Within the Blast Radius of The Illusions’ Ibiza Jazz Funk Explosion

Last month EartH theatre was the illustrious setting for the first full listening of Find Your Way, the debut album by Ibiza jazz fusion band The Illusions. Comprising of vocalist, keyboardist and producer Antonio Blakstad, trumpetist extraordinaire and keyboardist Pere Navarro, bassist Antonio Prosper, guitarist Toni Marí, drummer Arturo García, saxophonist Franco Botto, and percussionist Katana McKenzie, the sprawling seven-piece treated audiences to a journey where jazzy trumpet licks meet soulful sax, afro rhythms combine with funky basslines, and touches of synth electronica meet R&B and hip-hop infused vocals. Far from rampant hedonism, welcome to a different Ibiza: a melting pot where the spirit of artistic collaboration breeds brotherhood, warmth and sheer groove.

The project’s origins date back to 2024, when through their manager Harry Charles Pere and Antonio first met the album’s producer Nathan Haines, an accomplished producer, bandleader and DJ who’s pushed the boundaries of jazz for over three decades. Nathan sauntered into the bar the band were playing in and floored everyone with his soprano sax, and as Antonio tells me, the rest was history. Over an intense three-and-a-half-day studio session, the ideas that worked best on stage were developed into the 6-track Find Your Way. “It was go time!” Antonio recalls. “It was a lot of fun, and a bit of pressure too.” Their resulting debut LP is an album Pere nonetheless describes as effortless: “music that we have in our hearts, with no twisting or overthinking.”

Speaking to the two Ibiza-born musicians still riding the high of their Hackney gig weeks later, we chatted about the not-so-Avengers-style recruitment process for the band, the centrality of joy and connection to live performance, and the Balearic energy and lifestyle that flows through the seven-piece band.

I know that as a band you began five years ago through jam sessions at WOM Radio Café, Santa Eulària. Talk me through how you evolved organically from just the pair of you into the sprawling seven-piece that you guys are today?

Antonio: Pere and I got together first, we had this project called Louie Lion which came about because we have this synergy: Pere plays keys and trumpet, I sing and produce. It was not necessarily the plan to become a 7-piece… we were born here, and we’ve been jamming for our whole lives, so every now and then we just invited someone who would completely elevate the music, and eventually we looked around and we were seven.

When you got into the studio how was it recording your album?

Antonio: Since we’ve been playing for so many years together, it felt less clinical – like oh, we’ve need to make our first record – more capturing what we’ve been doing forever. It felt more like a graduation of what we were already doing, you know? Like let’s get a snapshot in the studio of what the live energy feels.

Your first single from the album was ‘Juju Mellow’, a standout track that features some great vocals from your percussionist Katana McKenzie. How did that track come together from inception to recording?

Pere: So when we were in the process of deciding we should go to the studio and capture our vibes, we had a very eclectic album. We speak the same language but of course we have our different accents. Every one of us brought some ideas, and one of the ideas that Katana brought was ‘Juju Mellow’. He had the vocal idea, a groove and the riff, and we built everything on top of that. When we heard him playing “Juju mellow” and everything we were like damn, this is gonna be a banger! I was with him in Kenya three years ago and the song speaks about love, and about amor a prima vista, love at first sight, and it’s a very happy song. When he brought the idea we were like ok, we need to make something very special and very cool, and also capture the vibe of the track, where it comes from. It’s one of the tracks that people really enjoy the most. It has freedom on it, it’s a jam, it’s very effortless. No thinking, just vibes.

Bouncing off that, how important is it for you guys to have fun whilst playing?

Antonio: Man, the most important. Connecting at a human level with not only your fellow bandmembers but creating something with the audience… that form of connection is what makes music so attractive for all of us. So definitely number one.

How was it debuting the whole project at EartH in London last month, how was that night?

Antonio: Mate, it was brilliant. It was everything we dreamed it to be – it had been two years in the making and it was just a culmination. Presenting it to the London audience there was a bit of nervous excitement, taking the project somewhere new, but most importantly the audience really got it. We played mainly the album and a few twists here and there… they really engaged and really liked it. It was a double bill with Nathan [Haines], and he brought a whole host of musicians that he collaborates with regularly – Vanessa Freeman and loads of musicians that are legends to us, that are great inspirations – so a lot of people came also to see his project, and to see that they really resonated with us was a great green flag.

Pere: It was just an amazing night, it’s very beautiful to come from a tiny island with your brotherhood and then present it in such a city that inspires us a lot. Antonio lived here for five years, and we always look what’s going on [in London] … it’s a city that means a lot musically speaking and it was pretty full, the theatre. But even if just two people had come from London to see a project born in Ibiza from friends, It would have meant a lot. So you can imagine, when we saw close to 500 people that came in, for us that was very special.

What was each of your favourite track to play live?

Pere: For me ‘Juju Mellow’, it’s always a vibe man!

Antonio: Also because it was the encore, and so many people were dancing and you’re already at the end of the show, you’re like riding the wave, there’s no more nerves, you’re just enjoying it. On a purely hedonistic tip it would be ‘Juju [Mellow]’ but I also really loved ‘Slow It Down’, which is a slow jam. It’s like 12 minutes long, but it’s like a mantra, it’s a sexy, soulful sort of jam. Personal favourite also from the album.

As we’ve already mentioned, you were joined on the bill with Nathan Haines, who also produced and mixed Find Your Way. A seasoned producer and a fantastic musician in his own right, how did he help shape your debut album?

Pere: For us Nathan has always been such an inspiration, he’s a legend and he really understood that we really wanted for this to feel like a band, a live band. We tried to capture that magic, that energy, that you listen to the record and you feel like there’s a band playing together, not this polished, studio thing. He really understood that, and he knew when to push us, and where to let the music breathe, which is a real skill.

Antonio: We got on really well, he was super supportive. It was a joy for us to learn from him and the album is the fruit of the labour and the relationship that we have fostered with him.

Your guys’ brand of jazz fusion draws on funk, soul, electronica, afro, and more. What inspirations do you draw on in your ‘Ibiza jazz funk explosion’?

Antonio: The island of Ibiza itself, it’s a melting pot of influences. I think we really thrive off that cross-pollination of genres that we love: jazz, funk, soul, electronica, there’s a lot of electronica on the island. It’s less about specific artists in particular, but bringing all of those influences into the equation is what makes us, us. We love so many different [artists]: D’Angelo, Roy Hargrove, Erykah Badu… all that Soulquarians thing mixed with a lot of afrobeat, electronica, house-y stuff. We like to explore where the different genres blend and how they do so. I think that’s our forte actually, what builds our identity.

What does ‘Balearic energy’ mean to you?

Pere: It’s people from all over the world, it’s a very tiny island. Every individual brings their own influences and it all blends together, you know? For me it’s more like a lifestyle than a musical genre: Balearic can be opera, can be downtempo music, can be electronic, can be acoustic, can be flamenco, literally whatever. It’s how you play it rather than what you play. Of course it needs to be soulful, 100% it has to have that soul component. But for me it’s more a lifestyle, it’s basically where lots of influences collide.

Antonio: Ultimately, the key word is openness, you know. Bringing people together through music without too many boxes.

How important do you feel it is to present an image of a different Ibiza beyond its renown as a club capital?

Pere: For us it’s very important to show this different side of the island, this soulful side, the daytime lifestyle… [and] that there’s real musicianship. It’s kinda the goal of this project: that people coming here know that there’s a live music scene. We have the old town which is a world heritage [site] also – the island has a lot of history. We were born here, we really respect this island, especially in this moment that we are living in. I feel that the island is at a very critical situation, so we want to be the ambassadors of this island that we are really proud of, and not the one that it is probably famous for. People come here and they miss like 75 or 80% of the island.

Antonio: I’d also like to add that it’s a very seasonal island. Six months of the year it’s packed and it’s full of tourists and a lot of people think that’s it, but there’s a whole year-round community of artists and creators and musicians. It’s also sometimes considered that the culture is imported to Ibiza, because especially in the electronica club scene all of the greatest artists want to be here, so it’s also nice to export something home-grown and made with love from here, and show that other side of the island.

After gracing London with their presence, the band have returned to their native Ibiza, where amidst 45-degree heat they’ve been hand-delivering records from their sold-out first pressing of Find Your Way. “This album itself, it started two years ago, it’s more about the relationship that we have between each bandmember, so it’s kind of like presenting our lives almost,” Pere tells me as our conversation nears its end.

All seven will bare their lives once again for a special show at Ibiza’s Eivissa Jazz Festival on the 3^rdSeptember, presenting the record to the people of the island they love and call home. The prospect of playing in London again or bringing the project to new audiences across Europe or beyond sees both musicians’ eyes shimmer with excitement, knowing the sky’s the limit. In Pere’s words, “the album really feels like the beginning, not the destination.”