it’s about.” – Nicole Moudaber
After introductory sessions to the likes of Crowdmix, OpenLab and IMS’s latest venture IMS Asia-Pacific, English conductor and composer Jules Buckley sat down with IMS co-founder Pete Tong to shed light on the creation of The Ibiza Prom which celebrated 20 years of Radio 1 in Ibiza last year. Referencing the hugely positive reception of the event, Jules expressed:
“It goes to prove how much people love this music. It’s fair to say that we also didn’t know what the reaction would be. It could have bombed.” – Jules Buckley
Building on one of the island’s most talked about events – the closure of Space – Yann Pissenem of Ushuaïa spoke with Grego O’Halloran about the future of the club, and what he plans to offer clubbers now that he has acquired the venue.
“People want to experience clubs in different ways. After the amazing and fabulous creative work that Pepe has done in the last 27 years, I’m glad and proud to step in. With a lot of respect. It’s a big responsibility for me for the international scene, the electronic scene.” – Yann Pissenem
Elsewhere, IMS and Mixmag crowned KRPT LDN founder Inder Phull as this year’s Visionaries contest winner, before turning the spotlight on France for their yearly market focus, in light of the horrific scenes with the terrorist attack on the Bataclan last year. Delivering a timely debate with global relevance, Antoine Buffard of Trax magazine described the country’s flourishing music community:
“The confidence of new, young collectives went up, they are putting out more and more stuff. Next weekend, there’s three festivals in France. It happened very suddenly, and we’re excited to be the observers of a new trend.” – Antoine Buffard
Maintaining focus on electronic music’s future, Young Guns Network discussed the use of social media between the Millennial generation, whilst Mixmag’s legendary ‘New Breed’ panel spoke to various breakthrough-big artists on their experiences.
“Credibility is about working hard. Be humble, be thoughtful about what you do. Don’t change yourself just because you want to get somewhere.” – Francesca Lombardo
“The music speaks for itself. If you want credibility, continue doing a sound that you truly believe in.” – Danny Daze
“If you don’t put your complete heart into one thing and decide that’s what I want to spend my life on, it’s hard to justify that it could ever become successful. When you decide this is your craft, this is your art, success finds you.” – Kölsch
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Mission Statement
International Music Summit is an educational, inspirational and motivational thought leadership platform dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, electronic music, the artistry related to DJ-ing and all related popular artforms, primarily through the presentation of summits and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of the genre to art and culture worldwide.
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