RIP José Padilla, Balearic Legend and Chill Out Originator
30 October 2020
I never met José Padilla or heard him play. And yet, it’s impossible for me not to have been influenced by the man and his DJ style. He was just an absolute giant – an innovator of the scene broadly termed ‘Balearic’ and, to a very large extent, an originator of the scene labelled ‘Chill Out’.
I still have my vinyl copy of Cafe Del Mar: Ibiza (the first compilation in his series). I pulled it out again, for the first time in years, a few months back. It still sounds fresh. So many classic artists and tunes feature, a number of whom/which i already knew when i first heard it (The Sabres of Paradise’s Smokebelch II (Beatless Mix), Leftfield’s Fanfare Of Life, Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s Fanfare Of A Found Harmonium, Sun Electric, Underworld) and a load more which I was introduced to by Padilla, not least his own productions, with the lush Agua opening the album. It flows beautifully, the tracks dovetailing sweetly without a single ‘mix’, just killer selections all the way. It really is flawless and the perfect soundtrack to a lazy afternoon/early eve, preferably in the sun!
Legend has it that Padilla was laughed out of the meeting/s with some major label/s in London, when he first tried to pitch his idea for the compilation back in the early 90s. He’d been DJing around Ibiza since the late 70s but when his club was forced to close after one of the owners killed himself in the bar, he started selling mix-tapes in the local market. Business was brisk so he started selling tapes by his local DJ pals as well and, by 1989, he was selling so many, he had eight machines running in tandem 24/7, just to keep up with the crazy demand. When the first compilation finally dropped via REACT, in 1994, it sold a couple of thousand (a very modest number for the time). But Volume 2 then sold 20,000. Volume 3 sold 100,000 and from there on, with the might of Universal Music suddenly very much behind them, subsequent volumes were soon selling millions worldwide.
The first is the only one that i’ve got. I remember Volumes 2 and 3 also being great and the consensus now seems to be that Volumes 1-6 (the ones Padilla compiled) are all proper classics. But as the series progressed, it was so heavily marketed I became somewhat immune to its charms and by the mid-Noughts the concept had been so widely imitated that it seemed to have become a bit of a parody, the impact somewhat dissipated. That always happens when big money gets involved but this isn’t to detract in any respect from Padilla’s achievement and influence. If anything, it’s more of an acknowledgement of just how profound that was. José Padilla was clearly wired into something else, just on a different level altogether, and Cafe Del Mar remains a real mecca for the vibe he created.
I’ve recorded quite a few ambient and chill-out style mixes in the past. I had a residency in a club playing sets a bit like that at one point (a kind of amazing but very short-lived weekly Sunday night at Cabaret Voltaire called ‘Escape From New York’, set up in the the early Noughts, by promoter Grum Anderson, of Edinburgh’s late 90s techno/trance shindig, Sublime). I also played the UK’s once notorious Big Chill festival a bit later (luckily before Pete Lawrence sold it – the big money men really ruined that) and managed to record my set – mostly a mini-homage to Berlin dub maestros Rhythm & Sound.
I’ve never seen myself as a ‘chill-out DJ’ (and i’m sure few of the best ones do, either – most just play great music across the board) but I’ve always identified with the spirit that Padilla (and others like him*) espoused, which was really just to represent great music that he loved, whatever the style and wherever it came from. If it works well on the dance floor, why not play it? And if your dance floor is the terrace of a beautiful outdoor bar with an incredible view of the sunset, then why not play absolutely anything and everything you can get your hands on that you truly love, however light and fluffy it might be? You couldn’t really imagine a better setting for it.
Apparently Padilla used a pair of turntables alongside a twin cassette deck, incorporating myriad sound fx from nature etc alongside his truly eclectic selections and much like the late, great David Mancuso he didn’t play the music especially loud, either. It was audible but never so loud, as he focussed on creating a selection that drew in and entranced his audience. As well as influencing the way I’ve aimed to play out myself, on occasion, this style has also informed the way I’ve often produced music in the studio, especially alongside Leonidas, who has a similar respect/love for all things ‘Balearic’. As I’ve never actually been to Ibiza (and Leo only visited once in the mid-90s), I guess this is partly due to the fact that we both have Mediterranean roots (Leo is 100% Greek, while my mum was born in Athens) and we’ve both spent countless summer holidays in the Motherland since we were very small, especially (for me) in the late 70s and early 80s (before it became a more pricey destination).
*Gilles Peterson and Francois Kevorkian both spring immediately to mind. It’s no coincidence that both have recorded touching homages to the man, Gilles on his 6Music show (the last half-hour of which was a ‘Sunset Mix’ dedicated to JP) and FK creating a monster six-and-a-half hour live stream on Twitch.
Both are well worth checking out to hear how these DJs, both highly influential in their own right, articulate how much Padilla inspired them. But there are countless others, too: Andrew Weatherall (RIP), Sean Johnston, JD Twitch, Bill Brewster, Alfredo, Phil Mison, Justin Robertson, Coldcut, Tim Sweeney, Leo Mas, Nancy Noise, Chris Coco, Kenneth Bager, Alex Paterson/The Orb, Mixmaster Morris, Rob Da Bank, Balearic Mike, Jonny Rock, Mr Shiver are a handful i can also think of right now but there will no doubt be many, many more…
There are sure to be many other great tributes online right now but this one by Paul Byrne (aka Apiento) from Test Pressing caught my attention as well, since it features interviews with Nancy Noise, Kenneth Bager and Phil Mison as well as a load more killer tunes that were big Padilla selections (only a few of which i already knew):
Like I said, it’s kind of impossible not to have been influenced by José Padilla.
Further reading (with thanks):
José Padilla, Forever King Of The Sunset (Ban Ban Ton Ton)
José Padilla, DJ and music producer, 1955-2020 – A pioneer of chillout music who linked Ibiza’s bohemian past with its clubbing present (Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, The Financial Times)
José Padilla – A Life In Music (The Chill Out Tent)
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton (Headline Books)
The Record Players, Bill Brewster & Frank Broughton (Virgin Books)
Further listening (from a more personal/tangential perspective, so to speak):
