Island Living with Vitalik

Island Living with Vitalik

25 July, 2011 | 9.15AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: jozif, ryan o'gorman, space ibiza, vitalik, we love

As lively as their name implies, Ryan O’Gorman and the Vitalik crew are a model for club culture’s DIY spirit. They got their start throwing renegade parties in Ibiza’s caves and East London warehouses, and dabbled in pirate radio; these days, they’ve partnered with the We crew to curate their own floor Sundays at We Love Space Ibiza.

Now, after just under two years as a record label, Vitalik brings out its first label compilation, also in conjunction with We Love: We Love Vitalik. Bringing together label mainstays like jozif and Paul Loraine with buddies like The Mole, Mark Hennning, Martin Buttrich, and even Appleblim, the collection ably shows off the breadth of Vitalik’s tastes and instantly distinguishes itself from your standard, flavor-of-the-month Ibiza comp.

We spoke to O’Gorman to find out about Vitalik, its history, and its mission; read on for the interview, and check out the full compilation here.

First of all, could you tell us a little about Vitalik? Who runs it, how did it come together, and what’s the driving idea behind it?

Vitalik originally came about when me and my partner Joe Upton had to put a title to the free parties we were doing in caves and fields around the Island of Ibiza. We were invited to host a room at Space and a name had to be found. Vitalik is a made-up word, but it is derived from the word “vital” or “vitality"—related to the principle of all living things. The awareness of being alive was a strong theme behind the parties we did, and the ethos kind of stuck with us when we morphed into a record label; the name represented a certain level of purity in what we were doing. There are other characters involved, Henry Rumour was a big part of the labels early life, and jozif, although not involved in the running of the label, has always been a key figure. We are still a young label and we are finding our feet, but the aim is to create a collective of young, talented musicians, to forge a respected outlet for quality music.

For those of us who aren’t in the UK, could you tell us a little bit about The Burlington Project?

Burlington Project is an online music magazine, events guide and social networking site for people interested in electronic music and events. We came into existence just over three years ago, before RA had introduced the networking functionality into their site, and we were unique in combining of these aspects. We wanted to create a platform for people who organize music events and a resource for those who attend them, an impartial place for dialogue to exist between the two; much of our content is user generated. Some of the aspects of the site have become more advanced elsewhere with the rapid evolution of social networking sites: Facebook rules in terms of social networking, SoundCloud and Mixcloud have nailed the audio hosting, and Myspace, ironically, is dead. We still provide all these services for free, but the content and the music areas of the site are what have grown the most since its inception.

You say that Vitalik inhabits “the spectral audio space somewhere between London and Ibiza"—what do you mean by that? How far back do your adventures on the island go, and what kind of events have you been involved with?

For many years we had one foot in Ibiza and the other in London. We hosted AKA for Circo Loco while it was at The End, and we took full advantage of the temporary events licenses when they came into existence, holding warehouse parties in various car parks and railway tunnels around East London. Many of London’s clubs had closed down at this time, and the parties had become more independent and moved into the warehouses. In Ibiza the parties we were doing weren’t licensed, and they were free, but the locations we used were a stark contrast to the warehouses of East London. We made parties in some of the most spectacular places of natural beauty in Ibiza. This was a moment in time, also, though: the authorities got militant in their opposition to this in 2007, so now we make records instead of parties. I have been in Ibiza since 1999, I’ve seen a lot of changes.

And how did you hook up with We Love… and Space Ibiza? Has that relationship had any influence on the shape of your London events and the sound of the label?

My partner in Vitalik was a guy called Joe Upton, he was one of the founding members of NastyDirtySexMusic, who had hosted the Red Box the previous year (2005). After Tim Sheridan and Smokin Jo went their separate ways, Mark and Sarah Broadbent invited us to get involved. They were aware of the parties we were doing and our pirate radio station, and I think they liked our rebellious spirit. We Love has always encouraged us to do our own thing and given us free reign with our music policy. It has allowed us to book many of the artists on this compilation, so yes, it has had a big hand in shaping the label—they have showed a lot of support throughout.

It’s been a while since you guys did any EP releases; why is that? Did you decide to wait and bring out everything together on this compilation?

It’s not so much that we wanted to bring everything out on this compilation as I wanted this to have my full attention. Our last EP was in December, and after that I spent the beginning of the 2011 in a tent in the Peruvian rainforest. I have been working solidly on the We Love Vitalik compilation ever since’ we narrowed down the 12 tracks on the compilation from almost 30 submissions. This is the first compilation we have done, and putting out 12 original tracks from completely different artists from a multitude of genres is no easy task. I am really honored that people like Martin Buttrich, Appleblim, The Mole and Pezzner are working with us on this, so it was important for me to give this my full attention and get it right. It’s been an emotional journey!

It’s an interesting list of producers, especially with the likes of Appleblim and Pezzner in there. Who are some of the emerging artists on the comp, and what should we know about them?

Yeah it’s a real cross-the-board collection of artists. I have always felt that there are certain aspects in music that connect artists or, more specifically, tracks, something that goes beyond a beat signature or a production technique. Identifying these traits and making an eclectic collection of music like this cohesive is the art. Many of the better known producers on the compilation have played for us at Space for our Burlington Project and We Love collaboration that was the inspiration for the compilation; these are people who we have met, experienced as artists and adopted into the fold because of the people they are and the music they make. People like jozif, Paul Loraine and Joe Europe are names you may not yet be as familiar with yet, but it’s my belief and the writ of the label that you will be soon.

• (0) Comments
• (1247) Views