With the latest Ibiza season in full swing, Damian Lazarus is back at the decks. For several decades, Lazarus, the London-born DJ-producer and label head of Crosstown Rebels, has used the Spanish island as a canvas upon which he can share his most exciting club music. Since sneaking onto the decks uninvited at Space in 2001, he’s carved his name into local folklore with his residencies at CircoLoco at DC10, where he’s closed the season for years. On any given Saturday this year, you can take a cosmic trip with him in Hï Ibiza’s club room, alongside Black Coffee.

As anyone who knows Lazarus as an artist can attest, his inspirations are deep and varied, traversing drum & bass, jazz, electro, soul, house, techno, and everything in-between. You can see this across his releases, including Flourish, his latest album, and Crosstown, where he’s welcomed anyone from Irish singer Róisín Murphy to Jamie Jones, Maceo Plex, Laurent Garnier, and even Craig Richards. In April, he released the soundtrack to Beijing Spring, a documentary film that is written, produced and directed by Andy Cohen and co-directed by Gaylen Ross. But it’s perhaps most evident in his DJ sets, and all of it harks back to Lazarus’ immersion in a multitude of scenes, from his early days in London’s drum & bass movement, to his role as a figurehead in the Electroclash scene, and more recently house and techno.

For this week’s XLR8R podcast, Lazarus has delivered a segment from his opening at Hï Ibiza, in April. It was his first set on the island in some time and his USB sticks were filled with new and original music that he’d either been sent or found, and he couldn’t wait to play out. The best Lazarus sets are not so much wild parties but deep, sensory experiences, and this particular recording falls into that latter category: expect just over 90 minutes of previously unheard tribalistic house music coming from the likes of Pale Blue, Matador, Serge Devant, and Jonathan Kaspar, curated by a master of the genre.

01. What have you been up to recently? 
Summer is in full swing and I’ve spent the last month or so based in Ibiza. I’ve been busy in the studio working on some new remixes and I’ve been traveling around Europe playing some amazing parties.

02. What have you been listening to? 
Demos have been coming in thick and fast these last few months, so much of my time has been listening to new unreleased music and signing some of them. Other than that, I’ve been enjoying the forthcoming debut album from Miraclis on the new Secret Teachings label.

03. You recorded this mix live in Ibiza. What made this particular set so memorable?
For most people this was the first set heard back on the island following two years off due to the pandemic. It felt like a huge relief to be back and a great opportunity to reset musically and introduce people to a snapshot of where my sound is at in 2022.

04. Specifically where and when did you record this mix? 
At the opening party of Hï Ibiza, which was called Better Together, where I played a 90-minute set in the main room alongside The Martinez Brothers and Black Coffee.

05. You’ve told us that this mix is full of unreleased exclusives. Can you talk to me about the tracks you’ve included? 
I had spent the first four or five months of the year gathering new music, much of which will be released on Crosstown Rebels and Rebellion later this year. The set includes music from Pale Blue, Matador, Senzala, Rosalia, Serge Devant, Dennis Cruz, and Jonathan Kaspar. There’s also something from myself and Gorgon City.

06. What’s up next on your agenda?
My weekly residency with Black Coffee every Saturday in the Club Room at Hï Ibiza continues to go from strength to strength and our plans for Day Zero Masada on September 16 are coming together nicely. I have a very exciting year going on and the music I am continually finding and playing seems to be getting better.

XLR8R has now joined Mixcloud Select, meaning that to hear the podcast offline you will need to subscribe to our Select channel to listen offline, or subscribe to XLR8R+ to download the file. The move to Mixcloud Select will ensure that all the producers with music featured in our mixes get paid. You can read more about it here.

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