Unity isn’t officially producing the event anymore as such but I’m still the “music director” of Pacifque. So planning the line-up and schedules is on my responsibility. Feel free to give suggestions for future events;) I think this year’s program seemed to be one of the most solid ones so far. Maybe it’s also that DJs and artists know the event too but it felt that everybody were part of a bigger story flowing smoothly from the chilled out beginning to the hedonistic ending. There’s been long discussion whether there should be some “harder” music in the main arena, but personally I think house music fits the surroundings perfectly. In Finland there are also so rarely “big” events with house in the main room that I think we’ll continue building on that tradition.

I didn’t catch all the artists and didn’t hear a bad word from anyone, but Käpä & Anselmi with their summery house, Unity Collective with their balearic nu-disco sound and Uke in sauna playing KLF’s sublime ‘Chill Out’ album in it’s 45 minute entity (if it ain’t broke why fix it?!) all definitely hit the right notes. The headliner - legendary Danny Rampling - took the crowd and was as rock solid as you can expect from someone who has DJed over 25 years and written a book on how to do it.

I played the last 90 minutes together with Mr.A and Heikki L as “Pacifique Allstars”. The last moments at main pool are always special with perhaps one of the most special DJ booth views I’ve experienced. This year’s set was eclectic selection of various forms of house music. Hessu and Ana are true masters of the genre so it’s always a pleasure to play with them. Some personal highlights from the set included Heikki’s new (yet unfinished) version of Klatsch’s classic ‘God Save The Queer’, Afrojack’s dirty-as-hell-yet-summery-in-some-weird-way ‘Pacha On Acid’ and Axwell & Dirty South’s remix of Temper Trap’s ‘Sweet Disposition’ which is already a modern classic. My alltime favorite summer track Planet Funk’s ‘Chase The Sun’ seemed to summarize the sunshine filled vibes nicely in the end.

This year it was also nice to see the production taking (once again) steps into even more solid direction. Huge thanks to all the tens and hundreds of people who were working the during the weekend. Conditions don’t get much more extreme than that so big respect to all technical/security/bar/decoration/medical/production making it all possible! Only clearly negative change I noticed was the increased amount of chlorine in the water which made my eyes hurt and all red in matter of minutes in pool area. I understood that the intention is to make the water more clear but we know where the shit goes from the water with chlorine: the to the air. And if I could choose between someone peeing on my arm or into my eye… well it’s not a tough choice!

Sooo… once again we had a magical event with some 1500+ enthusiastic music lovers. This will help us finns to make it to the summer months with more good memories and stories to be told. To keep them fresh we can always go to SESSIONS2 website and relive the moments once more. Thank you and see you again in 2011!

• +Planet Funk: Chase The Sun
• +Lil’ Louis: French Kiss
• +Soul Central: Strings of Life (Danny Krivit re-edit)

It’s seven years now since I met with Joonas and Haba from Labyrinth possé to discuss some new and wild event ideas to do together. We wanted to do something that needed our (Unity & Labyrinth) combined efforts, something that hasn’t been done before. We came up with three ideas: 1) party in a waterpark (Pacifique), 2) party is cruise ship (Oceanic) and 3) XXX something that is still waiting to be done… Unity is not involved as such in production of the event but it’s nice to see how the Pacifique has a super professional team (Lauri, Joonas, Markus, Jenni, Jarkko…) working on all aspects of the event and making the production truly world class.

It’s been amazing to see how Pacifique has grown not only in terms of production but also in popularity and become a bit of institution in annual finnish clubbing calendar. Everybody was positively surprised how quickly (two months prior the event) the tickets were sold out this year. Recently we’ve also introduced foreign headliners who are some true legends of house music. Last year the spiritual father of european house sound Alfredo took us through 20 years of balearic classics while this year the “Godfather of British House Music” Danny Rampling will show why he is called “Legend of House”. Supported by the creme de la creme of finnish electronic music DJs. Old school (Jay Mellin, Käpä, Proteus…) next to the best of nu skool (Anselmi Kuusisto, Anton Sonin, Lauri Soini…)

I am playing the last set on the main arena with the traditional “Pacifique Allstars” collective formed by myself, Mr.A and Heikki L. It will be housey, summery, feel good, pumping sounds to finish off what will surely be another night to remember. Sessions guys and girls will be documenting the event with photos uploaded quite soon to the Pacifique website. Let’s make the summer sun shine in middle of a cold winter!

1. BT: A Million Stars
2. Ashley Wallbridge: Chimera
3. Bart Van Wissen: Cosmic Superhero
4. Der Dritte Raum: Hale Bopp (Guy J remix)
5. Jaia: Out Of Orbit (Vibrasphere Analog Tape Remix)
6. Rank 1 & Jochen Miller: The Great Escape
7. Faithless: Sun To Me (Alex Morph remix)
8. Mansun: Wide Open Space (Greg Downey remix)
9. Solarstone: Solarcoaster (Haris C Remix)
10. BT: Flaming June (Randy Boyer Mix)

DOWNLOAD MP3

We’ll start with more proggy stuff, will have some more atmospheric material to dive through and we’ll end with some super-duper-uplifting ones. Maybe I’m experience a happy period in my life but I’m definitely into occasional uplifting stuff again. Very much into the proggy stuff too haha;)

Nu skool producers are represented by the likes of Guy J, Ashley Wallbridge and Jochen Miller while the old school flags are carried by BT, Faithless and Solarstone to name a few.

Feel free to join the live discussion on Afterhours.fm message board at 21-22 CET time (22-23 FIN time). This set will also be broadcasted on Finnish Radio NRJ this Saturday at 23:00-00:00 and be available as podcast this weekend.

1. Union Jack: Papillon
2. Behind Blue Eyes: World Is Our Oyster 2009
3. Quivver: Rustle Dust
4. Henry Saiz: Rhinemaidens
5. Erphun: 2wo Butterflies
6. Cirez D: Glow
7. Der Dritte Raum: Hale Bopp (Guy J remix)
8. Guy J: Lamur (Henry Saiz remix)
9. Fergie: Exit People
10. Nemmo & Eskay: Affection (Dousk remix)
11. Daniel Portman: Virtual Suicide
12. Brian Sanhaji: Stereotype (Thomas Krome remix)
13. Union Jack: Funnelweb
14. Jaia: Out of Orbit (Vibrasphere remix)
15. Union Jack: Two Full Moons & A Trout (Orkidea remix)
16. Orkidea: Unity (2010 remix)

I will play before Astrix who will first play a DJ followed by one hour live set. I’ll probably play a progressive influenced set combined from psychedelic prog house, techno and some progressive psy trance. Probably no full on this time as my slot is at 23:00 and anyway I mainly want to make sure that the main star has perfect (and not too hard) ground to build on.

I’ve also heard that they will have very nice sound system from Precision Audio (the same we had at LOVE) and some pretty special psy dude doing great decoration so it sounds like there is a great night ahead. Hope to see you there!