Unusual Suspects is an Ibiza party that runs all year round. It has built up a solid reputation as one of the most heady underground events on the White Isle and this season promises plenty more treats.
Taking place at Sankeys each week, the party boasts guests like Dana Ruh, German house heavyweight Thomas Melchior, dub techno don Steve O’Sullivan Romanians Praslea and Raresh, Bill Patrick, Voigtmann, Sammy Dee and many more.
Here we speak to the team about what makes the night so special, who does what and what their key things to get right are for each event.
“Our priority at the moment is to deliver a new underground original project where the music is the centre of everything.”
Why did you start the night, what was the aim, the concept, the gap you were plugging?
We started the night two years ago as we wanted to bring a different sound to the island. We love the Romanian and Berlin sound and so we developed our party around them. The selection of the artists is always really important; all our DJs are excellent producers and we decide to go on quality instead of booking the same names that everybody books.
What is it like promoting in Ibiza, what are the ups and downs, the challenges and the rewards?
We are a really young party as I told you before, it is just our second year. Working in Ibiza is really difficult – we have just five nights against a lot of competition we but stick to our sound trying to deliver a really good underground night.
Ibiza is one of the hardest places to launch a party and be successful. It’s really difficult when you think about the fact that we compete against huge promoters that have had more than fifteen years on the island. However, we are doing an excellent job with a really good result.
Does all house and techno sound as good in the sun and open air as a dark club, or do they need to be slightly modified, style wise?
Definitely have to be different, and I think that open air parties will be future of Ibiza for the next few years ahead.
What are the key ingredients to get right for any party? Sound, light, crowd, all of the above, or other stuff too?
First of all the sound has to be right but I think that the whole production team make a huge a difference. With Unusual Suspects, we are like a family working together and try to take the best from everybody; we try to keep it real without going too crazy.
What is new from last year, what has changed, what will be different?
We have few new entries in our line-up, Tini, Mandar, Premiesku, Tobi Neumann, Kenny Glasgow… What I really think is important for us is our resident DJs. We have incredible DJs such as Frank Storm, Janina, Federico Grazzini, Rick Maia, Haiku 575 , Marina lkaramarko, Azimuth and we are really proud of them. They will do really well in future, you’ll see.
Tell us about how you decide on the line-ups – what considerations go into the planning of a season?
Doing the line-up for Unusual Suspects isn’t easy, we’ve been dedicating lots of time on choosing the artists, we want to stick to our concept and we will never put a DJ that isn’t in line with our concept just to sell more tickets. Our priority at the moment is to deliver a new underground original project where the music is the centre of everything. If you check most of the line-ups this year on the island, they are almost all the same; similar 10-15 names over and over again – pretty boring isn’t it?
Who are you most excited about or proud about booking and why?
A really big one for us this summer is MANDAR. I think that those guys will do really, really well — you’ll see.
