Richenel Autumn (1982)
In 1993, José Antonio Santamaría became victim number 678 of the now disbanded Basque separatist group ETA. The former professional footballer, who built a successful hospitality business after his sports career, was shot in the back while eating in a crowded restaurant. His legacy is what remains the largest nightclub in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records: We're talking about Privilege in Ibiza—which has been closed since the Covid pandemic, but is set to reopen in the future under new management. In 1979, Santamaría bought a property near San Rafael with a restaurant, bar and swimming pool, and turned it into an outdoor nightclub and renamed it KU. The club employed drag queens to warm up the crowds. One of them was a certain Richenel from Amsterdam. Richenel would subsequently experience a brief stint as a disco pop sensation in the late 1980s, charting in the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Scandinavia and Germany. Preceding his commercial breakthrough, Richenel launched the barely noticed cassette album La Diferencia, heavily drawing on summers spent in Ibiza. The minimalist 808-masterpiece has a strangely timeless character, duly acknowledged by the esteemed label Music from Memory, which reissued La Diferencia in 2017. Our highlight: “Autumn”.
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