For the second year T-Mobile's Electronic Beats invites Ian Pooley for a club tour throughout Croatia. Steamy nights filled with pumping house in one of Europe's most beautiful countries.Far away from the busy and spoiled Spanish Costa's, the overcrowded and too expensive Ibiza and many sleeping capitals throughout Europe, Electonic Beats teams up with Ian Pooley to wander along the stunning coast of Croatia for their Splish-Splash tour. They have been working closely for quite some time now and Ian proposed to work together. Ian's warm house sound fits the EB spirit completely, and their tour was a great success in 2006.
Launched in 2001 in Germany, ‘electronic beats’ has progressed into its sixth year with a new shift focusing on an ‘advanced’ approach to music and lifestyle themes that inspire the audiences who have created a dedicated following of the program.
Croatia has several big(ger) cities along the coast in which the tour halts; Zadar, Dubrovnik and the island of Krk. Last year we visited the beautiful Dubrovnik, this year we were able to attend Krk’s “Crossroads” club. This year’s concept of the Splish Splash tour is Ian inviting some of his friends to join him on the road; Howard Donald, Boris Dlugosch, Felver (who helped him sort out the towns and locations for this tour) and for this occasion he brought one of our personal house-heroes DJ Tonka. Remember “Radical Noise”, “Feel” or “Happiness”? All production-gems by this German mastermind.
How did you choose these friends to accompany you on your tour?
“Well first of all by availability haha! I know Boris (Tonka) from way back. We’ve always had a great time playing ping-pong and stuff. There just has to be a certain energy between me and who I’m playing with, both musically as in person.”
We know Germany mainly from his strongly represented minimal scene, but how is the house scene over there?
”Well, I wouldn’t say tough, but definitely on the low. You have a few events; DJ Dixon has some successful Innervisions parties in Berlin, but in many other places you see house clubs transitioned to more electro and minimal over the last 2 years, as well as the DJ’s.”
You like the minimal sound?
”Well of course there are some tracks I like, but I’m more into diversity. Even in my sets, I like to play deep house, French house, and so on – just different stuff.”
So why Croatia?
"I’ve been coming here for years already and always tell my friends how beautiful it is and how vibrant the scene is. When I teamed up with Electronic Beats I told them we just had to do this tour in Croatia, since the scene is so lively and upcoming over here. Local DJ Felver helped me out scouting clubs and cities, and voila, here we are."
On to the event...
The Crossroads club is a beautiful venue divided in 2 areas; one open air and a smaller one inside. The open air area holds 2 bars, some terraces, stages and a huge dance floor. Too bad the dance floor didn’t fill up completely this night, but it was a Thursday after all. All the people who were there enjoyed the vibe, danced and had a great time.
After Ian’s set the party more or less moved inside where Tonka took up the tempo a notch and delighted the crowd with a blend of current dance floor smashers and gave the Croatian clubbers a lesson in the German sound, loved it!
All in all Electronic Beats once again proved to hit the right spot by touring Croatia and teaming up with Ian Pooley. Croatia is an undiscovered gem and as we told you last year; take the change to visit this country while it is still unspoiled, we guarantee you won’t be sorry!
Coming EB events are the festival in Vienna on the 29th of September with e.d. Trentemoller, Koze and Goldie, on the 27th of October in Prague with Underworld and on the 31st of October in Bratislava also with Underworld.
Check out our coverage of this event here. More info:
www.electronicbeats.net (source: Beatfreax.com) 
