Steve KIW Ellis (Andres Y Xavi): Musically moving forward...

I met Andres Y Xavi's Steve KIW Ellis for an interview about the band's musical landscapes and his relationship towards records and DJing. Let's dive deep!

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1) Thank you so much for joining us on the Balearic breakfast blog Steve. It's an absolute pleasure to have you here with us! We discovered Andres y Xavi's Estrella during the 192nd episode of Balearic Breakfast when Bradley Circles played it in his incredible mix. When working on this track with Glenn, did you have a picture you wanted to convey or a story? This track seems to picture a liberation via transformation followed by a flying journey...

Thanks for asking me along!  And thanks to Bradley for including us in his mix – it’s always lovely to hear the music in a new context, especially since Bradley included a few of my personal favourites in there too!

It feels like a long time ago now but it was back in the summer of 2018.  Glenn had just brought one of his long-term projects to a close and had a few ideas that all had a similar vibe, he sent them over to me to see if it was something I’d be interested in working on with him and I jumped at the chance.  One of these became Estrella.

It has a sense of movement for sure. A few of those early ideas evolved into tracks that appeared on the album, and they have different elements that we stitched together. Those add to the feeling of travelling I guess, but with a sense of reflection, maybe moving forward with one eye on the rear-view mirror because each track has a sombre tone.  Ibiza brings that out in people: it’s hard to watch those beautiful sunsets without thinking of times past, and the people those times have been spent with, and that’s what those early ideas evoked for me.

Overall, what we sought to achieve with each of our original compositions on Vibraciones was to make something that reminded of the more rustic, traditional side of Ibiza, and that is what I think we did.  Lots of people were making chill-out music rather than music that is influenced by the Balearics per se and I wanted us to do something that felt true to my experience of the islands, which is as much about jumping on a moped and finding a remote beach as it is visiting a club.  I re-watched A Short Film About Chilling a few times when we were making the album and kept that close by when I wanted inspiration (or a sample or two!)

2) As an experienced DJ, you know how much songs talk to each other in a set and how much you can expand one track's energy by playing a tune that enhances its vibrations. While listening to "Vibraciones y Sentimientos" (released in 2019), there is indeed that great sense of "Continuity". Do you feel it is a key component of the "Balearic" sound? 

That’s very kind of you to say, thank you!  A lot of time went into sequencing the album and I guess, maybe because we’re both DJs, Glenn and I wanted the record to flow in a certain way. Both of our albums had a concept of sorts - the dirt tracks, the villages, the drives across the island, those spots of outstanding natural beauty inspired the first - and this carried on into our second album when we focused on making music that we thought would be right for some of the bars that we’d hang out in when visiting.  I guess that a concept lends itself to continuity on an album.

That said, we deliberately made music that we felt was location-appropriate for Ibiza but not necessarily Balearic, by which I mean it’s not necessarily music that would have found its way into Alfredo’s box way back when which, for some, is the true measure of what Balearic is.  Each to their own, of course, but I don’t think there is one sound, or one key component.  I DJ’ed as part of a collective known as BAOL and we had a saying: “Balearic is whatever we say it is” and that wasn’t driven by arrogance, but simply our way of saying it can be whatever anyone wants it to be.  Some records are, some records aren’t, some records can be, some records can’t!

The art of storytelling through records isn’t really something I’ve ever associated with Balearic music – certainly not in the way one thinks of, say, Larry Levan playing records together because they share a lyrical theme. The beauty of it comes through when you hear DJs seamlessly joining the dots between one genre and another, moving the tempo up and down as it suits, and avoiding the dull repetition of one paced four to the floor sets.   It’s less about continuity then for me, more about travelling.

Some people think the art of DJing is in the quality of their mixing, some think it’s in the selection of tunes, but for me they’re equally important.  If you listen back to the way Alfredo used to sequence his records over a night, or listen to, say, the mixtapes recorded at the Café Del Mar in the early 90s, then, although the music is quite different, there is a feeling rather than a flow, and each is descriptive through tone rather than words. That’s the Balearic sound. 

3) You have a pretty amazing vinyl record collection (30000 records if I'm not mistaken)! How did your musical taste evolve over the years? Did you immediately fall in love with the "Balearic" style, or did it happen gradually (for those interested, you founded the Balearic Assassins Of Love Collective)?

I started buying my favourite chart records in my early teens and some of these were being played over in Ibiza, but I certainly had no idea then about the Balearic Beat – at that time [early-mid 80s] very few people here [in England] did. Towards the end of the 80s I was buying lots of singles that hadn’t quite made it into the charts but were popular in clubs and my favourites were often the slower ones, like St Etienne’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Electra’s Autumn Love, or Pleasure’s Please, and through these, and the music press, I started to see the same names on the records I liked: Paul Oakenfold, Andrew Weatherall, Terry Farley etc, and around this time I also heard Chill Out by The KLF which led me to The Orb and from there it was into an ambient rabbit hole, discovering all sorts of beautiful records.   

I didn’t visit Ibiza until 1994 but I’ve been going back ever since and it’s a huge part of my life.  That said, I’ve always loved listening to lots of different music – I’m still a huge fan of hip-hop from the same era - and I’m as likely to be listening to eighties pop at home as I am rare groove – and the BAOL sound really took that to another level.  

Ade P was my partner in BAOL. He and I love so many different sounds and BAOL was our way of playing these in a way that somehow made sense – we knew what the true Balearic dons like Leo and Alfredo had played, and we loved the tapes of Jose Padilla and Phil Mison, of course, and closer to home we knew through Ade’s time in Manchester, what Moonboots and Jason Boardman were playing at Aficionado and we had our own unique take on it, taking a little from each but with our own ideas too. BAOL ended up running for 20 years!

I’m still playing some of the records I listed a moment ago but always open to hearing new music and am always digging, wherever I am. I spent some time in Barcelona and Italy in the early summer and then a week digging in New York and came back with around 100 records from each trip. Most of those would initially have been pigeon-holed as something else but they nearly all had that something, that Balearic feeling.

4) Speaking about records, what makes a record enter your collection? Which records would never have a chance to be added to it?

I’m open minded.  If I like something and can afford it then I’ll try and find a copy, but I have hundreds of records on my wants list that I’ll either neither see or never be able to afford and that’s ok, because there are thousands upon thousands of great records out there and, truth be told, I’ve got more than my fair share already!

I do like taking a gamble when digging; unearthing future classics from dollar bins, euro bins, pound bins and the like, and I spend ages listening to my peers, following up leads and checking out Bandcamp.

Like all diggers I’ve got those things I look for. Beyond the obvious tell-tale signs of checking the credits I’m all in on buying records where there’s eight people in the band and they’ve got long beards. Cover versions are a weakness too. An album performed by a dozen-strong band, preferably with beards and afros and photographed in an instantly-regrettable fashion choice, ideally with a ten minute version of a pop song as the last track on the b-side would be straight in the bag.

I don’t think there’s anything that I’d turn my nose up at other than prices; I don’t understand musical snobbery at all. I can’t remember who said it, possibly Bill Brewster, but almost every act you’ve heard of has got at least one decent track out there.

5) Lastly, can you share with us your next musical moves?

There is a new Andres y Xavi EP out on Higher Love Recordings on October 7.  It has one new track, Lagos, plus remixes from Craig Bratley and Mass Density Human of Bibbles, a track we first put out last summer. There is a second EP ready to share as well and hopefully that will be out before the end of the year. We’ve just completed a remix for Tambores En Benirras but I don’t know what the plan is for that just yet. 

I’m DJing at Guilty Feet in Brighton on the first Saturday of every month and the West Street Bear (yep, Bear, not Beer or Bar!) in Walthamstow on the second Saturday; plus, between now and Christmas I’ve got a handful of great gigs to look forward to: Down To The Sea And Back with Kelvin Andrews and Balearic Mike in November and then I’m playing with Phil Cooper and Brother Mark Broadbent at the NuNorthern Soul all-dayer uptown and at the Luke Una show for English Disco Lovers at Brighton’s Concorde too.

Busy times ahead!

Thank you for having me on!

It was a real pleasure Steve!

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Thanks to everyone out there who has already got behind our forthcoming Andres Y Xavi EP. I've just received the feedback from the record label and it's fair to say that Glenn and I have been totally blown away by the positive response to Lagos, and we're delighted to see the love for the new remixes of Bibbles from Craig Bratley and Mass Density Human too.

The full EP comes out on Monday, October 7 but it's up on Bandcamp now, where you can get Craig's remix straight away (link in comments, of course)

As part of the promotional rollercoaster (!!) I did an interview for Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy's Balearic Breakfast blog this week and Lion Mathieu has posted it online (link for this is also in the comments). Always fun to talk music and all-things-Balearic... the whole site is well worth a look.

In other news, no DJing for me this weekend, but Guilty Feet returns to The West Hill next Saturday (October 5th), with Andy Taylor, Dave Holloway and me on the decks from 6pm and I've got lots of exciting gigs lined up for this side of Christmas. It's all go go go these days...