Richie Hawtin will be a resident at Space Ibiza this summer, bringing a concept called ENTER. to one of the White Isle's most celebrated venues.
Per usual for Hawtin, ENTER. is a multi-layered concept that will encompass many of the Minus boss' interests, namely music, technology and sake. The latter may come as surprise, but over the past three years he's taken two one-week courses revolving around the drink while traveling in Japan. ("Eventually, my dream is to have a sake bar in Berlin," he told us earlier today.) The night will have a fully stocked bar with Hawtin working with his hand-selected team to create a special Sake & Shochu-based cocktail menu for the club. The theme falls neatly in line with the previously announced Thursday Kehakuma night at Space, which has an Asian-orientated design palette. That night will still take place on the Space terrace as part of the Hawtin night and be known as ENTER.Kehakuma. (Dates before and after ENTER.'s 12 week run will again be known simply as Kehakuma.)
Hawtin's Space residency is his first solo jaunt on Ibiza. For a number of years, he had worked with Sven Vath's Cocoon label at Amnesia—a relationship he describes as "incredible and life-defining." Hawtin specifically chose Thursday and Space to provide a respectful distance to Luciano at Pacha, Cocoon and Carl Cox's night at Space. Nonetheless, his night will go head-to-head with another new venture on the island, Jamie Jones' Hot Natured party at DC-10.
We caught up with Hawtin today to talk sake, Space and Thursday on the island.
Why did you choose Space as the place for your residency as opposed to Amnesia?
When we started talking about a residency [I thought], "OK, if I do a night on Ibiza, Thursday is the only night that I can do, because it's far enough away from Cocoon, from Carl, from Luciano and just before the weekend." So it was like, "If something could happen for Thursdays, then we'll take a step forward, otherwise this is a no go." And so that kind of already started to close a window because Amnesia had, I believe, Cream on that day.
Then, after walking through Space, the ideas just started to come very quickly and very easily. It was like, "OK, let's do some interactive stuff in this room," and when I walked into the back room I was like, "Man, this would be perfect to do a cool, small intimate bar, let's bring sake in here." That was really in the first half-hour of walking through Space. After that it was like, "Oh my God, I think we may actually start to really honestly think about doing our own night in Ibiza." That was on a trip to Ibiza in December of last year.
In the press materials to the night, it says that you're a trained sake sommelier. Tell us more about that.
Yeah, I've been training, but I would definitely say I still have some training to go. I've taken two different week-long courses over the last three years in Japan, and travelled throughout Japan visiting breweries and brewmasters and learning about sake. I'm very well read on the technical process. Probably to be a better sommelier I would have to—actually, no one's going to believe this—but I would actually need to drink more. But there’s just not enough time between DJing and travelling to drink the amount of sake I need to get my taste buds even more acute to all the different flavours. Eventually, my dream is to have a sake bar in Berlin, so this is a great chance to introduce my fans and fellow friends to sake on a little bit of a deeper level. We're working with some of my friends in Japan who happen to actually be running breweries or distribution companies, and we're going to be bringing in things that are presently not even available in Europe. One of the bottles is not even available outside of Japan.
When I did my first course a couple of years ago it totally blew me away, because the sake industry is very much like the record industry. Five or ten years ago there were more than 12,000 breweries in Japan, and that has now shrunk to about 2,000. These are mostly Mom and Pop, four, five, six generation family-run businesses and strongly independent. I felt so connected to the idea of people continuing this tradition. It wasn't only the taste, how it was made or the connection to Japan, it's just this whole... there was something there that really brought me back to why I first got involved in music and starting my own label and bringing artists together.
Any artists you can reveal specifically for the night this year?
Nothing specifically, but I can say that we have some very interesting people on the line-up. A couple of new friends, some old friends. Of course the Minus gang are well represented—Gaiser, Matador and more—but it's a combination of friends and collaborators from the last 20 years, and some people who are really inspiring me who have never played on the island. I'm playing every week. Sometimes I'm playing at the sake bar, sometimes I'm playing in the main room or both. We're doing a pre-party each time at 10 PM where we're going to come together for dinner with our gang and with people who want to come, and we're going to continue to the wee hours of the morning, and give people a diversity of music, technology, sake, fun, fantasy and everything else that should happen on the island.
