Maceo Plex's line-ups for Mosaic at Pacha have been spot on this season. That's not surprising considering the impact he made with his first summer as a full-time resident in 2016. Yet again he proved he's not here for an easy ride, which would have been to simply enlist a host of techno juggernauts we've become accustomed to raving to on the White Isle.
Sure, we saw Adam Beyer, DJ Koze, Tale Of Us, Carl Craig, Recondite, Steffi, Roman Flügel and Mano Le Tough adding to their count of Ibiza appearances with Plex. But artists brought in to make things more interesting included Rødhåd, Levon Vincent, Moodymann, Ben Klock and Anthony Parasole with their first Mosaic hit, as well as Jon Hopkins, Palms Trax, Röyksopp and Aurora Halal making their island debuts.
If Plex's Ibiza campaign is centred on introducing the island to sounds rarely spun here, guests need to have been urged to play as they would in any other corner of the globe. Some probably considered spinning uncompromised techno to have been a tough task at Pacha, which also caters to VIPs who aren't necessarily there purely for the music.
However, over the course of two seasons, Plex has proved he's a man of his word. He and his guests have gone in with conviction, and one of those visitants includes German kingpin Ben Klock. Having already stopped in at the beginning of August and given clubbers a rock-solid smack to the senses, he was at the top of the pack as Plex's accomplice for that extra date which brought Mosaic to a final close.
As soon as I raced up those stairs to get to the dance floor, yet again I was hit by just how atmospheric Pacha is under Plex's rule. The air is vaporous, with blueish fog making the space feel ever so slightly eerie, but also pretty damn sensual.
Klock was battering out the kind of thumping techno venom you'd quite happily be locked in a dungeon with for hours on end. While everyone is free to enjoy music as they please – whether that be to sway gracefully to the rhythm of the bass or go absolutely wild with the limb locking – personally, I want to see the crowd latch onto the beat with wild abandon.
As Klock reduced the pedal on severer twists of techno and brought in Rødhåd's otherworldly remix of Howling's track Signs, I got what I was after. That track has you reaching for your thighs every single time the sound system is embraced by its steady pulse and breathy vocals. Cheers roared across the crowd, with one fire-wired Italian screaming “SPETTACOLARE” repeatedly throughout. On yourself – that's the kind of passion we need.
Geometric light structures hovered over the hundreds packed into the dance floor, occasionally lowered almost within touching distance. Production can often distract you from the music and encourage the Instagram warriors; however, the crowd were simply entertained and remained focussed on dancing.
Benjamin Milz' acid blast Dc2 dropped to give us a flattening smack before we soon took a different route and bounced into housier territory with Mr. G's bouncing release Lights. It was an interesting departure from the tough techno heat that he'd spent most of the night plugging.
For the last few hours of Plex's closing shakedown, we had them going back-to-back. These guys together are an absolute force to be reckoned with in their abilities to build bruising beats into indestructible, monolithic blocks of sound. Sometimes it was rough and menacing, other times it sonically playful and melodic, and those kicks could have knocked you out for six.
Bringing in a vocal monologue to build anticipation was a huge highlight of the night – the crowd went batshit crazy as the bass overtook to dominate. Floorplan's warping beast Above The Clouds descended before we were flung into classic territory with Dave Clarke's 1996 weapon Wisdom To The Wise. Under his Maetrik moniker, Plex seized an opportunity to give latest release Cortex 11-B a spin.
It was a superb close to Plex's 2017 season. There's an element of music education with Mosaic as some guests admitedly didn't pull in as many punters as they would in other clubbing destinations simply because they were unknown, which is a pity. But we're hoping that Mosaic returns in 2018 so it can continue bringing us fresh meat by the kilo.
