As someone who's been working in the industry for over 30 years, where did the music bug or the original interest in pursuing music as a career begin?
My grandfather was a very good pianist. He was actually in the Magic Circle for being able to play the piano—he played the left hand part with his left hand and the right hand part with his nose. My grandparents' generation were very musical, then my father and his brother's generation weren't, and then myself and my cousin's generation were very musical again.
My cousin was in a rock band in Sheffield when I was 7 or 8 and it seemed like to me at that time that just been in a band made you different to everyone else…kind of like you were walking on air. My eldest cousin became a talented electrical engineer and was on the design team for the first ever iPod. When he was 20 and I was 10, he built his own synthesizer from a kit—a Transcendent 2000, built via monthly installments in a magazine called Electronics and Music Maker. Bernard Sumner of New Order was building the same synthesizer in Manchester at the same time.
In the 70s, music was very unobtainable—you had to be a virtuoso player with a big record deal. Then in the 80s, technology became a little cheaper and more accessible. There were bands like Cabaret Voltaire and The Human League making electronic music in Sheffield. Sheffield has a lot of kinship with Düsseldorf, where Kraftwerk are from—they're both big industrial towns. The nearest American town to Sheffield is Pittsburgh, because it was a steel town.
I'd always been a music fan and was bought a synthesizer in 1981 when I was 13 by my dad. Before music, I expected to be a professional cricket player, but I broke my elbow just before playing semi-professional cricket. From there, I just started playing in bands and it spiraled.
By the late 80s, technology had become much more accessible. The first sampler of note was the Fairlight—you can now get it as a phone app for about 12 US dollars, but when it came to England, it was the same price as a house. Only Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Dave Gilmour, and Trevor Horn had one. What really launched house music in England was cheaper technology. By 88-89, you could build a studio for 10,000 and make a record, press it yourself, and distribute it yourself. That's the culture I grew up in.
My dad died at Easter, and I went back to Sheffield for the funeral. I felt nothing there—not even 1% of me said this is my hometown. In my heart, I feel Ibiza. I feel Ibizenco.
After all the music curation stuff with hotels, I retired briefly and moved to Uruguay with my wife. The Atlantic coast of Uruguay is very similar to Ibiza in topography and feel—places like Punta del Este and José Ignacio are the closest I've been to that feeling.
I was in Uruguay waiting for my studio shipping container to arrive. I got a laptop and mini keyboard setup and made a song. I called the project Rocha, which was a big state in Uruguay. I thought, what am I going to do with this? I decided to start a vinyl label—International Feel. I wanted it to be like the Louis Vuitton of vinyl, with the best printing, the best artwork.
We traveled to Europe one Uruguayan winter and came to Ibiza. I'm a very decisive person—10 minutes into driving into Ibiza, I turned to my wife and said, "Shall we move here?" She said, "Yeah, why not." That was 2012. We stayed that summer, then I went back to Uruguay to pack up and came to Ibiza.
The label had its second life because we were already a very Balearic label, but Ibiza is the heart and home of Balearic culture. I was staying in a house from an old German hippie who had been Amnesia's first PR—he gave Alfredo his first ever gig. Without Alfredo, there would have been none of this.
I realized in the past year that everything I do is through the lens of the Ibizan sunset. There's this misnomer that the sunset has to be Vangelis or Pavarotti or some dramatic track. That's not really what José Padilla was about. Even if I'm doing a track influenced by Fela Kuti or with a Japanese melody, it's always through the angle of the sunset. I'm viewing everything musically through that lens.
I did so many years as a resident at La Torre on Ibiza's West Coast. Everything's always through that angle of the sunset—whether it's the moment of the sun hitting the ocean, the lead up to that, or the post period. That's how I view the musical journey.
"I felt so joyous just working on Ibiza music, knowing I was coming back. My perfect Ibiza day is just being in Ibiza."
Throughout your career, you've recorded and produced under different aliases. What do those allow you to explore?
There's a mask. It's like Sia wearing a mask when she performs. They allow you a freedom of movement because it's not you.
There are three hats in the past 10 years. There's the Mark Barrott hat—which is the Sketches from an Island albums, the EP with Norma Winstone, the album Everything Changes, Nothing Ends. There's the me of aliases like Bepu N’Gali, Flights of Fancy, or Boys from Patagonia, where I've been a little bit more cheeky or cheesy than I would necessarily be.
The third hat is being a producer for other people, where you've almost got to become a method actor and slip into their skin as much as you can. I've done that for artists like Themba who came through the Black Coffee Afro scene, for Virgil Abloh before he passed, and lots of others.
What was Virgil like as a collaborator?
Unique. It appeared to me, as anyone who followed him could see, that he ran 10, 20, maybe 50 creative businesses from his phone, which for somebody my age is mind blowing. How he could multitask at that level is quite beyond me.
Dealing with him as an individual was very simple. He was very fair, very polite, very concise, very clear, very professional, and very inspirational.
He was incredibly responsive and engaged — it felt like he was always creating, no matter the hour.
My father was an engineer. When people ask if I'm an artist, it's hard for me as somebody from the north of England, from a pragmatic city like Sheffield, to say yes to that. I prefer Ralf Hütter's (from Kraftwerk) description—I'm a music worker, not an artist.
As someone with deep experience on the island, what were your first impressions of The Standard?
Human beings by nature are very conservative. There's a generation that thinks only Café del Mar should be licensed to play Ibiza music at the sunset, which is ridiculous. Music, culture, food and beverage, lifestyle—everything's intertwined. It's got to regenerate and invigorate.
I think it's very dangerous to stay in one place. Everything needs new blood because it keeps everybody on their toes. My headspace is, if I release something and it doesn't do well, do better next time. Not sit and complain about why it didn't do well.
The Standard is great. It's kicked a lot of people up the backside. It's got a really strong lifestyle presence. I remember working in LA when The Standard on Sunset was happening—everybody wanted to know what they were doing, who's playing there, what's happening on Saturday night. It's like that now in Ibiza.
I think it's good to get this infusion of newness and excitement and doing things differently. There's an expression here in Ibizenco: do whatever you want, just keep your hand out of my pocket. Ibiza is this hugely liberating place. It took in the Jews, it was friendly to the hippies, it took in the gays. It's never been a place of exclusion. To have something like The Standard come in with its standards and lifestyle panache is great. I'm all for it.
What did you learn through your hotel work about the relationship between music and physical space?
Working with Hyatt was incredibly interesting, less corporate than other brands. With Hyatt, it was always about art. They hired the best architects like Tony Chi, the best music consultants, the best perfumers to work on scent. I remember getting off a plane in Washington and going to a meeting about the perfect Hyatt ice cube. I was very lucky to work with Frank Ansel, Hyatt International’s head of Food and Beverage. He taught me about taste, beauty, elegance…sophistication through simplicity. Lessons that I carry forward every day in my working practises.
It's about programming the space you're in. Too many DJs just want to play their sound. I learned a lot about music curation from Hyatt. We did massive amounts of experiments and psychological testing on what works. They'd ask questions like: why don't women like walking down stairs into a bar? They'd go into this stuff in detail.
I aspired to be that good at the music side. How do we make sure volume is matched across all songs? How do we make sure there are no long gaps? The 15-second standard fade-out is much longer than 15 seconds when it's already going down. Don't use trumpets because they're at the same frequency as human voice, as they interrupt conversation.
DJs must remember that whilst they're storytellers, they're also entertainers. With music curation, you've got to look at the architecture, look at the people. You've got to be reading people, particularly in hotels. You've got to follow the vibe of the room and perhaps try and enhance it or change the mood, but work with it as well.
If you have a free day in Ibiza, what's your perfect beginning to end?
I figured out when I was away for a few years, that I need five things in my life: music, good books, cats, cricket, and Ibiza. Just being in Ibiza, my entire stress levels drop the minute I'm touching Ibiza terracotta soil.
My ideal day would include restaurants like Wild Beets in Santa Gertrudis or Passion Café. There's a great pizza place in San Carlos village. I love that you've got the forest and the sea so close together—today I did a forest walk and went to the beach.
My favorite Ibizan day would be: get up, sit with a cup of ginger tea, hang out with the cats, listen to the sounds of nature. A lot of the Sketches from an Island albums infuse field recordings from wherever I'm living. Have breakfast, make some music, go for a walk across the cliff tops in the north of the Island, maybe lunch at Wild Beets, come back, make more music, maybe go to the beach. Then just be with friends or be listening to music or reading books.
There's this myth that Ibiza has this X factor, and it really does. I don't know why, I can't tell you what it is, and it's not tangible. It's not some woo-woo shit about UFOs jumping out of Es Vedrà. There is just something here that makes my creativity surge and my heart sing.
A year ago, I made a record on the mainland in very extreme countryside. I delivered it to the label, then listened critically and thought, "Jesus Christ, this is a sad record. This is not who I am." So I undelivered it—that record was thrown in the bin, half a year's work.
When I knew I was coming back to Ibiza in July, I remixed a classic Ibiza record called "Flotation" by The Grid. I felt so joyous just working on Ibiza music, knowing I was coming back. My perfect Ibiza day is just being in Ibiza.
