Smirnoff Sound Collective Miami: Discwoman at The Gale Rooftop. Picture by World Red Eye
Thirty-one years ago Florida saw delegates representing the dance and electronic music industry come together for the first Winter Music Conference (WMC), a conference that has since grown to a concentration of more than 400 events, parties, seminars and workshops. In 1999 Ultra Music Festival began as a one-day festival, expanding since to a sold-out weekend with over 150,000 in attendance. Then, in 2011 the electronic music industry saw the foundation of Miami Music Week (MMW), a collection of music events that now includes Ultra and, while it used to coincide with WMC, this year split up from the conference and took place the week before.
When things first started concentration was on pool parties in South Beach during the day and events at a selection of clubs, of which only a handful were in Downtown Miami, at night. There is no doubt that in its second decade of operation, Club Space remains one of the quintessential venues to attend whenever making the trek to Miami for the week. It regularly hosts marathon parties and sets that go deep into the next day’s afternoon and this year it was no different.
On Wednesday night the Club’s Terrace played host to an selection of artists the likes of Shaded, Carlo Lio, Pan-Pot, Kölsch, Gardens of God and Agoria before a grand finale that saw Dubfire go back-to-back with Chris Liebing beginning at 7am and ending at some point in the middle of the afternoon. The atmosphere was electric to say the least, with people making the short trip between the Terrace and the Main Room, which hosted a high-caliber list of Incorrect Music artists such as UMEK, Anthony Attalla, Uner, Prok & Fitch and Supernova. A large contingent remained as downstairs closed to witness the first of the many sunrise-into-the-afternoon performances of the week. Carlo Lio and Pan-Pot set the stage on the Terrace perfectly, playing heavy sounds with minimal to no vocals – setting a welcome and dark opening atmosphere for the closing set to follow. When I left the club at some point in the middle of the morning, the SCI-TEC and CLR bosses were still going at it with a large army of techno fans still on the dance floor.
Marco Carola marathon set on the Terrace. Picture by Club Space Miami
I was to make my way to the Terrace once more the following night for a Marco Carola marathon that followed sets by Leon and French trio Apollonia. Shonky, Dan Ghenacia and Dyed Soundorom know how to work a room, carefully selecting percussion-drive tracks and groovy gems with signature effortlessness. They commandeered the majority of the crowd who didn’t seem to be saving their energy for Carola, but instead danced away for several hours to their infectious performance. They have been playing Carola’s label parties for a while now and it’s no secret why, they are a perfect fit for his ideology and focus on quality of music above all else. While the Italian Music On maestro is no stranger to long sets on the Terrace, he usually performs alongside Loco Dice as “LoCarola” during Miami Music Week so it was a welcome change to see him play solo and for an extended period of time. As usual his funky brand of techno was exactly what the crowd needed, with hundreds arriving past sunrise to see him perform until around 4pm in the afternoon. Shazaming or attempting to ID tracks is near impossible with Carola in control, especially so considering his pride as a track selector. Both him and Apollonia both played that weekend as guests at Carl Cox & Friends’ Ultra stage, while Carola also closed out his label winter residency alongside Paco Osuna on Saturday night with set at Story Miami in South Beach. Check out a small clip of Apollonia at Space below: