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Reporting from Ibiza last summer, Andy Beta wisely skipped the superclubs and focused instead on the legacy of the so-called "Balearic" style, a hippie-dippie, candy-flipping fusion of synth pop, yacht rock, acid house, faux reggae, and ambient music. "I would say Balearic was having a moment," he wrote, "but that would imply that it went away, when in fact Balearic came and never left."
His analysis was correct; that hard-to-define, easy-to-discern musical sensibility, more an ideal or an ethos than a concrete style, has been an essential part of the electronic-music landscape since the Orb and the KLF, and it has endured through endless varieties of ambient, oddball pop, deep house, nu disco, and more, and simply continues to swell in 2015. You can trace a Balearic interest in spiritual uplift through the latest Laraaji reissues and Four Tet's raga-sampling Morning/Evening, not to mention the Music From Memory label's resuscitation of Italy's Gigi Masin and Mallorca's Joan Bibiloni (an actual, card-carrying Balearic resident!). The outer-limits disco revival has brought us new Lizzy Mercier Descloux reissues, while traces of '80s freestyle and piano house are audible everywhere from Julio Bashmore to Duke Dumont. In underground electronic music, meanwhile, we get exploratory albums like Gonno's Remember the Life Is Beautiful and the deep-diving ambient of Donnacha Costello's Love From Dust.
The latest albums from Tame Impala and Beach House even suggest that Balearic sensibilities have filtered into the indie mainstream, while the well-funded and woefully misnomered "tropical house" genre, featuring a bunch of white Europeans layering acoustic guitars and major-key melodies over wan Garageband beats, is evidence of the major labels' renewed interest in getting some of that Balearic mojo. (If you thought the Café del Mar comps could be bad, wait until you get a load of "tropical house," which is to sunsets as "trap" is to the drug trade: the commercial EDM industry's latest attempt to appropriate, assimilate, and annihilate all difference in the world, on the assumption that anything not acquirable by SFX isn't worth letting exist. The latest corporate salvo in the long war between boardroom and board shorts, in other words. But I digress.)
A quick recap, for any readers unacquainted with the concept: in the '80s, DJs like Amnesia's Alfredo, Pacha's Pitti, and Café del Mar's Jose Padilla became renowned for eclectic playlists that veered from krautrock and ambient music through Italo disco, new wave, funk punk, early house and electro, and quirky pop. Psychedelia reigned supreme—thanks, in part, to the hedonistic scene's chemical undercurrent—but so did populist values like melody and humor.
My own interest in the era has been shaped by my trips to Menorca, the sleepiest of the Balearic islands, even sleepier than tiny Formentera. The closest thing to an actual Balearic moment I've experienced there was hearing a Dead Can Dance album playing at a lighthouse at sunset. But I've come to regard the island's thrift stores as something akin to archaeological sites, and over the years, my digs have turned up records by Ash Ra, Suzanne Ciani, Cocteau Twins, Soul II Soul, Front 242, Freeez, Yazoo, D-Train, Joe Smooth, My Bloody Valentine, Marshall Jefferson, Ze Records' Cristina, Lene Lovich's disco project Kikrokos, Barabas, Ottowan, France Joli—even Athens, Ga.'s Pylon. Plus, of course, the Göttsching-sampling Italians Sueño Latino, whose loon-infused eponymous single might be the most ur-Balearic tune of them all. Did all of that get spun at discotheques? Who knows, but I think it's notable that many of the secondhand records I've bought here carry the rubber stamps of the bars and discos that owned them.
Today's Balearic music is, in many ways, a retro exercise; it has been informed by myths and histories handed down through successive generations of vacationing clubbers, and it has been reinforced by all the resources offered by the internet, like Discogs and YouTube. At its most self-aware, the new Balearic music involves a lot of period drum machines and feathery guitars and loon samples. But even at its most mannered, the best contemporary Balearic music also conveys a spirit of innocence, openness, and adventure.
As we get ready to bid farewell to summer, here are some recent records that joyously encapsulate the Balearic spirit.
Edizioni Mondo: Collezione (Running Back)
Italian "mondo" films—the name comes from the word for "world"—were a curious subset of exploitation flicks. Beginning in the '60s with films like Mondo Cane, these pseudo-documentaries purported to reveal hidden anthropological secrets to viewers; really, they were just shock entertainment seen through a lens colored by colonialism, racism, and sexism. On the plus side, they apparently had some pretty killer soundtracks, to which Francesco De Bellis' Edizioni Mondo label pays tribute. Over the past couple of years, the label has put out four 12"s dedicated to reproducing the mondo style of library music, from ROTLA (Mario Pierro, aka Raiders of the Lost ARP), Studio 22 (De Bellis and Federico Costantini), Odeon, and L.U.C.A. (De Bellis once again). This collection from Gerd Janson's Running Back label gathers all 13 tracks so far. Fans of Quiet Village's exotica revival project will find plenty to love here; so will fans of the proggier side of krautrock, slap bass, slow-motion disco chug, fake reggae, chimes, glockenspiel, and oboe presets. File under "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music," or even just "Waterbeds."
Most Balearic moment: "Blue Marine", with its rolling surf, seagulls, trilling insects, and banjo.
Fat content: 69%
Woolfy vs. Projections: Stations (Permanent Vacation)
If you're looking to shore up your cosmic-disco bona fides, you could do worse than to create a trilogy of albums "loosely based" on the adventures of Captain Starlight, the hero of German disco-rockers Zazu's vocoder-rubbed single of the same name. (Think: Pink Floyd's "The Wall", but starring Ziggy Stardust, and set in Rimini.) Simon James and Dan Hastie's Woolfy vs. Projections project's third album continues to expand the dimensions of their campfire disco aesthetic; they touch on sparkling new age, synth-heavy funk lite, woozy disco house (the sublime "Set It Up"), and dubbed-out folk, with nods to Fleetwood Mac and Metro Area along the way.
Most Balearic moment: The Spanish guitar of "Missing You" feat. El Javi
Fat content: 50%
Hatchback: Colors of the Sun (Be With)
Sam Grawe was a big part of the Balearic revival of the late '00s, both with his group Windsurf and his solo project Hatchback. If you couldn't tell from those aliases, the California producer has got a thing for ocean air, lens flare, the Pacific Coast Highway, and other accouterments of the chill life. Colors of the Sun came out on Lo Recordings—home to the Milky Disco compilations, many of Bernard Fevre's Black Devil recordings, Luke Vibert's Nuggets comps of library music, and other staples of leftfield disco—in 2008, but the 80-minute album has finally gotten its first-ever vinyl release via Be With Records. It's a textbook study of all things Balearic, from the motorik pulses of "Everything Is Neu" to the easy-listening disco of "Closer to Forever"; the guitars on "Carefree Highway" are faintly reminiscent of Dif Juz, and the single "White Diamond" remains a classic of 100-BPM arpeggiated bliss. In seven years, it really hasn't aged one whit.
Most Balearic moment: The 16-minute "Horizon", a new age fantasia featuring sampled birdsong
Fat content: 40%
Mark Barrott: Sketches from an Island, Vol. 3 (International Feel)
Mark Barrott: "That Ibiza Track" (International Feel)
If there's a label that most represents the Balearic revival, it's Mark Barrott's International Feel. That's partly because Barrott actually lives on Ibiza. The British producer, formerly known as Future Loop Foundation, quit the UK some years ago; first he set up shop in Milan, and then Uruguay, where, he told Pitchfork's Andy Beta last year, the climate inspired his own turn back towards Balearic music. Three years ago, he and his wife packed up their suitcases and relocated to the source of that energy, the White Isle itself. Sketches From an Island 3 is the latest installment in his growing mood board of sunsets and palm fronds, and it's awesome, from the Compass Point pastiche of "Right 4 Me", with its sparkling guitars and sprightly synth-flutes, to "der Stern, der nie vergeht", which sounds like Vangelis on an ashram. "The Mysterious Island of Dr. Nimm" backs up the best kind of shlock-exotica with surprisingly intricate polyrhythms, and the rippling "Cirrus & Cumulus", which balances bells and vibraphone with bowed pads and actual birdsong, is ambient-techno perfection in the vein of Ultramarine.
Most Balearic moment: The shrieking monkeys of "The Mysterious Island of Dr. Nimm"
Fat content: 60%
CFCF: Radiance and Submission (Driftless Recordings)
CFCF: The Colours of Life (1080p Recordings)
Somewhere along the line, CFCF became one of the most quietly ambitious artists in a scene that's all about appearing effortless. Or maybe he was that way all along? After all, even back in 2010, when he was making perfectly pleasant studies in kraut-rocky synth-pop and kosmische Musik, the Montreal producer was also putting out clever mixtapes like Slow R&B for Zellers Locations Canada-Wide; he's covered Fleetwood Mac and David Sylvian; inspired by Wim Wenders' Notebook on Cities and Clothes, he's written homages to inanimate objects in the style of Philip Glass and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
He has two new albums out this summer, and while neither is about explicitly Balearic themes, both extend his investigation of the kind of digital synths and hi-def atmospherics that defined a lot of Balearic staples. Radiance and Submission, an eight-track album for Driftless Recordings, runs the gamut from kazoo-meets-whale-song studies like "Sculptures of Sand" to the gentle Ambien drip of "A Various Language (From the Same Hill)", a perfect Windham Hill pastiche, right down to its title. Despite references like that, though, it never feels forced or ironic or intentionally corny; "The Ruined Map" is as heartfelt a Sylvian-via-Bon-Iver impersonation as you could hope for, and "Blanketed in Snow a Place Returned To" will stir the heart of any Talk Talk fan.
A big part of the Balearic style of DJing had to do with breaking away from conventional song forms, even if that meant playing all 60 minutes of Manuel Göttsching's E2-E4. So what could be more Balearic than a meandering beat suite in the form of a single, 40-minute track? That's the case with The Colours of Life, CFCF's new release for Vancouver's 1080p label. This time, following a steady, 100-BPM groove that threads the set from beginning to end, he dips into slippery "Boys of Summer" guitars, lugubrious alto sax solos, vibraphones, and even Boards of Canada-style ambience. Keep handy for your next sunset cruise and/or rosé tasting.
Most Balearic moment: The Emulator II-style shakuhachi flute samples liberally slathered across The Colours of Life
Fat content: 30%/90%
Suzanne Kraft: Talk From Home (Melody as Truth)
Suzanne Kraft—Los Angeles' Diego Herrera—made his name with breezy, synthetic disco and boogie on labels like Running Back and Young Adults. But his new LP for Melody as Truth, a fledgling label run by Gaussian Curve's Jonny Nash, eases away from obvious dancefloor signifiers to indulge in shuffling ambient sketches, high-necked electric bass melodies, and soft little keyboard miniatures. With rural August mornings written all over it, this short, sweet volume is the perfect thing to accompany morning coffee; it's easy to imagine music like this being made in response to an imaginary Oblique Strategies prompt: "Write a song before you've had your morning coffee."
Most Balearic moment: The gated LinnDrum rimshots of "Two Chord Wake"
Fat content: 20%
Various Artists: Musik for Autobahns II (Running Back)
Ibiza has a love-hate relationship with freeways, which is to say that developers love them and residents hate them. But the Running Back label's second Musik for Autobahns compilation nevertheless taps into a vibe that underscores the longstanding connections between Ibiza and the German imagination (cf. Can's Tago Mago). That's particularly true of mid-tempo cuts like Lauer's "Autofahrn" and Fort Romeau's "Seleno", with their moody, monotone airs. Shan's "Awakening" is a sunrise squall of digital synths, and Orson Wells' "Orbiting Jupiter" has "Sueño Latino" written all over it.
Most Balearic moment: The loon sample on "Orbiting Jupiter"
Fat content: 15%
Ruf Dug: Island (Music for Dreams)
Ruf Dug takes us to a different island—multiple islands, actually. The Manchester producer's new album is titled in homage to Chris Blackwell's iconic record label, which got its start putting out music from Bermuda and Jamaica; it was recorded during a three-month stint on Guadeloupe, where Ruf Dug put together his own fantasy version of Compass Point, the Bahamanian studios where many of Island's records got made. Of course, Compass Point had Sly and Robbie; Ruf Dug had a couple of hardware synths, a laptop, and a 4-track. Slave to the Rhythm it ain't, but the Mancunian producer still gets plenty of mileage out of his imaginary archipelago, from the rinky-dink keys and plink-plonk drum machines to speedy, soca- and slap-bass-infused cuts like "Mosquito". (Ruf Dug's account of his island digging haul is well worth a look, too.)
Most Balearic moment: "Thank You Wally", presumably a tribute to Compass Point keyboardist Wally Badarou
Fat content: 60%
The Loose Control Band: "It's Hot (Columbus Hotel Mix)" (Golf Channel)
Clubbers of a certain age may remember when the Cure got spun at dance clubs; Alfredo was a big fan of "Lullaby". The Loose Control Band—Jonah Sharp, aka Spacetime Continuum, and DJ Spun—flash back to the glory days of gothic disco with flanged electric bass, smeared-on synth pads, and heavy-breathing chants. The original mix takes a more jagged funk-punk approach, while the "808 Mix" precariously balances live congas with 808. They're all as gloriously messy as Robert Smith's hair after a night of dancing in 80% humidity.
Most Balearic moment: The live congas—usually to be avoided, but they work here
Fat content: 10%
Idjut Boys: Versions (Smalltown Supersound)
London's Idjut Boys have been making records since the early '90s—François Kevorkian was an early fan of their very first record—and they've been going to clubs since the late '80s, coming up under the influence of DJs like Harvey. So if anyone on this list has an actual connection to the original Balearic scene, it's these guys. And you can hear that in their records, which mix up house and disco with freewheeling aplomb. On Versions, out August 28, they take a razor blade to their back catalog and send the results careening through the mixing desk. The results sound a little like Lindstrøm or Prins Thomas after a meeting with Mad Professor, full of space and warmth and oodles upon oodles of delay. If you're not full-on levitating by the end of "Another Bird", you need to check the settings on your stereo.
Most Balearic moment: The yacht-rock "woo-hoo" of "Going Down"
Fat content: 25%