Since returning to Ibiza this August, I've been lucky enough to reacquaint myself with a number of the island’s top artist residencies. It always intrigues me to see how they evolve from one season to the next.
Tasked with investigating the latest iteration of Ben Hemsley’s Monday residency at Amnesia - this year under the banner NRG, a shot of coffee was all I needed to gee myself up for the night ahead.
Having arrived shortly after midnight, there was no hesitancy from this late-season arrival. I reported straight to the Club Room, where rising Berlin star Diffrent was already behind the decks.
Curiously, he’s diverged from the appropriated Techno sound his city is known for, instead forging his own path through the sounds of the UK underground. Building a reputation for his take on Garage, Jungle, Breaks and Bass, I was eager to experience him in person.
Admittedly, it didn’t take much for me to employ my trusty two-step shuffle, with bouncy UK Bass blasting from the speakers.
Before long, Diffrent was rinsing a few of his own productions. I noted a particularly engaged crowd in response to Solar Sea rinse. Hardly a surprise, considering its euphoric '90s-style piano chords, fast and furious percussion and that familiar UK “wubby” bass.
Barely a few minutes later, a track we’ve all come to know, A Little Closer, made itself heard. Garage-style organ lead, a modulating Reese bass and catchy vocals had the crowd firmly in the zone. It was a right thumper.
One of his closing tunes, X CLUB’s Stay With Me, was another highlight. By the time Diffrent was wrapping things up, I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
Then, at around 01:30, the star of the show made his appearance.
Ben Hemsley kicked things off strongly with his 2022 hit Erase Me, immediately prompting a crowd sing-along. Then came Barber’s timeless Adagio For Strings, with the melancholy strings section activating the feels before Tiësto’s Trance remix got the room pumping.
The crowd’s response was a textbook example of why the track has endured.
Having been firmly in command of the floor for a solid half hour, Hemsley was then joined by Diffrent behind the booth for what appeared to be an entirely unscheduled back-to-back. I wasn’t one to argue either.
The pair proceeded to run through a selection of absolute classics, with Mass Medium and Club Caviar staples thrown into the mix alongside Underworld's Born Slippy and Jeff Mills' The Bells. A few more modern House tunes were sprinkled in between, with Robbie Doherty’s distinctive style also making an audible appearance.
B2Bs can sometimes be hit and miss, but the lads cooked in the booth with this one. There was a real sense that both wanted to experiment, play some timeless bangers, and newer stuff, and the back-and-forth made for one of the more enjoyable sections of the night.
Come 04:00, the young Scottish lads Jezza & Jod teamed up with Irish Techno and Hard Dance head Black Traffic. If I thought the night had peaked with Hemsley and Diffrent, they certainly managed to take it up a further notch.
Between 10 to 20 bpm faster, it was all bangers and no mash with these lads. The tunes got harder and, despite the increasingly unreliable state of my legs and progressively heavy eye lids, I found myself impressed yet again with NRG’s unrelenting energy.
The Hard Dance scene is divisive in a lot of ways. Either you love it or you don't.
As for myself, I genuinely admired NRG's genre diversity throughout the night. It gave the crowd a change of pace, kept things unpredictable and, most importantly, reignited one's desire to get back on the dancefloor when things start to feel a little bit samey. NRG succeeded in that regard.
A blend of Bass, Garage, Trance, Techno and Hard Dance, even Europop, all under one roof. If the objective was to keep people moving, it certainly did so.
Though I didn't realise it at the time, inadvertently, I had attended the final NRG of the season. Let's see where Ben Hemsley ends up in summer 2027.
For a full list of parties taking place at Amnesia between now and the end of summer, please visit our club homepage or head to our party calendar.
