A taste of the party isle
During what’s proving to be a bitterly cold Sydney winter, it’s nice to catch a glimpse of how those on the sunnier side of the world are living it up.
The new triple-disc Pacha collection, named after one of Ibiza’s most popular superclubs and mixed by Matt Nugent and Alex Taylor, is the soundtrack to the summer season kicking off now on Spain’s infamous White Isle.
Taylor, who has a weekly Thursday residency at Arq and has been a stalwart of Sydney’s gay scene for almost two decades, has been playing for predominantly straight audiences during the national Pacha tour, which visited Sydney in early June.
He said the crowds had been going especially wild for one of the tracks on the mix — Roger Sanchez’s 2Gether, with its recurrent sample from everyone’s favourite wedding reception classic, Love Shack.
“When I first heard it, I couldn’t actually pick the sample — it took me a little while. It’s quite cleverly done. If you weren’t used to hearing the B-52s you probably wouldn’t put two and two together.”
The B-52s aren’t the only unlikely artists to pop up in Taylor’s mix. Without You is a moody electro number sung by none other than 2007 Australian Idol winner Natalie Gauci. Some might shy away from putting a name like Natalie Gauci on their CD — a connection with Australian Idol hardly does wonders for a DJ’s street cred.
“Yeah, but I guess if it is a great track, you can’t deny it and you can’t not play it. Sometimes when you’re sent stuff, they can be a bit sneaky and not tell you who it’s by. There was a remix that was sent out a while ago under the name ‘D.G.’, and it took a while before anyone twigged that it was Delta Goodrem.”
Taylor was a natural choice to handle one-half of the mixing duties for Pacha, as 2010 marks his 11th year as an Ibiza pilgrim — he first played at the famous Pacha nightclub in 2000.
“At first it was just for a couple of weeks each year, but it got longer and longer until I’d stay for the whole summer. This year though I’m just going to escape the Sydney winter for three weeks at the end of August.
“It’s a nice way to do it, because Sydney’s clubbing scene gets a bit quiet in the colder months.”
Of course, as a DJ he can dress up this annual trip as a working holiday, but isn’t Taylor just addicted to the hard-partying ways of the Ibiza crowd?
“Well, there’s the trashbag element, sure, but you can go clubbing, do beaches, do bars … there are a lot of different sides to Ibiza.”
info: Pacha Australia 2010 (Central Station) is out now. Visit www.alextaylor.com.au
