The best things come in tINI packages

tINI has very much found her own musical family in recent years, and it’s known as her Gang.

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The crew travels to parties all over the world (Mexico’s BPM Festival, OFF Sonar in Barcelona, MMW in Miami through to places like Peru, Argentina and Egypt), as well as putting on free events in Ibiza (when the Guardia allow it). As a DJ tINI can masterfully hold down the floor for hours and hours, and as a producer she puts out her infectious wares on labels like Supplemental Facts and Desolat.

We spent some time catching up with her ahead of appearances at Summer Chapter (Birmingham) and Mint Festival (Leeds) this summer, to talk marathon sets, Ibiza, and Rolls ’N' Do, her b2b project with Bill Patrick.

Hi tINI, how are you? How are things?

Yes I'm good thanks, just at the airport right now waiting for my flight to start my tour again.

Oh cool, so is it just starting now or are you in the middle of it? What are you doing right now?

I had a weekend off, I spent it with my family, so now I'm going to Nice and tomorrow to Tunisia, so yeah, I had one weekend off which I usually don't have in the summer time. But I needed it. Back on track now.

So how's your summer been so far? Has it been a good one?

It has been a good one so far, we had some bad news with the beach that we lost, but I would say we are making the most out of it and so far all my summer gigs have been great.

Great. So with the parties in Ibiza, have you found a resolution or is something going to happen in a positive light for the time to come with those parties or has it kind of stopped now?

The thing is I think it's pretty possible to go back to the beach so we just found a solution, well it's not even a back up, we planned to have day time parties at the beach and night time parties at the club. So now I think we are just going to stick to the night because I don't want to get in any trouble with anyone. We had two parties Friday and they were really nice, the next one is end of August, and in total I'm just going to do five parties.

Excellent sounds great. Would you ever consider taking that same concept and doing it somewhere else? Like Croatia or somewhere like that?

Well we started in Mexico, we went Cairo, we did it in Argentina, and it actually has been done already, we had one in London. We are already travelling the world.

Yep, cool, what I was trying to say though is was Ibiza always going to be your main port of call? Would you ever take the main concept of Ibiza and take it to another country? Like the actual residency sort of thing?

Well yes definitely, the main base is obviously Ibiza, we will have to see how it goes with the future because the actual concept was to have open air parties but maybe we change it a little bit and do special club edition as well because you cant force it right now and I'm pretty open to a new home. Croatia would maybe be an option but there are no concrete plans yet.

Ok cool and I know obviously you're back in the UK soon which is kind of like why I'm talking to you as well. You're playing in Leeds which is obviously a big part of your tour, you played at Mint Festival. How do you like playing the bigger festivals? Do you prefer the bigger festivals or do you like the smaller clubs?

I actually like both pretty much because its a different challenge you take, you play a festival a little bit differently. I would say depending on the amount of people you have in front of you. But I enjoy myself a lot in bigger venues as well, its hard to say. Of course it is a bit different to be in an intimate club, you can play a lot of music that you might not be able to play in a bigger situation but I really like festivals as well. I like to play more energetic sets as well as the club sets. So it's not like “oh no I have to play a festival” it's actually a great change in between the club gigs. The summer time is always full with festivals and therefore I just pack my vinyl bags different to how I normally would. I think my next three/four gigs it's all festivals and yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.

Excellent. And obviously System is a big event here in Leeds and it's done wonders for the city, what do you make of the guys there? Obviously Leeds is a city, what do you make of it? How does it compare to the other cities around the world? How do you like Leeds?

Oh wow Leeds is very special. Mint club is a very small and special club and the boys really created a good crowd there, a good following. I never played Mint festival yet but I played their System terrace last year and that was amazing. I have to say the crowds are extremely into partying there and very open for all the music. A lot of educated people, musically educated and they come for certain DJs and it is always great fun there, I really like it.

And tell us about your project that you’re doing with Bill Patrick? I understand its not totally a new thing but something you have brought back, How did that come about and what was it like working with him?

Rolls N Do? Yeah it's actually not such a new project, I think the first time we discovered we love to play back to back was four years ago in Miami and we kept doing it and the name “Rolls N Do” was just never properly a name but we just started using it on flyers. But yeah it was four years ago and it's not really a project it's just two people really loving playing together and when I play with him I don't have to think and for him it's the same and we really enjoy playing with each other, especially long sets. It worked out pretty well. And yeah perhaps you might have heard about a marathon set in Romania? I think that was the first time that people were aware of that B2B thing.

You're back in Birmingham as well, which is quite a big city, quite a big place for you to play. At the Rainbow. What do you think of the Rainbow right now? It's a bit like six clubs rolled into one, what do you think of what the guys are doing down there? 

It's really great, I played for The Rainbow Venue two times already, I think if not even more and it's really good vibes there. I said yes when they asked me, I was really looking forward to bringing Bill there also, I think its going to be a great night together and yeah, it looks like an interesting party there as well, and yeah, happy I can enjoy it with a B2B with Bill, playing together. I don't think he played for them yet, so he's going to like it a lot.

So what do you have coming up as a solo artist? Do you have anything coming up you want to shout about, for autumn and winter?

I have Robert Johnson in Frankfurt coming up and hopefully fabric! End of August of course there is a lot going on for tINI and the gang in Ibiza. One really big event in Ibiza is of course the closing of Carl Cox party, literally the closing closing closing, the last of his parties, ever, in Ibiza and he has been inviting me for many years for the closing and I normally play with Loco Dice all together in the main room. But this time for the first time I play for his closing on the terrace. I am really excited for this. Yeah, it is sad, a big event happening and to have Carl leaving, because he was the first one to bring me to Ibiza and to have me on his sunset terrace, many years ago. And so I am always quite thankful to him and he kept working with me every year and it is sad to see him leaving the Island, for sure.

So that's quite an emotional one for you?

Yeah definitely.

Right so that just about wraps it up then, thank you for your time.

Perfect. Alright thanks very much!

tINI plays alongside Bill Patrick, Marcel Dettmann, Tale of Us and more at The Rainbow Venues’ Summer Chapter this August bank holiday. for more information and for tickets. The she heads to Mint Festival on September 24th. for more information and for tickets.