DJ Alfredo, who had a significant influence on Ibiza becoming a global centre for dance music culture, has died aged 71.
Amnesia, the club where he held a residency during the 1980s, announced the news, writing on Instagram: “Thank you for the nights and beats we shared together. Your music and vision shaped the sound of Balearic Beat and the soul of Amnesia. So many memories were made through your energy, your legacy will live on our dancefloor forever. You will never be forgotten.”
No cause of death was given, but he had been unwell in recent years, suffering a stroke in 2021. An appeal for help with medical costs was launched in March while he lived in a retirement home.
Born Alfredo Fiorito in Argentina in 1953, he emigrated in 1976 to Paris, then Madrid, then Ibiza, living a casual existence selling candles and clothes while picking up DJ experience at a bar. “A guy I knew who had a club called Amnesia decided to go to Thailand,” he explained to the Guardian, regarding the farmhouse venue. “He gave me the keys and said I was in charge … We opened at 3am and went on until midday, so people would come down after the other clubs shut.”
His Amnesia residency was characterised by a complete lack of snobbery and an equally total embrace of heady, sensual music across the genre spectrum, from high-gloss soft rock to pop, reggae, disco, funk, electro and early house: a euphoric blend that came to define the bohemian spirit of the Balearic island. Ulises Braun, a bar owner, later described mid-80s Amnesia to the Guardian: “Everything was spontaneous and different. It was a wild time. There were no laws: people were making love on the dancefloor, drinking and dancing, taking litres of liquid ecstasy between them.”
A group of young British DJs – Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker – collectively had a Damascene moment witnessing Alfredo performing at Amnesia in the late 1980s. Rampling later described it as a “free state where anything went … Alfredo had that natural flair, a very artistic Spanish way of putting records together and telling a story. And every record he played had its own distinctive sound.”
Inspired by what they’d heard, Rampling set up the club night Shoom in London, which similarly pushed the sound of house amid an open-minded music policy, and ushered in a new era of British clubbing that took house out of the illegal rave scene and into nightclubs. “In England at that time, clubs only played one type of music, and London was full of attitude,” Oakenfold later said. “But at Amnesia you had 7,000 people dancing to Cyndi Lauper. Total freedom.”
Alfredo himself explained the non-hierarchical appeal: “The people and the music made it. You’d get a young guy talking to an old person – and listening to each other.”
Ibiza continued to become a magnet for dance music, and Alfredo’s star continued to rise as he took further residences at Pacha and Space, among others, often DJing every night of the week. He also played internationally, including in east Asia throughout the 1990s, and continued to DJ regularly thereafter.
Among those paying tribute to him was Sister Bliss of the English dance group Faithless, who said: “Safe to say he changed the world of music for the better.”
Defected Records said: “Rest in peace to one of the greatest to ever do it. Ibiza would not be the same without him.”
Vocalist Rowetta said: “He was a legend when I first played [Ibiza nightclub] KU in 1990 & he always will be.”
