No promotion: Underground is back for another season as Ibiza's best-kept secret

Peeking behind the DJ booth at 2am, it’s clear to see that nothing has really changed. Where Jamie Jones, Rossko and Archie Hamilton once stood and studied the scene, now a core crew of Eastern European DJs are doing the same. Speaking to Calin after his opening set, it becomes apparent how passionate he is about the venue. For the most part, it’s the only club he plays in Ibiza and he tells us that’s the way it will always be. He prefers to play unreleased music, otherwise he gets bored, and there’s just nowhere else on the island he can get away with dropping unreleased tunes for two hours straight. Underground is the place to DJ, he says, if you don’t want to be inhibited or influenced by club politics or commercial prejudices.

“I’ve seen it so many times,” says Juanito. “When the DJs get famous they become more commercial. They have a few big years and then people don’t care about them anymore. They get lost and they lose their taste in music along the way. That’s what happens to those who sell their soul to the machine.”

Interestingly, machines don’t seem to work too well in Ibiza Underground. Our mobile signal cuts in… and then it cuts out again. When it returns, shamefacedly, we try to use Shazam. But here’s the thing: the resident DJs who power Underground always drop exclusive, unreleased tunes, a move which renders Shazam completely ineffective. It becomes apparent that Romanian DJs like Rhadoo, Raresh, Praslea, and Calin and Naza who are playing tonight, are passing the tunes we’re hearing around between themselves, leaving the wider world beyond the four walls of Ibiza Underground largely oblivious to this dissident wellspring of house and techno music. That’s why it’s customary to spend the entire night at Underground without hearing a single track you know.

“People ask me why I have so many Romanian residents here,” Juanito concludes after completing his extended back-to-back set with Naza at 6am, “but it’s not about where they’re from; it’s the fact that they approach music in a different way. The way they produce is different too; it’s not so obvious. When you hear their music it makes you think. I play vinyl – I have more than 10,000 records in the back – but now I also play with Traktor because the Romanian guys have given me so many unreleased tracks. So, like I say, it’s not about where the DJs are from or even who is on the line-up. The people who come here to Ibiza Underground know that we’re going to be playing good music. It doesn’t matter whether it’s me, tINI, Rhadoo or Nastia playing it, you’re going to hear house and techno music you’ve never heard before.”

Check out Don Juanito’s Ibiza Underground opening party playlist below