Celebrate a Decade of Dance Music With Jamie Jones and Solomun at Club Space

If you're just getting around to mapping out your New Year's Eve itinerary (and the painful hangover that's sure to follow), your safest bet might be to check out Jamie Jones and Solomun at Club Space. But let’s be real: It isn't exactly accurate to call the gathering a New Year's Eve party. As anyone who's ever been to Space knows, the festivities won't really get going until well into New Year's Day and will likely continue into January 2. To compound matters, both Jones and Solomun are known for their marathon-style approach to DJ'ing, which often sees them shredding the decks for hours at a time.

Mladen Solomun, better known as simply Solomun, became the "it" DJ circa 2012. Fast-forward to 2019, and the 43-year-old is selling out shows left and right around the world. During the summer in Ibiza, the Bosnian-German DJ/producer brings his +1 parties to the nightclub Pacha on Sundays. The seasonal residency has proven popular with clubgoers over the years; in 2019, it hosted the likes of DJ Seinfeld, Maceo Plex, Peggy Gou, and Tijana T.

Solomun has a knack for grabbing listeners' attention: Cercle, a French production company that arranges for DJs to play in out-of-the-box venue spaces (think French castles or Bolivian salt flats), invited him in 2018 to play at the Théâtre Antique d’Orange in Orange, France. The resulting video boasts more than 10 million views on YouTube, and a 2015 Boiler Room set of his recorded in Tulum, Mexico, has achieved the even more impressive feat of racking up 40 million views to date.
In addition to playing extended DJ sets and frequenting exotic locales, Solomun is also the cofounder of the imprint Diynamic and its sub-label, 2DIY4. Diynamic prides itself on its diverse roster of artists and commitment to curating unique and surprising releases. "Reaktor," a 2018 track produced by Boys Noize under his Elax alias, proved to be a viral hit for the label. Prior to its release, the song was rinsed regularly by Solomun and his peers during DJ sets. The tech-house track's pairing of hearty buildups and tangible claps against a bongo drum pattern and synth stabs had trainspotters scrambling to learn the song's ID.

The reaction to "Reaktor" is a testament to the following Solomun has built through the consistency of his label and the strength of his mixes. The degree of respect he commands as a DJ, producer, and label head is matched by few in the realm of electronic music. Luckily for Space's New Year's Eve revelers, the 39-year-old Jones has built a formidable reputation of his own.

It isn’t hyperbolic to say the Welsh DJ effectively has a residency at Club Space. By the time his NYE set wraps up, he'll have played at the venue three times since October. Jones' most recent stint on the club's famed Terrace was for the Miami Art Week edition of his ever-popular party Paradise. The Saturday-night and early-Sunday-morning show hosted an array of selectors, including DJ Holographic, Four Tet, Luciano, and the man himself.
Besides his know-how as a party planner, Jones is also the founder of Hot Creations, a record label that's produced some of the most sought-out tech-house tracks in recent memory. Hot Creations flaunts a balearic-meets-techno aesthetic that's similar to that of Paradise and Jones, making him an all-around good fit for both Space and Ultra (and, really, Miami in general).

Like Solomun, Jones finds the joy in the journey, and he knows if he can make the audience dance, he has done his job properly. The future might look a little unsettling at the close of the 2010s, but with the help of these dance titans, at least we'll be able to welcome the new decade on a positive, uplifting note.

Jamie Jones and Solomun. With Danyelino and Thunderpony. 11 p.m. Tuesday, December 31, at Club Space, 34 NE 11th St., Miami; 786-357-6456; clubspace.com. Tickets cost $90.16 to $266.76 via eventbrite.com.