Carl Cox rings the changes at Space
“I
completely leave England behind and all my pants and socks end up in Ibiza,” laughs Carl Cox when we speak to him to discuss his impressive ninth season at
Space, a twelve week run of Tuesday nights billed as ‘The Revolution Continues’. Having played the second day of Space’s opening weekend, housed in a towering structure over- looking the packed car park where his face was projected in three story detail while lithe dancers showed-off their suppleness on scaffolding platforms to either side, it’s a signal of the incredible status that Carl Cox, one of acid house’s elder statesmen, enjoys amongst clubbers and club owners. Yet for someone who began his career before the concept of the superstar celebrity DJ, it clearly doesn’t sit right with his own humble sense of what being a DJ entails. “It was a one-off concept that was the brainchild of some staging genius,” he tells us. “From a DJing point of view I like to be a bit closer to the crowd. People go there because they want to see an entertaining artist. So here I am in a massive letterbox peeking out at the people below who I can kind of see. We were put up in a godlike status, which I always try to play down. So as impressive as it was I’d like to have connected with the people a bit more and been a bit lower.”
Even if he played floating in a hot air balloon fifty feet above the dancefloor, however, it would be unlikely to deter fans who this summer have the opportunity to catch Carl alongside an enviable display of guests including house and techno dons John Digweed, Josh Wink, Loco Dice, Danny Tenaglia, Dubfire and Fedde Le Grand, drum and bass stars Pendulum, Andy C and LTJ Buken, and the larger-than-life Fatboy Slim and Green Velvet. Then there are his three new residents, Nic Fanciulli, Umek and Yousef on rotation throughout the season. “To have a band of brothers to support what I’ve been doing for the last nine years is great because I want people to come down to not just hear me playing, but also to hear other DJs that I feel have the same essence. That’s basically why we made them residents, to give people more choice. If they can’t see Umek on this day, they can see him on that day. Normally we’ve had me as resident but all the other DJs have been different every week. “Also the DJs can then really flex their muscles,” he adds on this radical re-thinking. “If they’ve only got one date at Space then that set has to be incredible because it’s a one shot deal. Now they’ve got four shots so they can play a set one week and
come back the next with a totally different set which is pushing the scene forward. If we get that from all our residents then you’re going to hear some really outstanding stuff.” With tickets set at €30, a deliberate decision on the part of Cox and his team to keep the night as open and affordable as possible without the VIP exclusivity flaunted elsewhere, he’s keen to point out it offers unbeatable value with the doors opening at 8pm and not closing until 7am the next morning. After almost a decade at Space watching the transformations and changes in law that have taken place, has Ibiza lost any of its magic? “It has got the same magic but we’re in the 21st
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century now,” he replies without hesitation. “When the first mobile phone came out, it was a car battery hanging around your neck. Now you’ve got TV and 3G and all sorts of things in your back pocket. It’s just the way things progress. Ibiza was very hippy in its early days. There was free love, you could smoke marijuana, make drum circles and watch the sun go down. You can still do all of that but we’re here now with all these LED screens and amazing soundsystems and the clubs are open from this time to that time. So it’s been regimented in some ways for organisation. There was no organisation before. “Space is one of those clubs that keeps progressing into something amazing,” he adds proudly. “I’m just really glad to be part of that success.”
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