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On the first night of the holiday we bumped into Trevor Fung, a London DJ working out in Ibiza, who told us about Amnesia and this new drug called ecstasy.”
Nicky Holloway
The island of Ibiza - once a stop on the seventies hippy trail, became a popular tourist location for Brits in the early eighties. It still retained elements of this alternative creative scene which most visitors would have been unaware of, but for London soul and funk DJ’s such as Trevor Fung and Johnny Walker - it was a summer escape and a chance to get exposed to a more Eurocentric brand of club music.
Pacha
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The relative isolation meant that the club could be open air and music could play until sunrise. There was a swimming pool, and guests would strip off and jump in.”
Francisco Ferrer - Pacha
Clubs Pacha and Amnesia - both with hippy era legacies - had long attracted an International set of DJ’s and attendees. Pacha would be popular amongst a high class European jet-set whilst the younger Amnesia club would be more underground.
Central to the development of the Ibiza scene was Argentine music journalist turned DJ Alfredo. His eclectic sets at Amnesia in the early eighties defined the sunshine sound that the British DJ’s picked up on in the mid-eighties.
DJ Alfredo Fiorito
However it wasn’t until the summer of 1987 that the Balearic scene really began to seep into London club culture after London soul DJ’s Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker, Nicky Holloway, Paul Oakenfold took a vacation on the Island to celebrate Oakenfold’s birthday and absorbed a musical culture quite different from the black music dominated London clubs.
These DJ’s and others in the UK weren’t strangers to Ibiza - it had always been a popular, albeit expensive summer destination on the soul scene - a very different environment to the usual Caister-type soul-weekenders which were also part of the summer circuit for clubbers in the South East, but the key in '87 was venturing out to the more remote Amnesia location and the presence of Ecstasy.
Ecstacy played an important role in the attraction of Ibiza club culture at that time. Known but not commonplace in the UK, MDMA had been part of the Ibiza jet-set and the New York underground for a few years. The euphoric, chilled out soundtrack laid down by Alfredo was the perfect accompaniment and the London DJ’s were inspired to bring the musical vibe back home after immersing themselves in the whole experience.
Danny Rampling started Shoom upon his return - a mix of Ibiza alternative anthems - rarely heard on London’s dancefloors and Chicago House imports, particular Acid House which also hit big that summer was the sound of the Fitness Centre where he started the club. Fung, Walker, Rampling, Holloway and Oakenfold all went on to become influential in bringing the sound of Ibiza to the UK via their own club events, label compilations and music productions.
Danny Rampling - Shoom
One of the earliest Ibiza classics to be rediscovered and brought to the UK was “Jibaro” by Colombian brothers Elkin & Nelson. After relocating to Spain in the early 70s, Elkin & Nelson established themselves on the music scene with domestic number one albums plus appearing on huge European disco hits ‘Cuba’ and ‘Ooh What A Life’ by The Gibson Brothers.
Their mix of Latin-Rock, Afro-Cuban and funk was a perfect blend for the Spanish scene and Jibaro with its uplifting chant-like chorus and sunshine vibe was an early Ibiza anthem. UK A&R/DJ Pete Tong picked up on its potential for a rework which saw Oakenfold co-produce a creditable 1988 version with Phil Harding and Ian Curnow, specifically for the Balearic scene on FFRR in the UK under the name Electra.
At the Kiss FM 1987 end of year event at The Wag Club in London’s Chinatown, Danny Rampling tried out many of the Balearic tracks and quickly cleared the floor. Kiss FM’s reputation was built on black music foundations and the introduction of more Indie-Dance tracks didn’t quite work for that particular crowd. Rampling’s own Shoom night however had a very mixed crowd of both soulboys and football casuals who had no problem dancing to U2 or Talking Heads.
Baggy jumpers, ponchos - white loose linen was a startling change to the M1 black bomber jacket and Levi’s look of the London scene at that time. Rampling’s crew would even turn up at events such as Gilles Peterson’s Sunday nights at The Belvedere Arms, with Jenny Rampling handing out personal invites to Shoom and everyone dancing like loons to Batucada.
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I think the unity originally created in 88 scared a lot of people, it was pointing the energy of youth in a positive rather than negative direction for a change.”
Danny Rampling
The Balearic playlist didn’t crossover into the large rave scene or Acid House clubs as much as the reverse. Phuture’s ‘Acid Tracks’ would be played alongside the Indie-Dance tracks at Shoom such as the iconic ‘Driving Away From Home’ by Liverpool art-pop duo It’s Immaterial. With its hopeful road-trip narrative and sunset feel, it was a perfect ecstasy soundtrack.
Dance mixes of Indie-Rock & Pop songs were fashionable in Europe and Ibiza whereas in the UK they were less commonly heard especially on the more street soul scene with the focus more on rare-groove and Hip-Hop. The Tribal Mix of Sinful! By Pete Wylie being a perfect example as were Arthur Baker’s remixes of Fleetwood Mac.
The Balearic playlist was certainly not ‘overly commercial’ however. Plenty of underground, experimental tracks were popular such as The Residents ‘Kaw-Liga’, the epic E2-E4 by Manuel Gottsching, Liaisons Dangereuses ‘Los Ninos Del Parque’ and jazz funk oddity ‘Rotation’ by Herb Alpert.
Perhaps Alfredo’s biggest influence on the British DJ’s however was the proliferation of European club tracks that were little or completely unknown in the UK. ‘Camino Del Sol’ by French-Belgian avant-pop trio Antena, ‘Masimba Bele’ by The Unknown Cases from the pre-unification West German club scene, ‘Hypnotic Samba’ , hits by Italian artists Tullio De Piscopo, Enzo Avitabile would have been huge in Rimini and made it to Ibiza.
These Eurocentric hits would have been heard at Shoom and other adjacent events alongside The KLF, Chicago classics such as Joe Smooth’s ‘Promised Land’, Jamie Principle’s ‘Your Love’ - and if the crowd was particularly Ibiza educated - Mandy Smith’s ‘I Just Can’t Wait’, Thrashing Doves, etc.
Rather than a random chaotic selection - the sets by Rampling, Steve Proctor, Johnny Walker made perfect sense under a certain influence with a certain crowd.
ROVR Search delves into both the Balearic classics and obscure tracks that influenced an entire era of music.