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Claremont 56 is a record label founded by Paul ‘Mudd’ Murphy in 2007. When I first discovered Claremont 56, thanks to the interview Paul gave to Colleen back in 2020 (see below), I was immediately blown away by Paul’s voice (I loved it!), by the music his label proposed, and lastly by the album’s covers! It seemed obvious to me that Paul was putting his soul into this record label. This small article aims to present Paul, his record label and give you some important links and more music to listen to. Without further ado, let’s get into this beautiful and indeed very Balearic trip, starting with this track that has been played by Colleen during one of her Balearic Breakfast shows. It perfectly sets the tone for this article. I’m sure you all recognized a classic tune here: I can’t go for that (no can do) by the American pop duo Hall & Oates. Released as the second single from the Private Eyes Album issued in 1981, the song became the fourth number-one hit single of their career on the Billboard hot 100 and is really about not being pushed around by label managers and agents, staying true creatively. Of course, I chose this remix issued on Paul’s label because it embodies the Claremont 56 spirit particularly well. Also, this edit exposes the Balearic Spirit of the original track in a nice way (like many other music aficionados around here, I discovered the power of instrumental tracks thanks to David Mancuso’s Loft Parties). So, who is behind Claremont 56: Paul 'Mudd' Murphy, Graphic Designer for 15 years, renowned DJ for more than 20 years and label founder, knows some things about having a clear project vision. He started his first musical project, Akwaaba (which means 'welcome' in Ghanaian) in 1996, along with Tom Lee and Steve Kotey, issuing their debut track, ‘Just Pilau’ (on The Idjut Boys Discfunction label - DIS004) in 1997. The track was an instant classic and got quickly licensed to Francois Kevorkian’s ‘Essential Mix’ compilation and Ron Trent’s ‘Musical Reflections’ album. Akwaaba then issued two albums that were well-received by the musical scene, Do it Tomorrow (2000) and Too shiny (2002). As Paul explained it in an interview with "the vinyl factory" : Before Claremont 56 I was working half of my time as a graphic designer and the other half creating music and releasing that on other people’s labels. I always wanted the music to be full time and when I was finally brave enough to make that step it seemed natural to set up something of my own, so that I could release what I wanted, when I wanted, without having to meet someone else’s criteria. My favourite labels in the early 90s were the ones where you could buy the record without even hearing it, as you had complete trust in the labels’ output – this was something I really wanted to achieve for Claremont 56 Listen to Colleen's interview with Paul 'Mudd' Murphy : What kind of Music does Claremont 56 propose: Of course, any member of the Balearic Breakfast Family would instantly answer to that question by saying "Balearic Music"! It seems obvious that all Claremont 56 productions share an Identical sonic DNA: no aggressivity whatsoever in the sound which is open, no heavy audio compression pumping in, but a well-assured and well-balanced sound, with a tiny touch of distance and bliss that allows the listener to escape to another world. I absolutely love Paul's answer on that matter : I get asked this question all the time, quite often by people who have no idea about the music scene and genres, and I always wish I had a good, succinct answer, but sadly I don't. I find it really tricky to explain at all, let alone in a nutshell. I tend to say that it's a mix of mellow music, that's a bit dancey – a bit West Coast rock, a bit disco, as well as being a bit jazzy, but also has a prog influence. Most people describe it as 'Balearic', which is also pretty hard to explain to someone. The closest I can see to describing it in a nutshell is to say that it's pleasant music to listen to, (hopefully) without feeling too mainstream. Some important links : Claremont 56 website: https://www.claremont56.com/ The Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2SW06hh4Ta4P4PcdIMCbuL?si=210d41648ab04d8c Claremont 56 on Bandcamp: https://claremont56.bandcamp.com/

The song "U", interpreted by the Italian duo Chrisma in 1977, is a beautiful and dreamy Balearic tune. Let's find out more about its history in this article! Most of the time, the Web is a lovely place to be. Especially when you're searching for information about songs you love. I did all the research for you on that one! Initially, the track "Who" was issued as a 45 rpm record in 1974 with Lyrics written by Richelle Dassin and music composed by Robert Fitoussi (who also did the vocals). The first hint comes when you look at the producer: Vangelis Papathanassiou. The second one comes when you look at the band credited on the record: "Odyssey" is Vangelis' middle name! Various sources on the internet indicate that the two songs issued on this 45rpm record are leftovers from Vangelis' "Earth" studio album from 1973 (in which both Richelle Dassin and Robert Fitoussi took part). Then, in 1977, the song has been covered not two but three times: firstly by Demis Roussos on his superb album "The Demis Roussos Magic", then a second time, still in 1977, by the Italian duo Chrisma (a contraction of Christina Moser and Maurizio Arcieri) – Vangelis was involved both times – and one last time by the female singer Marion Rung (a Finnish singer whose songs are wonderful!) under the title "Syy Täysikuun". Before I go, the song "U" has been included in the "BALEARIC MIKE`S MUSICAL DIETS" (you can access it here), in the 100 most underrated songs of the 1970s (faroutmagazine.co.uk), and is also featured on Leo Mas' "Leo Mas presents Mediterraneo" issued in 2016.

"Leo Mas Presents Mediterraneo" is a compilation issued on Kenneth Bager's "Music for Dreams" record label in 2016. Since the last show we covered on the blog a week ago featured Danish Record Label founder and music producer Kenneth Bager from "Music for Dreams" (you can listen back to Colleen's interview here), and since we dug deeper into Chrima's song "U (I dig you)" earlier too, it seemed only logical to propose to our readers this small presentation of a lovely compilation issued on March 25, 2016. Let's first quickly present the beautiful label "Music for Dreams": The record label, founded in 2001, became, in later years, a multimedia company encompassing a Publishing Company, Radio Station, Synch, Events & Social Media & D2C outlets. Starting as a DJ in 1979, Kenneth has played in the most renowned clubs and parties worldwide. When asked what his inspiration for "Music for dreams" was, the passionate record collector recalled childhood memories: "(...) when I was five years old - I fell in love with a beautiful cinematic piece of Music called 'Lara's Theme' from the soundtrack of the movie' Dr Zhivago', from my mother and fathers record collection. I have always loved emotional records. Records that could make you sad or feel you were in love - flying high on a sky of emotions. Tracks like 'Dreamflow' by Paulinho Da Costa, 'Fanny Be Tender' by The Bee Gees, 'The Dance Of Life' by Narada Michael Walden, any Marvin Gaye 70's albums were compositions I could listen to over and over again during my teenage years". Have a listen to John William's version of Lara's Theme : With the record label including artists like DJ Pipi (played several times during Balearic Breakfast) or Troels Hammer (whose beautiful track Diário De Silêncio has also been played by Colleen), and producing unmatched compilations allowing the listener to drift away, Kenneth, without the shadow of a doubt, stays true to the philosophy at the core of his record label "I've always believed the music should connect you to a bigger picture. The goal is to express and convey a feeling, and to behold the moment – the essence of oscillating between a smile and a tear. i like to bring tragedy and humour together, and invite them up for a dance". Don't hesitate to visit the "Music for dreams" bandcamp; it is a stunning place to dive in... On why the "Leo Mas Presents Mediterraneo" compilation is great: First and foremost, the compilation is cured by the renowned Italian DJ Leo Mas. If you have never heard about him, I am not ashamed to admit I didn't know anything about his career before writing these lines; you should read this interview. Record collector and DJ (he played the Amnesia several times in Ibiza back in the '80s / '90s) Leo Mas certainly embodies what Balearic Music is. For instance, when asked to pick up just a few Balearic records that were representative of the parties he held at the Amnesia, Leo answered: "There are so many iconic Amnesia records, but for you I picked these: Elkin & Nelson's 'Jibaro', William Pitt's 'City Lights', Chris Rea's 'Josephine (Extended French Re-Records)', The Night Writers' 'Let The Music (Use You)' and The Woodentops 'Why Why Why (Live Version)'". With such an immense musical knowledge, Leo Mas certainly was the perfect choice for Kenneth Bager who asked him to put together a "compilation of Italian music". And this is precisely where things get interesting. When listening to "Leo Mas presents Mediterraneo" for the first time on Deezer (which now offers lossless streaming) or on Spotify, we quickly notice that song levels aren't perfectly matched throughout the album. For instance, songs like "Gil", "Number One", "Dejanira", and "Clouds over thin paper" all share a lower sound level, whereas the other songs of the compilation are significantly louder, thus affecting the listening experience. You can hear this on the Soundcloud mini mix shared here. We believe this could have been checked before issuing the compilation on the audio streaming platforms, without using audio compression, of course, but by raising or lowering the level of each track (on the other hand, the audio integrity of each song is preserved – can you hear the realism on some of the audio tracks ? –, so that's a good point to take into consideration). But the gorgeous song selection absolutely showcases the intrinsic Balearic Spirit of Italian Music, and that's all that matters in the end. We feel Leo Mas' and Kenneth Bager's musical touch while listening to the compilation: the order in which the tracks are put together is perfect, and we have both the "diggers" and the "musical" side of the journey!

I would take requests. And I play the requests in the order that they were given to me, because I wanted people to participate. Then what started to happen was someone would ask, “David, could you play?” And I just happened to have it in my hand. I’m ready to push the button. You get to a psychic level. You know what I mean. You can’t explain it. There’s a higher level; a higher power. Not preaching or anything, this is about music. David Mancuso With songs like "Woman" (by Barrabas), "Going back to my roots" (by Lamont Dozier), "Expansions" (by Lonnie Liston & The Cosmic Echoes) or even "Cavern" (by Liquid Liquid) being played at The Loft, David Mancuso certainly Embodied what Balearic Music is all about. So we could not launch this blog without paying a small tribute to a Friend who had such a strong sense of community and who taught us so many things about Sound and Music... On November 14th, 2016, David Mancuso passed away at the age of 72. As the founder of The Loft, a party he organized in his own private New York City loft beginning in 1970, Mancuso was a true pioneer, a founding father of dance music both sonically and emotionally. Mancuso had a titanic influence in shaping core values of dance music that are now taken for granted, everything from an emphasis on community and the breaking down of racial or economic barriers on the dancefloor to a hard-nosed drive for audio perfection, which included his unique insistence on playing every record through from start to finish, with no mixing. He was considered an unparalleled storyteller, creating narratives through his selections that could bring party-goers to tears, and a persistent idealist in his pursuit of transcendent musical experiences. In celebration of Mancuso’s life and influence, we are reprinting the full text of an interview conducted in 1999 by Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster, previously published in The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries, in which Mancuso goes in-depth in discussion of his formative experiences, DJing philosophy and thoughts on his legacy. Give me some biographical details Born October 20th, 1944. Utica, New York. I came to New York just as I was turning 18, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I had a very strange upbringing. My mother had some difficulties when I was born, so I was in an orphanage. Which I don’t like to talk about. A kid I used to play with – I didn’t remember him, but he remembered me – way down the line, 20 years down the line, he wanted to find the nun that changed his diapers. We were infants. There were 18 kids. That nun handled 18 of us. What happened was it took him about five or six years to try to track me down. Eventually he found me. He went to New York for our first meeting. He had found the nun, Sister Alicia. And he brings these pictures that she had took of us since we were about four, five years old. She would get this record changer and a stack of 45s on a great big radiogram and some juice from the refrigerator. There were these little tables where all the kids used to sit around. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen my invitations, but there’s all these kids sitting around the table. She would find any excuse to have a party. So I have a feeling that part of my influence, why it’s communal, why I do it the way I wanna do it: It has to do with back then. What’s her name? Sister Alicia… “I Wanna Thank You.” Is she still alive? Yeah. Did she ever come to one of your parties? No, she’s very old now, but I believe that she would enjoy it. I was 36 and she was 35 years older when I made contact with her. She’s a religious lady. What do I do? So I called her Christmas week. I said, “Sister Alicia.” She knew I was going to call, my friend had told her I would. “Do you remember me, Sister Alicia?” Then I heard her voice, and very softly she says, “I remember you like it was yesterday.” When did you start throwing parties? I started on a regular basis in 1970, on Valentine’s. But I was doing parties in ’68, ’67. I had found a loft in downtown New York. I’d lived there a few years and one day I decided to throw a couple of parties, and they turned out good. Where did you get the sound system from? I had it before. I was always into audio. I’d been building it up since I was a kid. Literally. I used to have those old radios that had a 12" woofer. Shortwave everything. And when did you start amassing your record collection? From when I was a teenager. From 14 years old, I was very fortunate enough to be around people who liked music and knew music and liked to party, so, at the age of 15 I was already living on my own. I had more freedom than most kids. There wasn’t much difference between collecting unemployment and being a disc jockey. What were you doing? Shining shoes in Utica. Me and my best friend decided to go to New York City. We came on Labor Day weekend, September, I was here three days and I was awed by it. 31 days later, I was back. I met some people, so I could stay with them. And I did. I had $2.15 in my pocket. Got a job. And New York has been very good to me. What did you do to make your way the first few years? I did a lot of waiting. I worked in a publishing company. Then I worked in a health food store, then I became a personnel manager for a restaurant chain. That was my last nine-to-five. There wasn’t much difference between collecting unemployment and being a disc jockey. So that would be up until about 1967. I traveled a lot. What was the inspiration for the first parties? I used to love to go out dancing at parties. Also I went through the ’60s, with the whole psychedelic movement, the civil rights thing. As far as the music goes, I’m a very communal-minded person. I had certain things I wanted to do to send a message, and it had more to do with social progress, because you had mixed economic groups. Now that I was very interested in. You had people from all sorts of different backgrounds, cultures, whatever. No matter how much money you had in your pocket or how much didn’t have in your pocket, when you paid that $3, paid that $5, to get in, you got the same as anybody else. Overall it was the break-even. I just wanted to break even. What I used to do were these rent parties: 50¢. And, if you use that money to pay your rent in New York, it’s legal. So you could have a party in your apartment so long as you don’t break the law or anything. You can actually charge admission. I was in a commercial loft. There were sprinklers and everything. So I decided to do rent parties. I sent out 36 invitations. But it took about six months to get going. How often were you doing them? Every two weeks. It would start at midnight. And in those days the bars were only open till 3 AM and if anything was open after three, you could be pretty sure it was gambling, or liquor, and I wasn’t into any of that. I didn’t want to be into any of that. I wanted it to be private. And the loft was also were I slept; where I dreamt, everything. But after six months it started really taking off. What was the composition of the people who were coming? Everybody. Gay, straight, bi, black, Asian. There were a lot of different people and they were my friends. And I keep my friends; so they brought their friends. You would have really the whole spectrum, and there was never problems with fighting or anything. What music were you playing? In those days Motown, because Motown was the hottest label. And Stax, rhythm & blues. Hendrix, Stones, Doobie Brothers, it was a mix. We decorated it with balloons. Very simple. The vibes were good. The place was clean. And it doesn’t take much to make the place comfortable. After six months, it opened up every week. When you came in, everything was included in the contribution. It was an invitation. You were not a member. It was not a club. I didn’t want to be in that category. It meant different things to me. I wanted to keep it as close to a party as possible. It was like $2.50, and for that you’d get your coat checked, food and the music. What drinks were there? We used to squeeze fresh orange juice and organic nuts and raisins. We did it up. Everything was quality. Everyone used to come there: Patti LaBelle, Divine; all of them. As people; because everybody that came there was able to relax. And of course you would not get into this space unless you had an invitation. Who named it The Loft? The Loft is a given name. That was hippie-dippie stuff, like “What do you call this?” “Oh, call it whatever you want!” So it became a given name. It’s sacred to me. I’ve never used it for commercial purposes as far as promoting it. I remember the first time I got in the media. Little did I realize, I was on the front page of The New York Times. When was that? Around 1972 and a half, the first place opened up that was similar to what I was doing, and that was the Gallery – actually, Tenth Floor might have been a little bit before that. You’re gearing up for your mix, and your intentions are good, but you end being judged by the mix rather than the record. And the record is more important than the mix! The Gallery was Nicky Siano. Nicky was coming into my place when he was 14 years old. He started going right back to the beginning. He opened his place up on Fridays. Then the Soho opened up, which was Richard Long. Then Reade Street opened. And that became the Garage. Then the Gallery moved. The Flamingo was right around the corner from me. But basically, my whole situation grew from very close friends of mine and stayed that way. So I wasn’t really bothered that those places opened. I was glad they were doing it. Why were you glad? Because there are eight million people here. A lot of people want to party. It’s a positive thing. And the more people partying the better it is. The more you can get through the week. There was enough people around. Why not? It was like the civil rights movement: the more people you had marching the better it was. How did the music develop; where were you finding records? Okay. I was in Broadway; left there in 1972 and went to Soho [99 Prince Street]. Soho, nothing was happening there at that time. I went from 500 square feet to 10,000 square feet. Two floors. I didn’t want to do it. At that time there were already a lot of places going on. The city was scrutinizing and seeing if we had exits and all that stuff. I always had exits, but at my first place I didn’t have what they call a Certificate of Occupancy. There was a lot of stuff in a music magazine, and so the city became a lot more aware of what was going on. And you got to know some of the city’s leading DJs. I went to Sanctuary. I liked Francis [Grasso]. Francis was good. Basically it started with Steve D’Acquisto. He worked at – I don’t know which came first out of Tambourine or Tamberlaine – but he worked at one. And I liked the way he was doing things. So I walked over to him and said, “You know, I really like the music. Look, I have this place, it’s downtown. It’s my place, it’s a private party. Do you wanna bring a friend?” And he did. That’s how I met Michael Cappello and Francis. So you were going out to other clubs? I was more into parties. I wasn’t too much into clubs. I didn’t even start drinking until I was 26. When I did go it would be purely for the music, not anything else. But mostly, I went to rent parties and house parties; that was my thing. It was a time when DJs were becoming important. When the disc jockey got two turntables and was in a club using recorded music, a new menu was started beause the dancer was part of the performance. You’d have your live musicians, where you’d have to go some place and listen to them play. Or your home, where you’d sit on your coach and listen to records. Well, the disc jockeys got in-between this and created something new... Where the dancer became part of the whole setting of the music being played. That was the difference. You’d have one foot on the dancefloor and one in the booth. But that was where the disc jockey was able to create this whole new format: between the performance and the listener. Were you mixing records to achieve this? It wasn’t mixing, this was before. I used to make tapes and I’d put a sound effect. When I threw a couple of parties, in ’67, ’68, I did a tape. I didn’t know about mixers then. I didn’t even know if they existed. And just as a record ended, I would put a sound effect right there. I’d take these from sound effects albums. So there was always a continuance. Did you record these on reel-to-reel? Yeah. I wanted the music to be continued, with no blank spots, but I also wanted to play the records as the musician intended. I got into mixing for a while and then I stopped, because the mixes were all about the musicians. You try to have a flow, but I really try not to disturb the recording – from the beginning to the end. I would go from one record to another, chopping them up, and then one day I just said to myself, “What am I doing? It’s like having a painting on the wall. I shouldn’t change the colors; I should leave as it was intended, let it stand on its own.” You’re gearing up for your mix, and your intentions are good, but you end being judged by the mix rather than the record. And the record is more important than the mix! The mix is two or three seconds; and the musician makes the mix. Maybe that’s too philosophical. I thought we were getting further away from the message of the music. Personally, I keep coming back to, “Let the song play.” I don’t think that mixing is wrong. But once in a while let the song be its own self. Just like your own child that you raised, at some point, that child has to stand on its own. You’re saying the DJ shouldn’t be an artist? No, no, no. I’m not saying that! The disc jockey is an artist. He is shedding his ego. If he’s gaining an ego he’s not going to be an artist; and he’s not going to be there for music. He’s going to be gone. I believe there’s a third ear. And you look at the big picture. You’re painting something. I’m not saying the others are not valid, but this is what I found after many, many years. What style of music were you playing after you stopped mixing? Same thing, but I just stopped mixing. I played from the beginning to the end. With mixing it became like the audience were preferring this mix over that. But don’t worry about that. The music came before the word; music is a gift from the gods. Without a mixer, the sound signal can be purer too. Yes, for sonic purposes, too, because the less equipment you have down the line, the more open the sound is. So that was another consideration. You took incredible efforts over your Soundsystem. About my 11th year. About 1979. That’s when I started getting into heavy equipment. I started getting $3,000 cartridges. I wanted it to be as pure as it can be. Music has a life energy. Klipschorn [loudspeakers] were built by a man that simply followed fundamentals of physics. If you do that, you will come up with an amplifier that also follows the fundamentals of physics. Follow the Yellow Brick Road, so to speak. You put one watt in, you get one dB back. Once that fluctuates, the music is affected. So anything that I used was mathematically correct. Take a turntable. A turntable is only a thing that turns around. Has nothing to do with the foundation. Has nothing to do with the arm. Commercial turntables come with all this stuff, but basically the foundation is one piece. Richard Long did the bass, the foundation of it. The bass develops a lot of energy. And if the slightest [bit] goes back in, the sound’s no longer clean. There will be a couple of percent, believe me. Once you hear it, you can’t go back. How heavy is it? It’s very heavy. [laughs] The point is that it’s also in the tonearm, it’s also in the cartridge. The cartridge is made in onyx; the case is in stone. Room acoustics is rule number one. Concert hall level is 80 dB. If you’re listening to more than 90 dB sound levels for than 45 minutes straight, you start to develop ear fatigue. Once you hear the soundsystem that means you’re getting ear damage; ear fatigue. So you want music, not the system. You started the first record pool, tell us about that. When I was at Prince Street, while I was fixing it up, that was the birth of the first record pool. There were 26, 27 disc jockeys; we all knew each other. And we always connected about records, very natural. This is how we bonded. In those days it was very much like that: you shared. The idea was to straighten out how DJs received records from the labels? Right. There was a meeting once in Club Hollywood: the record companies and disc jockeys got together for the first time. It was a total disaster. And so I asked Steve D’Acquisto to make an announcement, ’cause I don’t like doing any of that stuff. I’m a background person; a behind-the-camera person. And Steve likes to talk, so... I was fixing up my place and I invited the disc jockeys back. I knew a lot of them. And at that meeting I proposed the pool. Judy Weinstein helped run the pool. How did you meet her? She worked for me. I met her through Vince Aletti. The Loft and the record pool were at the same place. Vince Aletti knew someone who needed some work. How did you know Vince? When we started the pool, we had these meetings. The record companies would come and some media people would come. I believe that’s how I met Vince. He would take a tiny record player and invite me around to his house to listen to records. He would listen to records on this and then write about them. The guy’s incredible. So how did the pool work? The disc jockeys would get the records and they’d fill out a feedback sheet; they would give the personal reaction and the floor reaction. And that information, based on the test pressings, would go back to the record company and they would adjust certain things or whatever. There was a lot of communication and organization and sanity regarding the whole scene. And the record companies saw they could gain advantage from it as well? Well, the accountants in the record companies, not the promoters. They had different days you could go get records. For record companies it came to the bottom line: it was cheaper to send the records to a central distributor, through the pool. So the music got out. We didn’t get involved in the problems between individual disc jockeys or record companies. We did not distribute a record unless we could give it to everybody. We had up to 275 disc jockeys. I mean, there’s not as many clubs about today, but if you had even 50 clubs, the amount of people that would come dancing is the same as a small radio station. So records were starting to break before radio. The companies liked it because they were getting feedback for it? 27 disc jockeys. We designed all that. We just wanted to collaborate. Little did we know we were working out a system between the record companies and the disc jockeys. That was the only pool for a long time. And it worked very well. But the accountants saw it being cheaper. A lot of record promoters thought that they would lose their jobs through this, because they thought they wouldn’t be needed any more. Not true. When did you form the pool? In 1974. We’d list ten records, not in any order, and we’d have a library section, so we’d list everything there. Another thing is, the condition that disc jockeys used to work in – I know some that got electrocuted. Someone else could come in and they’d lose their job, and this and that. That’s how, when we started the New York Record Pool, it helped change a lot of things. So, informally, it was a bit like a union? Yeah, a natural brothers and sisters union. Absolutely. Keep those politics, too. How much did the DJs pay you? It was non-profit. Did the record companies try and pervert the system with hyping? They really couldn’t. We needed each other’s cooperation, and we wanted to give it to them because we loved the music. Like Denise Chapman, she used to work with Salsoul, but she used to hang out. A lot of people hung out together. A lot of these people came to my place on Broadway, before they ever got into the business. I suppose there were so many good records by the mid-’70s they were falling on your lap? The music that came out when the record pool was in existence was the best. The music between ’75 and ’80. Most of the classics are right there. A slow week would be three to five good records. I mean, really good shit. Now, it’s difficult. How did you find records like Barrabas? Barrabas’ “Woman.” I brought that one in. I was in Amsterdam looking for some records. I found it. I’d never never heard it, I just liked the information that was on it. It looked interesting. I would buy records like that. I brought it back, checked it out and there were a couple of good things on it. So I called the record company. And they went by the box and it was $2.70 – postage, record, everything. So I ordered them, and I’d sell them to other disc jockeys. Where else did you go looking for records? London. I would go there for the vinyl. Better pressings. In 1972, I was in Chiswick. I knew this family, and I was very close to them. The mother had cancer and he took his whole family and I was invited over. What was The Choice? I took a sabbatical. What happened was, I got this building on 3rd Street between [Avenues] D & C in 1982. Yeah. That was when Alphabet City was the worst neighborhood in the entire United States. I knew some of the grandmothers. I shut down. It was so bad over there. Business was tough. I wanted to rent out The Loft. It was in the loft, but it was called Choice. So I just decided to take a break. It was very hard. People were dying, dropping like flies – a lot of friends. I decided to rent the place to someone I knew, and stay at my house up near Woodstock for about two years. 1980 was when I bought the building. ’84 was when I moved over there. ’88 was when I maybe rented it out. ’90 was when I went back. When was it open? From ’88 to ’90 I think. Almost two years. You influenced so many people: DJs who became famous, people who started labels – they got their inspiration from the Loft. There were two things. There were a lot of people I directly helped in finding locations or connecting them with things or whatever. But a lot of people were also inspired to copy the idea of the Loft, its spirit, the way it operated. Who do you think took the idea and got it right; who are you the most proud of? Nicky Siano was probably the closest. I won’t say I have objections, but there are things I wouldn’t have done that he’s done. But he was the closest. He didn’t sell membership cards. He was private. Basically, they had food... The one thing the Loft did do was set a standard; getting your money’s worth. A decent sound system: I wanna hear the music. Once you hear the soundsystem that means you’re getting ear damage; ear fatigue. So you want music, not the system. Same with lighting. You don’t want fatigue. Anyway, Nicky was about the closest. But hey: do it anyway you wanna do. Some of them deviated much more. Others, like the Garage. Larry [Levan], I got him his first job. Some parties are more intense than others, but I’ve always come away feeling better about the world, better about myself, better about people. I always felt something good from it. And you fought hard to establish the legal right to throw your kind of parties. You were taken to court over it, weren’t you? No, I took them. They closed me down once when I was on Broadway, because it was an unlicensed cabaret. The case was thrown out. When I went over to Prince Street, and I had two floors, more space, I didn’t want that to happen. This had to be established. So in 1974 I had the longest hearing in the history of consumer affairs. I was not a cabaret, because I did not sell food and drink directly or indirectly to the public. I wanted to establish that. The city was so upset. They were holding me up about paying rent. This established for all the places that had opened up as long as you were private. That was in 1974. Had to be the end of September. I actually had a good track record with the police department and fire department. Never had a police problem. Never a fire or safety problem. The fireman and policemen would come to hang out. I thought that was great for everybody. Which record have you most enjoyed playing there over the years? “Starchild” by Level 41, “Love Is the Message” by MFSB, “Walking in Rhythm” by Blackbyrds, Ashford & Simpson “Stay Free,” “Roots”... What do you think made these parties so special? It was the times. And if drugs were being used by people, they were more on the recreational side. At first everybody was together. Then it became like the same with any business. They gotta start splitting up the nights between gay, black, white. Slowly, but surely... When did that start to happen? I don’t want to mention a place. I really don’t. Let’s say around ’79, ’80. Isn’t that a natural process, that people would want to party with people similar to them? Yeah, but why take a place that’s already open and people are together and start splitting it up? So people implemented things like door policies? The Garage did it. I respected Michael [Brody] and everything, but they started splitting things. When you filled out an application it was, “Are you straight or are you gay?” And that was the night you got a card for. If you can mix the economic groups of people together, then you have social progress. How do you see the role of the DJ? Maybe not by his choice, but the negative side, he could be like a short-order cook. But certainly as a humble person, who sheds their ego and respects music and is there to keep the flow going; to participate. It is a unique situation. It is a very humbling experience. But it’s also a controlling experience? What do you mean? Talk to me. In terms of controlling the party. This has been my experience. I’m sure you can relate to this. When the music’s starting to flow... I got into the sound being more open and that sonic trail, the artist, the nuances, everything. It’s very important. There’s a lot of music in those nuances. I would take requests. And I play the requests in the order that they were given to me, because I wanted people to participate. Then what started to happen was someone would ask, “David, could you play?” And I just happened to have it in my hand. I’m ready to push the button. You get to a psychic level. You know what I mean. You can’t explain it. There’s a higher level; a higher power. Not preaching or anything, this is about music. Is this about oneness on the dancefloor? It can happen. Any notable occasions you remember? Yeah, many times, but I can’t say... sometimes it happens. Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. You just feel good. You have your life energy raised. I can’t have mine raised unless yours is raised. And vice-versa. But each one of us has a role. It’s all about music. What is the ideal relationship between you and the people on the dancefloor? That we all play in the same band. All characters in the same play. Can you say what was the best night? Each party I have learned something one way or another, especially in the early ’70s. A lot of music was anti-war music, a lot of music had to do with the economic situation, it had a message about the people, or about romance. I can’t categorize individual parties and say one was better than the other. Some parties are more intense than others, but I’ve always come away feeling better about the world, better about myself, better about people. I always felt something good from it. If you go to the hot springs, you’ll always come back feeling better. Maybe some days more than others, because maybe you didn’t need it as much, but it’s always cleansing. This interview was conducted in August 1999 in New York. © DJhistory.com It is reproduced in its integrity and can be found here : Interview: David Mancuso | Red Bull Music Academy Daily

José Padilla, who has died from cancer of the colon, was more than just Ibiza’s chillout DJ par excellence. Along with a small coterie of survivors, he was the heartbeat and conscience of an island that has become increasingly remote from its idealistic origins as a hippie enclave. Bill Brewster This article can be found here: José​ Padilla embodied the original spirit of Ibiza - Features - Mixmag Born in Girona, Catalunya in 1955, he grew up in a musical household with a brother obsessed with rock ’n’ roll. His first experience as a DJ was in Lloret Del Mar as a 16-year-old, when he played for free to let the main DJ have a break. He came out to Ibiza in 1976 after getting into what he described cryptically as, “deep trouble”. In those days it was impossible to earn a full-time living as a DJ, so he supplemented his meagre income working in construction or as a waiter. While his reputation was built as a chillout DJ, he was originally a dancefloor-oriented spinner. His first major residency was at San Antonio’s then-credible Es Paradis in 1978, before mass British tourism had hit the island. “It was open air,” he said. “It was cosmopolitan, but there was also that freaky hippie thing, you know. It was a different vibe. Different people, different drugs. It was more relaxed.” He opened a place called Museo in Cala Vadella on the west of the island which ended in tragedy when one of the partners killed himself in the bar. He retreated to the hippie market and began hawking cassette tapes showcasing his own mixes. “First day I went, I sell all of them. Next day I did double. I sold them all again. Fuck! I buy another tape machine. Then I speak to Alfredo, Pippi, Cesar de Molero. I say, ‘Look I got this business in the market, if you make me a master, I’ll give you a percentage’.” It was via this circuitous route he began playing at Cafe Del Mar, then a San An outpost, whose musical sunsets swiftly became part of Ibizan legend. In 1994, Padilla – in tandem with React in the UK – began releasing a series of iconic compilations the first of which included the foundational Ibicencan anthem ‘Music For A Found Harmonium’ by Penguin Cafe Orchestra, a wheezing, string-heavy song that is as distant from modern Ibiza as it’s possible to be. “The first time I heard Penguin Café Orchestra was in Glories in the ’80s and it was this guy from Valencia called Paco who played it. It was the beginning of ecstasy, only a few people were taking it, it was the first time I saw people doing that dancing [mimics acid house type dancing].” The first Cafe De Mar compilation sold a respectable 8,000 units. By the fifth, the halcyon years of the short-lived heyday of the CD, they sold 500,000. The Best of Cafe Del Mar topped 1m. sales. The Ibizan DJ style, partially submerged by the current house/techno hegemony, was born out of necessity and ingenuity more than desire. There were no guests, no superstars, just one DJ in a nightclub playing the whole evening and night. “Well, of course we were brought up like that, but also there was not much choice,” suggested Padilla. “Now you can specialise in Detroit techno or deep house or whatever, but then you had to play with what you have. It wasn’t because in Ibiza we like to play like that. We have to play Talk Talk, we have to play Belgian new beat, we have to play rock and we have to play reggae, because we had to play for so many hours.” When I interviewed José 15 years ago, he seemed particularly disillusioned with what Ibiza had become. He talked of leaving the island to live somewhere else. “Ibiza, to me, doesn’t mean anything anymore,” he said. “It’s for young kids. It’s a very unreal place. Go go go, party party. There’s not many places you can hang out. Maybe it’s because I’m older or because I’ve changed. Everything is so business oriented now, there is no spirit or goodwill. It’s a big industry. It’s a big factory. That’s the fucking reality.” In the end, José never left the island and, perhaps, the island never left him. Despite his disagreements with the direction it had taken, he still loved it too much to file for divorce. “He saw the birth of club culture in Ibiza pretty much from the beginning and knew the more mellow side of music was just as important as everything else,” says Phil Mison, who played alongside José at Cafe Del Mar. “So to concentrate on doing the chillout tapes, which turned into the CD releases, which eventually turned into the worldwide phenomenon of curated Spotify playlists… that whole concept started with José. That’s quite a legacy.” Chris Coco, another British DJ inspired by Padilla’s approach and taste, says, “Countless lives were changed on the sunset strip, staring out to sea, listening to music selected by José. His sunset soundtracks were, for me at least, all about love - love for music, love for nature, loving and living in the moment. That was his power - connecting art and the natural world, music and the moment, to make something so fragile, so intangible, and yet so strong, it was soon gone, but never forgotten.” The lights may never go out in Ibiza, but tonight they will certainly be glowing a little less brightly. Bill Brewster is a regular contributor to Mixmag. Follow him on Twitter

"The original is in half-time with no drums, so there was a lot of freedom for interpretation. (ed.)" Colleen, Le visiteur interview, 17/01/2022 A Soul. That’s how one can receive Lady Blackbird’s voice. Something so articulate that you can hear every nuance, every note’s birth and death (the audiophiles out there know that the information contained in the ending sound of a note, be it played or sung, is priceless). “Lost and Looking” (appearing on Blackbird's album "Black acid soul" issued in September 2021) received the “Cosmodelica” treatment in the wake of 2022 by Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy and was then issued on vinyl a few months later, in June, on the “Foundation Music” record label (ref: FMPLB 001). In a lengthy interview for “Le Visiteur” (that you can read here), Colleen explained : I discovered Lady Blackbird through my friend Ashley Beedle’s remix of ‘Beware the Stranger’, which was my favourite dance record of 2020. I was absolutely astounded when I heard her voice – raw, visceral, and technically perfect. She quickly became one of my favourite contemporary voices and I asked her manager Ross Allen if I could do a remix and voila! But the story wouldn’t be complete without listening to the original song. It is an absolutely Lonely and "lost" piece of music (somewhat close in its structure to Sam Cooke's original version on his 1963 Night Beats album – tonality aside, of course). Lady Blackbird's voice is very upfront in the mix. The music, on the contrary, is very light, almost acting like a drawing that could not keep its reality on a blackboard... It’s a very evanescent track, and Blackbird’s slightly worried singing adds to that darkish atmosphere. She is searching for the one she loves. Colleen’s take on the song is different. Rhythmically, of course, there’s no denying as she explained it to “Le visiteur” : Well, the original is in half time with no drums, so there was a lot of freedom for interpretation. I double-timed it and was inspired to go for a swamp-funk, dubby-electronic sound and started with the bassline. From there it was relatively easy. It’s my new rule to only take on remixes for which I immediately hear an idea for and this one was no exception. But, philosophically, the approach is different too. While Lady Blackbird was searching for her lover in the night (I prefer the night pictured in Sam Cooke’s version, it has an open tone that allows you to see the sky, and we gradually lose that as the versions go by;-)), Colleen presents a more desperate, urgent, somewhat “primal” and visceral take, rejoining her perception of Lady Blackbird’s voice. In this version of the song, the woman is crying her heart out without an ounce of hope. Still, Colleen manages to keep the “evanescent” spirit of the track alive, so we have the musical background slowly building up and then disappearing in the echo of Lady Blackbird’s voice. I let you listen to the track and identify how this new version has been structured (or head over here if you don't feel like, well, searching)! Colleen played the remixed version of “Lost and Looking” on Balearic Breakfast, and the remix even hit the 5th spot of the top 50 furtive tracks of 2022 poll that was organised by the DJ History website.

“Constant craving” relates to samsara, the Buddhist cycle of birth and death, but I wasn’t a practising Buddhist then so I honestly don’t know what the impetus for the song was. I just wrote it from the perspective of desire and longing. K.d. Land, The Guardian interview, 26/09/2017 Balearic Breakfast means so Much, to So many people. It is our Home, our moment of absolute Joy and Freedom. These moments shared with Colleen (and Adam of course) are priceless to us... At the core of the Balearic Breakfast blog was my willingness to share more information about the music we all discovered thanks to the show, and I feel K.d. Lang's Constant craving absolutely embodies what the show is all about. Click on the video and read on! With its soul open to an endless voyage, "Constant craving" has that absolute sense of Freedom that keeps taking you to higher grounds. This feeling never stops. It simply lifts you on and on. You see yourself flying over the blue ocean, at high speed, with birds gliding next to you and clouds softly disappearing. Then, you pay attention to the lyrics : Even through the darkest phase Be it thick or thin Always someone marches brave Here beneath my skin And constant craving Has always been Maybe a great magnet pulls All souls towards truth Or maybe it is life itself Feeds wisdom To its youth Constant craving Has always been Craving Ah-ha Constant craving Has always been Has always been It seems obvious the lyrics are about hope, about truth. It's a very positive song whose drive is tense but light at the same time. Simply put, this song moves the listener. In an interview with the Buddhist publication The Shambhala Sun, K.D. Lang (a devoted Buddhist) said : “'Constant Craving' is all about samsara.” Samsara, as defined within Buddhism, is the continuous cycle of birth and death while one moves within the six realms of existence. Written by Canadian singer-songwriter K. d. Lang and Ben Mink (songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and Lang's long-time collaborator and friend), the song was performed by Lang and got included on her second solo album Ingénue (1992), despite being such a hard one to compose. It was released in the United Kingdom in April 1992 and allowed Lang to win a Grammy Award in the category for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1993, as well as an MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video. A lot of music critics have praised the song over the years. It was released in Britain first and nothing really happened. Some of the early reviews for the album were horrible. People magazine destroyed it, but other places loved it. And when DJs in America started playing it, the Warner Bros switchboard lit up with people calling in. Having such a big hit was life-changing. Ben MInk, The Guardian Interview, 26/09/2017 The video clip for the song was filmed in black-and-white and presents a fanciful recreation of the premiere of Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot in Paris in 1953. Lang is depicted singing backstage while the actors perform. We encourage you to read this great article in which both artists explain how the song was written, and received. One of the most hauntingly beautiful songs with some of the most poetic lyrics ever: "Even through the darkest phase, be it thick or thin Always someone marches brave, here beneath my skin" The instrumentation of an accordion adds a melancholy, timeless sound to these simple yet profound words. k.d. lang's voice conveys the longing, the yearning. Camille from toronto, Songfacts

Writer, reviewer, interviewer and occasional DJ, Joe Muggs covers music from the ultra mainstream to the infra underground. He is the author of Bass, Mids, Tops – a book on UK sound system culture. A few days ago, Joe published a musical guide partially reproduced here. Head over to Balearic Aesthetic (theshfl.com) to read it in full. It’s a BIG ONE. Spent a long time on this but it was very enjoyable. Working on the premise that the only way to define an undefinable genre which only gains meaning by context is to LISTEN TO LOADS OF MUSIC, here’s a short intro and 27 albums that between them lay out coordinates for the Balearic aesthetic as it has evolved over 40-odd years. Look! LISTEN! There are links to streaming / Bandcamp for most, and even YouTube playlists for those which are rarer… I should add BIG thanks to @jolyongreen the Balearic Adjudicator for facts and figures (and 69 hours of music - NICE) x Joe Muggs, Instgr, 06/01/2023 A warning before we begin: this guide is far from comprehensive it’s deliberately partial and full of major omissions. The thing is, it could only be that way. You could try and make a complete and definitive guide to the Balearic aesthetic in music, but the effort would inevitably destroy your mind and you’d probably have to go into hiding to boot. It is a contentious business to say the very least. Ask any five DJs what it means and you’ll get at a minimum six conflicting answers, and at least two of the DJs will hunker down into a bitter two week argument over whether Apollonia 6 or Wendy & Lisa are the most Balearic. There are even arguments over whether to capitalise the “B” of “Balearic” when referring to the music rather than the geography. The canonical origin story is deceptively simple. Balearic music began in Ibiza – one of the Balearic islands off the eastern coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, and a longtime leisure spot for bohemians, hippies, queers, and other assorted beautiful people from around the world. The story goes that it began with the musical choices of Argentinian DJ Alfredo Fiorito (universally known just as Alfredo), who began a residency at the Amnesia club in 1984 just as the club got an all-night license, and just as the followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh aka Osho brought suitcases full of ecstasy to the island as they fled their cult compound in Ohio. This then got taken to the world by a bunch of cheeky chappies from London. Alfredo played all sorts. There was plenty of the pop and soul of the time. Lots of new wave / alternative like Talking Heads, Billy Idol and Siouxie And The Banshees. Euro electronica that bordered on the industrial like Belgium’s Liaisons Dangereuses or Scotland’s Finitribe. 60s and 70s psychedelic rock. Latin grooves. Reggae. Nina Simone. Captain Sensible. The Pink Panther theme. Quite a lot of the cheesiest smooth jazz sax you’ve ever heard. House music as it began to filter in from Chicago and New York. All at a distinctly unhurried pace. In the summer of 1987 a bunch of young London clubbers came to Amnesia, had their ecstasy epiphany dancing to U2 and Mr Fingers at dawn, took the experience back to the UK as evangelists via clubs like Paul Oakenfold’s Future and Danny Rampling’s Shoom, and together with acid house it exploded outwards. In fact though, it’s a bit more complicated than that. There’s an element of “history is written by the victors” to this narrative – that is to say, those Brits went on to hugely influential positions in the music industry, so the places and sounds that first turned their heads were written into the canonical definition. But when Alfredo started, he played a very simple mix of laid-back pop-soul – mainly a huge amount of Sade – without the variety he’d be known for a couple of years later, and there were plenty of other DJs at clubs like KU and Pacha and bars and parties across the Balearics mixing it up, with influence criss-crossing between them. These included Alfredo’s own stated biggest inspiration, Frenchman Jean Claude Maury, who had cut his teeth in the 70s discos of Brussels and had brought a lot of the weird Belgian electropop influence with him. Italian KU resident Massimo “Max” Zuchelli was much revered by other DJs. Names like Pippi, Joan Ribas, Gerardo, Patrick Landry, Nelo and Juan Carlos were all mixing, matching and cross-fertilising through the early- to mid- 80s. And one of the key Brit popularisers, Trevor Fung, had been playing Ibiza since almost the start of the decade – while other music lovers and mischief makers came and went, taking Balearic fashion and tastes back to British and other European cities. So as much as the events of 87 and 88 were a tectonic shift, the Balearic aesthetic had already grown in conversation with the rest of the continent long before the mythical 1987 year zero. Listen now to mid-80s DJ recordings, and you’ll see why the crowd of jetsetters, pop stars, hippies, urchins, drop-outs and weirdos from across Europe revered Alfredo and the other DJs. There was no technical trickery to the mixing, but their pacing and choices draw you in – one minute it’ll be just Simply Red and Sade and you’re wondering how it’s different from oldies radio, then you’ll realise you’re nodding your head to something completely alien, or which shouldn’t make sense yet does. The old cliché of a DJ taking the audience “on a journey” is made vividly real, but it’s not hypnotic electronics or slamming basslines, it’s Spandau Ballet and TV cop show themes getting you there. It doesn’t matter if a track was a million-seller or a mega-rarity, if it fits, then it fits. Right away the disagreements start. Does a song become Balearic because Alfredo played it, or is there a distinct quality that made it Balearic all along? All those other clubs and cafes through Ibiza, Formentera, Menorca and the other Balearic islands started playing diverse connoisseurs’ selections too: are they also officially Balearic music? What are the qualities that link these songs? Certainly there’s a certain inclination towards high production values, clean lines, a bittersweet melancholy that speaks to the fleeting bliss of the ecstasy experience. But a sense of fun is just as present, and the smoothness can be interrupted at any time with a psyche rock wigout or some rough-edged Euro EBM. And the complications multiply once you factor in what people took away from the Amnesia, KU and Pacha dancefloors. Even in the mid-80s, artists were aware of the sound of those clubs, and either deliberately tailored their work to be playable or simply took inspiration from the Balearic DJs. From the ostentatious lushness of soft rocker Chris Rea to New Order fully leaning into their electronic tendencies while recording and clubbing in Ibiza, the Balearic vibe radiated outwards, creating feedback loops together with mainstream and alternative music. Other club scenes from Belgian new beat to Italian cosmic disco likewise existed in a state of sympathetic vibration with the Balearic isles. But that was as nothing to what happened after 1988 and in the first couple of years of the 90s. That year, ecstasy culture exploded out of Ibiza across the clubs of Europe and particularly the UK. Already a few oddballs within the football terrace and club cultures had adopted the hippie-ish Amnesia style, but with the acid house revolution, it was suddenly everywhere, with DJs hunting down Alfredo’s playlists obsessively. And the Ibizan sound blurred into many other things. UK street soul birthed the likes of Soul II Soul and Smith & Mighty, whose unique loping breakbeat style and soundsystem bass would feed heavily back into Ibiza. Indie bands went to Ibiza or hung out with DJs who had. The likes of Happy Mondays, Primal Scream and the Beloved created a whole Balearically-inclined indie-dance movement. Acts that were neither indie nor dance, like Saint Etienne, Moodswings, The Grid, Innocence and many more, produced downtempo and emotive anthems. Meanwhile in 1991, something happened that confused definitions even more: already well-practiced DJ Jose Padilla began his residency at Ibiza’s Cafe Del Mar, playing as the sun set over the ocean. His sets, though they could include dance and soul-funk beats and were as varied as Alfredo’s, were fundamentally more chilled. Playing soundtracks by Ennio Morricone and Ryuichi Sakamoto, new age and minimalist tracks by the likes of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and selling tapes of his sets, he created an association between Ibiza and chillout music that changed the meaning of “Balearic” even as it was settling into the wider public consciousness. And to mess things up more, that public consciousness would also start to think of the banging trance and prog house of mid- to late-90s megaclubs as Balearic as well. Since then, layer upon layer of variation have been added. DJs around the world from Copenhagen to Kyoto made careers from a laid back yet ecstatic vibe. Some, epitomised by Andrew Weatherall, led with the darker, more industrial side of Alfredo’s tastes, merging into more techno flavours. Some found overlaps with other stylistically voracious hedonistic scenes - like the cosmic disco of 1980s Italy led by Daniele Baldeli, or the Loft parties started in New York by David Mancuso going way back to the start of the 70s. Indeed, Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy, an associate of Mancuso’s, has lately presented a Balearic Breakfast Show on Worldwide FM, shoring up the sense of kinship between similar open-minded ecstatic dancing scenes. Whole labels have grown up from releasing new dreamy dance experiments with a Balearic flavour (one is even called “Is It Balearic?”), or from digging up and re-releasing the type of obscure records that Alfredo might have played. Local variants have sprung up like the Norwegian disco scene of the 00s which tapped into cosmic disco, Ibizan influences and a whole load of bongos to create some of the most genial music of the new millennium. But is it Balearic? Well, here come the months-long arguments. Some say it’s not Balearic unless it’s actually a fish shack on an island beach with a wizened old hippie or hooligan playing Cocteau Twins and Jimmy Cliff singles. Some think it needs to be connected to certain clubs in London or Manchester. Some think there’s an aesthetic with rules, others demand that there must be rule-breaking curveballs to count. But the brilliance of the legacy of those original, endless 1980s Ibiza nights is that nobody ultimately can decide what is real or authentic any more. So much of the magic is tied up with contingent experiences, the time of night, the juxtaposition of tracks, the cultural mix and expectation of a crowd at any given moment, the colour of the sunset, the flux of innocence and experience…in that sense it’s the epitome of club/DJ culture’s unique constitution: a record itself, or even a DJ set, can never be the definitive artwork, because the artwork – the creativity, the expression – is made up of the night, the weekend, the summer, the life story. This is a musical experience that shifts, shimmers and changes with every experience across decades and nations. So with that in mind, I’ve selected some good records that have had the B-word attached to them at one time or another – many of them are explicitly Balearic compilations, in fact – but I ascribe no great claim to definitive status for any of them. Rather, think of this as a way in, a hint of how to navigate your own tastes, a waft of pine and patchouli as you try and track down that great mythical Mediterranean party of the mind… E2-E4 Manuel Göttsching The influence on this extended sequencer and guitar jam on dance culture cannot be overstated. Larry Levan reportedly fell in love with it the minute he heard it, making it a staple at NYC’s Paradise Garage and the last record played at his last gig before he died in 1992. The impact it had on house and techno is obvious and vast — in technique, in spirit and through being sampled directly, most notably by Carl Craig, Basic Channel and on 1989 Italo house hit “Sueño_Latino” by Sueño_Latino which would become one of the defining records of the Balearic DJing style as it went international. But E2-E4 had long been an Ibiza staple before any dance producers reworked it, with brave and or zoned-out DJs sometimes letting its entire hour-long duration play out. As its cycling patterns develop, it truly captures the mood of a party or dance floor that has come untethered from the everyday, where the demands of normal time no longer exist. Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence [Original Soundtrack] Ryuichi Sakamoto The soundtrack to the movie Sakamoto himself starred in alongside David Bowie ranks as one of the greatest scores of all time. It marked the moment when Ryuichi Sakamoto really demonstrated that he was an artist for the ages above and beyond his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra and subsequent club-friendly successes. And it’s also a defining Balearic record. You wouldn’t need to know Sakamoto had performed it live at Ibiza’s pivotal KU club in 1990 to know that its sophisticated synth work and unforgettable melodies were perfectly tuned to the (then) sophisticated club culture of the island. Balearic Breakfast: Volume 1 Colleen Murphy When the Balearic ethos emerged in the early 80s, it wasn’t the first DJing style to blend the coolest soul and dance of its time with experimental music, chillout and global beats, all with a psychedelic atmosphere. Indeed, David Mancuso, in his Loft parties, had been doing something similar in New York for over a decade before. So there’s a nice resonance in Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy — who cut her musical teeth as part of the Loft team from the early 90s — latterly bringing the streams together in her Balearic Breakfast Show on the sadly-missed Worldwide FM. This 2022 compilation is all pretty modern stuff and leans significantly more towards house and disco than the average “Balearic” selection — with Phil Asher remixing P’Taah, Ashley Beedle doing the same for Lady Blackbird, and Murphy herself reworking Australian jazz-fusioneers Mildlife. But there’s plenty of the washes of chillout dreaminess, krautrock chug and other sounds that you’d more associate with The B-Word, and altogether it feels like a very natural dovetailing of Ibiza with New York, London and other global dance spaces. Balearic Rock Various Artists The Sunset Sounds From The EMI Music Archives series, put together on streaming services by EMI Sweden in 2012, as neo-Balearic eclecticism was becoming big business in Scandinavia, is a mixed bag to say the least. Some volumes are stellar digs through history by someone who obviously knows their onions, others seem like an excuse to remarket mid-range Scandi electronic acts. But when it’s of the quality of this, Volume 9 in the series, it’s hard to argue. There’s dirty 70s boogie (Suzi Quatro, Hawkwind, Cozy Powell, Alexis Korner's C.C.S.), there’s new wave (The Stranglers, Fad Gadget, Flying Lizards), there’s a little of the early 90s dance-rock expressly inspired by Ibiza (a very early Andrew Weatherall remix of former Undertones members That Petrol Emotion). But the real joy here is how that elusive Balearic quality emerges as you play through this — it’s a coherent set, it’s danceable, and somehow there’s a hidden connecting thread through it all. Disco Powerplay Soft Rocks In the early 00s, two things happened. First the last-days-of-rome decline of superstar DJ culture turned many musically curious people off the 90s dance mainstream and drew attention back to the stranger, more eclectic roots of DJ culture in New York, Chicago and Ibiza. Second, the arrival of easy to use editing software — notably Ableton Live — allowed any music from any time to be chopped up and made “DJ friendly.” All too often this led to a ghastly blanding and straightening out of quirky source material, but there were a few people who did it right — notably obsessive crate-digging London party crew Soft Rocks. This collection of their 00s edits has stuff that sounds like Gary Numan, like Prince, like The Allman Brothers, and even a cod-reggae Europop cover version of Iron Butterfly's “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida.” It skims exactly that weird fractal boundary between pop and freakout, sophisticated and demented, that the original generation Balearic DJs consistently navigated, and while it’s extremely reliable party material, it’s never, ever predictable. (...) ed. Collected Works A Mountain of One There has always been a hippie-rock element to Balearic music — Mediterranean DJs playing 60s and 70s Californian and Californian-adjacent bands, and a long-haired, bearded, open-shirted fashion sense. So it’s no wonder that acts steeped in the Balearic vibe would find new ways to present that. Thus A Mountain Of One, who emerged during the major Balearic renaissance of the 00s. Channeling Love, The Doors, Crosby Stills & Nash, Fleetwood Mac and a little late period Hendrix along with the 80s production and electronic sequences more commonly associated with Ibiza and its surrounds, their early EPs — collected here — are the absolutely perfect soundtrack for letting your hair billow in the wind as waves crash on a beach beneath you. LC The Durutti Column It’s strange that an album that came from the same rain-drenched and unglamorous Manchester environs as Joy Division — and even sounds a little Joy Division at times — should become a soundtrack to sun-soaked psychedelic adventures for beautiful people in Ibiza, but such is the magic of the Balearic DJ ethos. Vini Reilly’s gently chiming guitars — echoing both New York minimalism and West African highlife — lyrical piano chords and bare drum (occasionally drum machine) patterns came to life in a new geographic and narcotic context — and this 1981 album is essential listening if you want to understand certain patterns that would be codified in explicitly Balearic records of the decades that followed. Amnesia 1986 (Summer Solstice Special) DJ Alfredo Arguments will simmer for ever over whether Argentinian DJ Alfredo Fiorito was the prime originator of the Balearic aesthetic or just one part of a movement — but there’s no question that his mid-80s sets did serve to codify it. This 90 minute recording, dug up for a summer solstice post on the Chill Out Tent blog, is case in point, and is a perfect illustration of how technically simple but inspired DJing can pick up and transport an audience somewhere truly magical. It opens in shamelessly mainstream fashion with Simply Red, and there’s plenty of the more sophisticated pop and soul of the time (Style Council, Zushii), kooky (and un-Shazamable) Europop, lots of emotionally ambiguous new wave-derived songs (Joe Jackson, Talking Heads's “Home,” Sandie Shaw’s gorgeously bleak cover of Lloyd Cole's “Are you Ready to be Heartbroken?”), all culminating in a joyously weird ending of “How Much are They? by Jah Wobble with Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebzeit of Can into Henry Mancini's “Pink Panther Theme.” You can understand why intoxicated newcomers to the Amnesia club began to worship Alfredo as some kind of shaman — for all its seeming accessibility this is a deep musical ritual. Echoes Wally Badarou There can be few artists more under-appreciated given their vast influence than French keyboardist Wally Badarou. His role as the unofficial “fifth member” of Level 42 contributed majorly to the sound of the 80s, but probably even more, as part of the Compass Point All Stars, his work with Grace Jones, Tom Tom Club, Gwen Guthrie, Jimmy Cliff and more fed into so many overground and underground currents. And just as potently, but even more unknown, his solo work practically defined the sound of the Balearic DJs of the 1980s, and thus the more sophisticated sound of dance culture thereafter. The delicate, thoughtful grooves of Echoes bring together everything from West African highlife guitars to Yellow Magic Orchestra inspired orientalist motifs, jazz-funk to academic minimalism, all with cutting edge use of synths and rhythm machines. The sense of a record out of time is increased by “Mambo,” large sections of which would be repurposed for Massive Attack's “Daydreaming,” and by the final beatless, emotive piano piece “Rain” which seems to carve out a space beyond influence. All of it has a globalism, a sophisticated outsider vibe, that perfectly fits with the most otherworldly of dance floors, still. Electric Head The Grid This 1990 album is a perfect exemplar of how the Balearic aesthetic merged into deeper streams of music and subculture. Richard Norris was a psychedelic archivist and musical experimenter, who had already leapt headlong into acid house with the Jack the Tab album he made with Genesis P. Orridge of Psychic TV / Throbbing Gristle in 1988. Dave Ball also contributed to that album but was best known for his own dark electronic innovations as half of Soft Cell. Together as The Grid, they plugged naturally in to the moody EBM and other Euro electronic records played by Ibiza’s Balearic DJs and effortlessly drew lines of connection from these into both house and the more soulful / blissed-out / easy listening aspects of Balearic sets. “Floatation” in particular, with its Soul II Soul derived beat, captured perfectly the flowing-together of elements and lack of rules of the time — and via its Andrew Weatherall remix (included on extended reissues) has been a part of dance culture’s nervous system ever since, as evidenced by Paul Woolford’s extraordinary remake of it almost 30 years later. Music for Dreams 20 Years: The Sunset Sessions Vol. 10 Kenneth Bager, Various Artists It was a somewhat grim irony that Balearic — an aesthetic that originally could only be defined by context and juxtaposition in multi-genre DJ sets — began through the 90s and into the 00s to become a predictable genre in itself. Many hundreds of labels sprang up specialising in wafty chill-out beats with breathy voices, Spanish guitars and pictures of swimming pools on the cover. But amongst the glut, there were gems too — and nowhere more so than on Danish DJ Kenneth Bager’s label Music for Dreams. Bager had a long history as a DJ going back to the early 80s himself, so he made sure that the label was imbued with the variety and weirdness of his original Balearic inspirations — and as this album of its output through the first two decades of the millennium shows amply, there was plenty of mileage in it. Lush and surging electronic soul songs, barely-there ambient, New Order-style electronic pop: this is chill out with guts and heart. (...) ed. Preludes, Airs & Yodels (A Penguin Cafe Primer) Penguin Cafe Orchestra The slipperiness of the Balearic aesthetic makes it impossible to name definitive records — but there are several without which it’s very hard to understand that aesthetic. And this collection of the best works by the late Simon Jeffes’s collective is one. It’s appropriate that the concept for the group came to Jeffes in a dream on the Mediterranean — albeit in the South of France — as the gentle, repetitive string minimalism of PCO has proved to be the ultimate soundtrack for sunsets and waves in the Balearic isles. Combining whimsical English and other folk motifs, the minimalist repetitions of Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, and the dreamy modernism of Brian Eno (who initially signed them to his Obscure Music label), PCO pre-empted a lot of the most sophisticated dance and electronic music, and created bittersweet moods that would be heavily mined by Balearic DJs like José Padilla. Individual PCO albums can swerve a bit far into prog rock indulgence on occasion, but this best-of collection is pretty much faultless. Island Ruf Dug There are few albums as explicitly Balearic as this. The title, the lizard on the cover, every sound herein explicitly signals Ibiza — the Ibiza away from the megaclubs, that is. Manchester producer Ruf Dug has been a part time resident on “the white isle” since his teens, and his music is all about capturing the hidden away pleasures of its bars and fish shacks. And in particular he’s always channelled the pop immediacy of the Balearic DJs — so here, even when there are oddball radiophonic sounds, dub reggae spaciousness or Kosmische synth repetitions, it always comes with a cleanliness of production and melodic hooks that you’d swear you’d heard before — that trigger a bittersweet non-specific nostalgia. And when the folky soft-rock vocals of Nev Cottee come in on “Dominica!” and “Le Rayon Vert,” you’d swear you were hearing a song from your childhood echoing in on a lost oldies station of the mind. Sketches From an Island, Vol. 1 Mark Barrott It’s kind of hilarious thatone of the most flagrantly Balearic modern record labels of all — International Feel — for the first few years of its life was run not from the Mediterranean, but from Punta Del Este, more than 6,000 miles away on the Atlantic coast of Uruguay. But the Sketches From an Island records were made by label founder Barrott after decamping back to Ibiza, and they absolutely radiate Balearic vibes. Brazilian tropicália lilt, German Kosmische synth ripples a la Klaus Schulze, Pat Metheny flavoured new-age jazz, an undercurrent of Mr Fingers and Marshall Jefferson, gentle whispers of pop melody, all kept ultra delicate at all times. And in case you were in any doubt at all where this is located geographically, there’s even a track called “Formentera Headspace Blues” to make it 1,000% clear. Cosmic Balearic Beats Vol. 1 Various Artists If someone says “Balearic music” nowadays, as often as not they’ll be referring to something like this: synth disco running at 120bpm and below, often with a rock-band chug to the drums, and lots of psychedelic swooshes and swirls. But actually this manifestation has only really been the case since the mid 00s, when people began to join the dots from the Spanish Balearic Islands in the 80s to the Italian cosmic disco that had been happening at the same time thanks to DJs like Daniele Baldelli. This in turn fused with other new-wave / synth / alt-disco revivalism happening via labels/collectives like DFA, Optimo and RVNG INTL, plus a whole new wave of Nordic space disco from the likes of Prins Thomas, Todd Terje and Lindstrøm — and a new musical grammar was formed. Eskimo Recordings from Ghent in Belgium was a vital part of that agglomeration, and this 2007 compilation captures the magic perfectly. It’s at least as much Baldelli as it is Alfredo (hence the “Cosmic” in the title), and it still stands up as a warm, hedonistic joining of dots through international dance cultures. Balearic Beats (The Album Vol 1) Various Artists This is it: the motherlode of the original Balearic beat. Or at least the Balearic beat as it was taken to London in 1987 and 88 by a tight team of music scene friends. This album’s main compiler Trevor Fung had been a DJ on Ibiza since 1982, while his co-conspirators Pete Tong (or “Razor” tong as he’s credited) and Paul “Oakey” Oakenfold — both soon to become big time industry movers and shakers — were more recent converts to the scene. Sleeve notes, meanwhile, are written by Terry Farley, then known as part of the Boys Own fanzine but himself soon to be a house music superstar. The music is a mix of wired indie (The Woodentops, Thrashing Doves), punky industrial electro grooves (Nitzer Ebb, Fini Tribe, even The Residents keeping up with the times) and breezy Mediterranean-scented pop/dance (Mandy Smith, Electra’s “Jibaro”) — to UK dance insiders familiar to the point of hoary, but actually, listening back with fresh ears, still gigantic fun. Navigator José Padilla His fame as resident DJ at the Café Del Mar in San Antonio, Ibiza — where he would famously soundtrack the sunset over the bay with global sounds, film soundtracks and more — has eclipsed the late José Padilla’s own recordings. But they very much deserve attention, his 2001 second album being case in point. It does, in its Seal collaboration which lifts chunks of U2's “One” and its rather over-egged cover of “The Look of Love,” illustrate the risks of Balearic DJs embracing of mainstream pop and gauche emoting — but for the most part it’s gorgeous. Strange jazz waltzes with flamenco vocals and Tex-Mex slide guitar, a super delicate take on LTJ Bukem style drum’n’bass, lots of lush ambience, stirring chord sequences and sublimated Latin grooves: you don’t even need the sunset to have a spiritual “moment” to this. (...) ed. Offramp Pat Metheny Group As is well established, there is no true core to the Balearic aesthetic in music. It’s all about context, about juxtaposition, about what works in the moment. However there are certain sounds, styles, records without which it couldn’t be what it is. And this is one of those records. Munich’s ECM label has always specialised in finding a calm neither/nor space between jazz, modern classical and new age — and they were a perfect space for Metheny’s meditational jazz fusion experiments. The guitarist is known as one of the greatest virtuosos of all time, but on this album, everything is about underplaying by him and his band. Gentle Brazilian percussion, ambient synth pads, melodies that flow through the air like liquid gold, combine with the kind of ultra crisp production that so much in the 80s aspired to but all too often overshot into digital harshness. It’s pure elegance, and — although it’s laid back throughout — the sort of pure groove that made it into catnip for the DJs of Ibiza. Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours Vol 1 Various Artists It’s amazing, some 40 years after the Balearic ethos of DJing coalesced, how its essential principles and methods continue to spread and mutate. Take the RE:WARM label from the English South Coast, which is rooted in Balearic record collecting and DJing culture, digging up and polishing up obscure tracks including anything from New Zealand space disco to 90s South African pop. And on this fantastic collection by DJ Paul Hillier, they apply the ethos to folk, country and gentle psychedelia new and (mostly) old. This is all ultra obscure stuff in an area somewhere adjacent to Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Everly Brothers in their psyche-kitsch days. And as ever with the Balearic approach, it’s not just the individual tracks, but the juxtaposition, the presentation of them as part of DJ culture, which makes them not museum pieces but living, breathing treasures in the here and now. Classic Balearic Mastercuts Volume 1 Various Artists This compilation from 1994 — now highly sought after — captures the moment just before dance music culture got mega-mainstreamed, when the Balearic aesthetic was still super loose, blurring the original smooth pop mix of the 1980s DJs with the electronic producers they inspired. Soft rock from Chris Rea, proto house from Arthur Russell, Italian sophistication from Sueno Latino and Tullio De Piscopo, downbeat production from post-acid house UK generation like Moodswings and The Grid: it’s an impeccable, and perfectly balanced, selection. (...) ed.

Worldwide FM broadcast the 111st episode of Balearic Breakfast on October 25th 2022. About this show. – With the news that WWFM had to stop its activities (more about this in this post here ), Colleen decided to pause Cosmodelica (the last show of the series was aired on October 21st, 2022 ). On her socials, she shared her thoughts with us: "Today the last Cosmodelica radio show will air on Worldwide FM from 4 to 6pm BST. I hope you will join me. I started this radio show many years ago (15?) to share some of my favourite dance music from psychedelic soul, deep house, jazz-funk, underground disco and post-disco, deep techno, loft classics and whatever else tickles my fancy and it has lived on platforms like Samurai FM, Deep Frequency, Ministry of Sound and finally on Worldwide FM. It has been a joy to host and I thank all of the radio stations and their staff for the opportunities. I also want to express my deepest gratitude to my faithful listeners. Sharing music with you each and every month has been an honour. For the time being I am pausing Cosmodelica as a radio show but will still hold Cosmodelica parties (for those in the NYC area join us at Good Room on the 28th October!) and will continue my Cosmodelica productions - the latest of which airs on today’s show. Balearic Breakfast has one more radio show on Worldwide FM this coming Tuesday, the 25th October. After that I’m taking what I feel to be a well-deserved week off ;) and then I will resume Balearic Breakfast on my Mixcloud Live and Twitch TV every Tuesday from 10am to 12 noon starting on the 8th November and it will be archived on my Mixcloud. All links including the new Balearic Breakfast Family server on Discord are in the linktree. Thank you for your support Cosmonauts. What a beautiful trip it has been. 🎶❤️🌈" Thankfully, our clever and always alert Musical Captain had alternatives at hand for Balearic Breakfast: she would use her Mixcloud and Twitch TV accounts to stream the show (even creating a Discord community server, which is still running as of 2023)! So we knew it was the last show on WWFM, but we also knew there was no way for us to stop an adventure that meant so much to all of us! This 111th episode has a worried and reflective side to it and is somewhat musically questioning the future; right until the very end, as you'll hear. Though it never fully embraces Happiness, it does try, with all of its might, to keep a positive attitude until, ultimately, it beautifully crashes in a retained tear... With its somewhat cloudy musical sky, this show will not kill your mood, but it will bring some clouds into your inner sky... Listen back to the 111th edition of Balearic Breakfast: "Join me tomorrow from 10 am to 12 noon BST for the last Balearic Breakfast on Worldwide FM (at least for now - who knows where the future will take us). This year marks my 40th year in broadcasting and this show has been one of the most significant in my entire run of radio programmes for several reasons. It was born out of the pandemic at a time when many of us were isolating in our own homes and the show acted as a portal through which we could temporarily put our worries on hold and escape through music. Balearic Breakfast was like a two-hour sonic musical holiday. The musical conversations we have shared have been enlightening and profound and I thank everyone who has contributed in any way. The sense of community is the most important aspect of Balearic Breakfast, especially at a time when so many of us felt alone. Seeing everyone joining in the online chats and video streams on Mixcloud Live and Twitch TV has been life-affirming. Thank you for your support and involvement. We will keep the family together and Balearic Breakfast will continue starting the 8th November when I will continue to stream Tuesday mornings on my Mixcloud and of course, the Request Line will go up just a few days before. Don’t forget there is also a Balearic Breakfast Discord Community server and all links can be found in my link tree. Thank you to Worldwide FM and thank you to the Balearic Breakfast family." Colleen, Instgr., 24/10/2022 PLAYLIST Scott Grooves – Lunar 627 (The New Moon) Mental Remedy – Omamiuda Rita Marley – One Draw (12" Disco Mix) Sefi Zisling – The Sky Sings (Obas Nenor's Extended dub) House of House – The Rough Half (Don't Stop) Keysha – Stop it! A Mountain of One – Star William Pitt – City Lights My Mine – Hypnotic Tango Roi Azulay – Reflections (Ron Trent Remix) Da Lata – N.Y.J. (Da Lata House Mix) Roisin Murphy – Murphy's Law (Cosmodelica Remix) D-Train – Keep on Pat Metheny Group – Are you going with me? DETAILED PLAYLIST This 111th episode of Balearic Breakfast starts with a very pictural track, Scott Grooves – Lunar 627 (The New Moon) [ 2022 - Bandcamp ] , evoking time's eternal balancing dance, beautifully followed by Mental Remedy – Omamiuda [ 2012 - Discogs ] . Though the next song brings a little bit of joy, Rita Marley – One Draw (12" Disco Mix) [ 1981 - Discogs ] , as I explained at the beginning of this post, it won't last long, as the next tracks will prove it. The sky is growing darker with Sefi Zisling – The Sky Sings (Obas Nenor's Extended dub) [ 2022 - Discogs ] , and it doesn't show any signs of change as House of House – The Rough Half (Don't Stop) [ 2009 - Discogs ] plays on. There is uncertainty here, in the first part of the show, a lot of it, and Colleen doesn't try to play a game that won't do; instead, she seems to accept the sad and present times by playing the uneasy Keysha – Stop it! [ 2018 - Discogs ] . The second part of the show starts with A Mountain of One – Star [ 2022 - Discogs ] ; if the lyrics seem more positive, the melody keeps a weary soul, there, lost, somewhere. Even William Pitt – City Lights [ 1986 - Discogs ] has a tough time bringing the sun back; we're drawn into the more positive music, just to be pulled back by the lyrics. This show is just like two magnets pushing each other away... We try to ease the pain, but, somehow, we alway find its trace somewhere, there where we didn't see it in the first place. Strange, isn't it? With its menacing and bouncing notes, its wide soundstage, and its underlined tension, My Mine – Hypnotic Tango [ 1985 - Discogs ] does not allow us to breathe peacefully, though the chorus is lighter. The sky keeps on showing its tumultuous colours as the show develops its mixed stories of love, lost and hope in its third part with Roi Azulay – Reflections (Ron Trent Remix) [ 2022 - Discogs ] . Da Lata – N.Y.J. (Da Lata House Mix) [ 2014 - Bandcamp ] keeps the uncertainty alive, and even if the next two tracks seem to bring some positivity out of the maze when you really look into it, nothing is absolutely easy here. We're talking about destiny with Roisin Murphy – Murphy's Law (Cosmodelica Remix) [ 2020 - Discogs ] and what it takes to overcome it, this main idea being expanded by D-Train – Keep on [ 1982 - Discogs ] , who tells us that we must keep on walking in order to reach the top... If something positive exists in this show, I can tell you right out of the bat that it's not Something that has been generously given to us but rather Something that we all Went after with all of our guts melted in one silent cry... Pat Metheny Group – Are you going with me? [ 1982 - Discogs ] Oh, sorry... I wrote that last sentence so perfectly... Now, please, in a hug, accept our tears... We all just needed them while answering a silent but absolutely loud Yes to Colleen's question... Are you going with us? The show has been archived on the WorldWide FM website: https://worldwidefm.net/episode/balearic-breakfast-colleen-cosmo-murphy-77

Worldwide FM broadcast the 109th episode of Balearic Breakfast on October 11th 2022. About this show. – With worldwide FM reducing its activities (more about this here ), we were all very sad. But our Captain did all that could be done to cheer us up by creating a Discord group and by making sure our Beloved show would not stop its Balearic Musical waves... As you'll hear, this episode has a very dreamy aspect to it, one of the strongest I ever heard; it transmits very well both in the music itself and in the lyrics! We're going to dream deep in the analysis below, and, as always, I swear I am not forcing anything here... 🌞 PLAYLIST Leftfield – Melt Aldous Harding – The Barrel David Bowie – Right Todd Rundgren – Lost Horizon The Cure – Lullaby (Extended Mix) Backbeat Convention – Love & Happiness (DJ Pippi & Willie Graff) Peter Brown – Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me Material – Bustin' Out (Rub n Tug edit) I C Bell – Explosion Ann Margret – Everybody Needs Somebody Sometimes Metropolis – I Love New York (The Reflex Revision) Alex Kassian – Spirit of Eden Marxist Love Disco Ensemble – Brumaire Was Not Was – Tell Me That I’m Dreaming Urban Soul – What Do I Gotta Do (Eric Kupper Club Mix) Jon Cutler & DJ Romain – The Ride Imagination – Changes (Larry Levan Remix) DETAILED PLAYLIST This episode has a very dreamy touch to it. We can clearly feel it thanks to the rhythm of the music; the distance the two first songs give to our mental experience is a nice example of that: Leftfield –  Melt [ 1995-Discogs ] / Aldous Harding – The Barrel [ 2019-Discogs ] . The Spatial ambient track , Melt, sets this episode's tone and is directly enhanced by Aldous Harding's song, which deals with the recognition of misleading dreams /beliefs ... As I said, it's a homogeneous feeling, so it's clear the lyrics of the songs match that feeling of freedom! That's also the case with the next song, David Bowie – Right [ 1975-Discogs ] , which really encourages you to pursue your dreams (the "positive drone"). Interestingly enough, this is exactly what hapenned to David when he was working on this song : " When you have musicians who can give you what you want, your mind goes crazy. David had ideas that he might have had but not been able to use, but now he had the people who could help him do that. Luther took care of all the background arrangements. ‘Right’ was different – it had all these call and responses. David created a ‘dot’ system, with dots that were more numerical than anything else – ‘When you get to number 8, sing this; when you get to 13, sing this.’ You jumped in and out on the dots. It was brutal. We’re talking about ‘Sing in 2 and 3, jump out in 4, back in in 5 and 6…’ It was like a total clusterfuck, but they nailed it every time. You can understand why he was so excited about the outcome of this album. That was the calibre of the musicians, and what he would be getting when he recorded in Philadelphia. " Sure, it seems we are in a kind of hate/love affair here, but hey, at least we're all about Dreams, aren't we? The nice musical and intellectual unity keeps on developing its themes with the next song, oh so gently presented to us by Colleen. Todd Rundgren – Lost Horizon [ 1985-Discogs ] also has that dreamy touch while sharing the same solidity that the previous track did (it seems the song is about Rundgren's lost dream of singing with Marvin Gaye, once again our love/hate story...)! Of course, the dreamy approach is expanded with The Cure – Lullaby (Extended Mix) [ 1989-Discogs ] , perferctly mixed into the previous track's ending... The more I listen to Balearic Breakfast, the more I see how much Colleen's knowledge of the songs is essential to the show, and this knowledge simply flows; it seems she's able to reach this kind of musical unicity so effortlessly... I'm just Wowed now, just more than before, slightly more... if it's even possible, laughs! For the next three tracks Backbeat Convention – Love & Happiness (DJ Pippi & Willie Graff) [ 2022-Traxsource ] / Peter Brown – Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me [ 1978-Discogs ] (taken from the 1977 debut album "A Fantasy Love Affair" on which, in fact, the lady from behind the curtains never really existed but in our desires 😉) / Material – Bustin' Out (Rub n Tug edit) [ 2021-Bandcamp ] , Colleen is going to expand the dream effect: listen to her light mix and to the musical unity (same tonality, close sonic colours, close rhythm, etc.) and simply let yourself fly in the Milky Way! We're here musically living the dream! Fun fact time: the singer on "Bustin' Out" is none other than the great Nona Hendryx , known for her work as one-third of the trio Labelle! For the second part of the show, we will keep the dreamy aspect intact. Starting with I.C. Bell – Explosion [ 1980-Discogs ] , we're still up there; listen to the light echo in the voices; the funkiness of the track really should set your mind free! The beat is good; the beat is strong, as Ann Margret – Everybody Needs Somebody Sometimes [ 1981-Discogs ] , and her voice, somehow disconnected from the mix, which doesn't touch the ground with its large soundstage, helps the listener to keep a distanced approach to the whole musical experience! We're really flying across the stars with the next number, Colleen's mix here being rock solid. Still, we're not touching earth anytime soon as Metropolis – I Love New York (The Reflex Revision) [ 2021-Discogs ] , with its personal vintage sonic flavours, keeps the dreaming intact! This is something I feel lacking today in musical productions: a "strange" or at least "inhabited" frequency response. When you listen to records from each era, they all had their "sonic signature", and it enhanced the songs; nowadays, it seems this 'sonic' touch has disappeared. Of course, we have effects in the songs produced, but I wish more tracks had a non-linear frequency response or at least something that makes them pop out, giving them their own soul. That's why I love Michael Jackson's "Invincible" album because it has its own unique Sound, its own sonic signature... Alex Kassian – Spirit of Eden [ 2021-Bandcamp ] is another great example of the sonic unity this show has. Followed by Marxist Love Disco Ensemble – Brumaire [ 2022-Discogs ] and Was Not Was – Tell Me That I’m Dreaming [ 1981-Discogs ] , I think I don't need to repeat myself here, do I? The next two songs add a more "house" aspect to our celestial wanderings, with the great Urban Soul – What Do I Gotta Do (Eric Kupper Club Mix) [ 1997-Discogs ] and the trippy Jon Cutler & DJ Romain – The Ride [ 2008-Discogs ] . Ending the show with Imagination – Changes ( Larry Levan Remix) [ 1983-Discogs ] , I can't help but see the Lioncub floating in the Milky Way, close to Colleen, of course..., asking: "Where's the next stop, Cosmo? Do you know? – Well, we'll see dear Lioncub; for the time being, enjoy the view! – Oh well, I'm enjoying it, but aren't we a bit High now?! – We're not being High enough, dear one; we really should be more Balearic... – Oh My..."

Worldwide FM broadcast the 104th episode of Balearic Breakfast on September 06th 2022.

Worldwide FM broadcast the 103rd episode of Balearic Breakfast on August 30th 2022.