Jose Padilla’s Perfect Balearic Playlist Will Cure Your Monday Blues

Jose Padilla is an elemental, pivotal, unwaveringly essential in the story of Balearic. What do we talk about when we talk about Balearic? Balmy afternoons on Ibizan beaches, softcore soft-rock and humid jazz, Alfredo and Jose. The man, known to many as the longterm resident at legendary lounge-spot Cafe del Mar, is probably responsible for the conception of at least 2% of all of you reading this right now, so we were incredibly excited when it was revealed that Jose was releasing a suitably sultry follow-up to last year’s “Solito” 12″ on Mark Barrott’s indispensable International Feel label – the flag-bearers for contemporary Balearic sounds. “Day One” is a perfect slice of early-summer sunshine from a man who knows the beach better than most.

Padilla’s earliest forays into the world of DJing came during the dark days of Franco’s Spanish rule. Franco, in all his wisdom, decided to place a ban on a vast swathe of music – not ideal for someone on the cusp of a career. Still, Padilla persisted, playing genre spanning all nighters, eventually landing in Ibiza’s San Antonio in 1976. His club-recorded sets were transferred to cassette tapes and the entrepreneurial selector traded his eclectic wares at Es Cana market, eventually selling up to 500 a day. The lads at Cafe del Mar asked him to step into their booth and the rest was history.

Those sets spanned everything from North African funk to rural Spanish folk, cosmic disco to ambient house and beyond. In time, the Cafe del Mar CD series blossomed and boomed and millions of lounges worldwide hummed through thick plumes of pungent weed-smoke to Padilla’s perfectly curated explorations. They probably still do.

But back to the present: Padilla’s return is something to cherish and hopefully a whole new generation of Balaeric-ly minded clubgoers will find themselves introduced to the man who started it all. To celebrate the release of his new single, we asked Padilla to handpick a perfect playlist that let’s us know who he is and what he does. With Jose Padilla, it seems, everything goes. Enjoy.

The Record I Reach for On Moody Monday Mornings

Anything by Franz Schubert

The Record I’d Play to Celebrate a Beloved’s Birthday

Happy Birthday!

The Record That Makes me Feel Most at Home

Anything by Paco De Lucia

The Record I Associate Most with Sheer Happiness

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terell – “Aint No Mountain”

The Record That Sounds Best During a September Sunset

Vangelis – the love theme from Blade Runner

Check out THUMP’s Bullshitter’s Guide to Balearic here

The Record I Sing Most in the Shower

Frank Sinatra – “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” (The Live at Madison Square Garden version!)

The Record That Never Lets me Down on the Dancefloor

Mr. Fingers – “Can You Feel It”

Hear more from International Feel on THUMP

8. The Record That I Want You All to Hear RIGHT NOW

Sonzeira – “Southern Freeze (Barck & Comixxx Remix)”

The Record That I Can Play You To Explain Exactly Who I Am

Pink Floyd – “Breathe”

The Record That, for me, IS Balearic Music

Manuel Gottsching – E2E4

Day One is out now on International Feel. You can buy it here. The album So Many Colours is out on the same label on June 1.

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