BUREAU OF LOST CULTURE – Ibiza and the Meteoric Rise of Club Culture (10/05/2025)
Sunshine, Love, Beats and Drugs
How did a sleepy island off the coast of Spain, metamorphose from an arty countercultural haven into a commercial mass-market party hub that for a while at least, became the global epicentre of electronic dance music?
Alexis Petridis, chief music writer for The Guardian, and Dean Chalkley, one of the UK’s leading photographers of British subculture (both seasoned clubbers),have documented its extraordinary life and times – in their time together at Mixmag, the clubbers’ bible and in the years since.
Alexis takes us on a trip through the island’s bohemian past and tells how a combination of underground culture and 60s and 70s glamour set the scene for the extraordinary explosion that took place in the 80s and 90s
The photographs in Dean’s new book ‘Back in Ibiza 1998 – 2003’ evoke a golden age of happy, all-in-it-together youth, bacchanalian excess and sunkissed beach life before the corporate monster of brands and VIP lounges swallowed it whole.
