#Balearic House

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Balearic Beats (The Album Vol 1) 1988 Balearic Beat / Disco / House / Industrial

Man, this is such a momentous fuckin' album that was compiled by legends Paul Oakenfold, Pete Tong, and Trevor Fung back in '88. Here they deliver the first compilation to *ever* attempt to encapsulate the sound of the wide-ranging 'Balearic beat,' a dance phenomenon whose home was in the party capital of the world, on the Spanish isle of Ibiza, where plenty of Europeans would visit and end up drawing inspiration from. And with this album, these three guys appear to have finally successfully broken through, able to bring this very quirky vibe into the UK to coat its own exploding dance music scene during the historic 'Second Summer of Love,' which saw the Chicago-born genre of acid house reach critical mass among the youth and spawn a first generation of ravers.

But Balearic beat is not something that one can easily describe, because its most defining trait is that it really only has one rule: so long as there is some sort of tangible beat that's danceable, it'll do. Essentially, Balearic beat represents an extremely expansive coterie of a whole bunch of different genres: pop, rock, house, disco—pretty much everything that ranges between James Brown funk records and industrial music, and with blends of psychedelia, Italo flavor, plenty of leftfield experimentalism, guitar rock, and chunks of world music too. It's probably the single-most unique dance music scene that this world's ever borne witness to, and it not only allowed, but actively encouraged DJs to take unprecedented levels of risk in their own selections, as a culture of decadence, hedonism, freedom, and acceptance was nurtured and fostered.

And Oakenfold and co. really tried to bring this vibe and approach into the UK's own dance consciousness a couple times between '87 and '88, after returning from summers spent on Ibiza and opening up a couple nightclubs. But things finally started taking hold with Oakey's own Monday club night called Spectrum at gay superclub Heaven in Westminster, London. And this comp, with liner notes provided by Boy's Own's Terry Farley, represents those Spectrum club nights, as well as stuff from Shoom, which is the club where the UK's acid house movement first originated. Shoom was founded by Oakenfold compatriot Danny Rampling, whose own first trip to Ibiza with Oakey and others is what inspired him to open up the club in the first place. And Rampling took ecstasy for the first time on that Ibiza trip too 💊😁🥹.

So, from a glance, by looking at this tracklist and not having any familiarity with what Balearic beat entails, you might see this list of songs and inevitably scratch your head: Italo-jazz saxophonist Enzo Avitabile?; pop starlet Mandy Smith, who's unfortunately best known for having an underage relationship with former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman and then marrying him 🤮?; San Francisco avantgardists The Residents taking the bassline from "Billie Jean" and fashioning a cover of a Hank Williams honky-tonk tune out of it?; EBM group Nitzer Ebb?; industrial act Fini Tribe on a weird, cocaine-fueled tribal disco tip with ringing and clanging bells??? What on earth is this?!?!?

But don't worry, now that you have a proper frame of reference, it'll all make a whole lot more sense when you actually put this album on 😎.

And we gotta make special mention of this release's opener too, "Jibaro" by Oakenfold and Steve Osborne's Balearic electronic project, Electra. Yesterday I posted about an Italo comp that was put out by this same Pete Tong-run FFRR label called The House Sound of Europe - Vol. V - 'Casa Latina', and I remarked that although the Electra track on there really had no business being included—because it was neither Italian-made nor really a house tune—it was still the best track that that comp had to offer, as it was the pure ultimate in 80s Ibiza silky-chillness. But this "Jibaro" track, a cover of a mid-70s Spanish psychedelic disco-funk tune, and whose own 12-inch art inspired the album art for this comp itself, represents a different branch of that girthy Balearic tree, because this one's a full-fledged house jam; slower than a typical house tune, but a house tune nonetheless; and with a richly patched-together sonic quilt of different sounds that *majorly* diverges from all the black, queer, and acid-jacking beauty that'd been emanating from Chicago.

So, ultimately, this was a very important album in the grand scheme of things. Balearic beat brought a very elastic dimension to the acid house movement writ large in the UK, and if you'll now all allow me to unveil my corkboard-and-yarn setup here to give you all a parting glimpse of just how intertwined all of this got within the UK's own vibrant, fluid, and interconnected music landscape, let's bring all of this full-circle by talking about legendary Manchester new wave band New Order.

New Order once took a two-week trip to Ibiza that had such a profound effect on them that it yielded their fifth studio LP, Technique, in 1989. And they also owned a very popular club in Manchester called The Haçienda. In '88, The Haçienda would launch its own Ibiza-themed club nights, which then played an integral role in the development of the city's own Madchester scene, a style of alternative dance music that saw indie bands mesh their sound with psychedelia and acid house beats. And one of Madchester's biggest landmarks ended up being 1990's Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches, an album by a group called Happy Mondays that was co-produced by none other than the Electra boys themselves—Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne! 🤯

Highlights:

Electra - "Jibaro" Code 61 - "Drop the Deal" Beats Workin' - "Sure Beats Workin'" Enzo Avitabile - "Black Out" Mandy Smith - "Mandy's Theme (I Just Can't Wait) (Cool & Breezy Jazz Version)" The Residents - "Kaw-Liga (Prairie Mix)" The Woodentops - "Why Why Why (Live)" Fini Tribe - "De Testimony (Collapsing Edit)" The Thrashing Doves - "Jesus On the Payroll"

[tropichalys]

Can You Feel It (Balearic Club Mix) - Jjos

Balearic House / Electronic / Vocal Synth

Album: Island Memories (2019)

[shellsuite]

Shell Suite / #13. Cosmonaut Grechko - 'Singin' ft. Joywave

Year: 2012

[iamlisteningto]

Lord Of The Isles’ Subtle Thoughts

[phonographica]

Rhode & Brown - Feels Like Forever (2022)

[zsorosebudphoto]

Selva, Mallorca, Illes Balears, 05-12-23

[menorca-sir20]

Colores

by sir20 for menorca-sir20

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"SO ALL ABOARD FOR THE AMERICAN TOUR, AND MAYBE YOU'LL MAKE IT TO THE TOP."

PIC(S) INFO: Mega spotlight on English dance-rock band NEW ORDER, during the band's "Technique" American tour, photographed backstage at Southern Star Ampitheatre, AstroWorld, Houston, TX, USA, on April 21, 1989. 📸:

Yeah, I just used a 1972-era PINK FLOYD lyric, but what of it? I couldn't think of anything else on the spot, so, there ya have it.

Source: https://x.com/JD_Central/status/1119994820553072640.

[fuchinobe]

(1991, Virgin, DMD 1597)

12″ Remix by Ryuichi Sakamoto

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

I know you like it • Tokyo 018 • Time traveling • This moment • Timeless • Take yours • Night drive 2.0 • Simoon • Lins • Bass man

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[randomvarious]

808 State - "Pacific 707" 1989 Techno / House / Acid House / Ambient House / Balearic House

Feel like I need to post more videos...either music videos, interviews, documentaries, concerts, DJ sets, party footage, etc. And who better to start that journey with than the great 808 State?

[tropichalys]

Harmonious - Our Heads In The Rain (Jakhira Remix) - Deep House Sweden

Balearic House / Tropical House / Techno House

[useless-catalanfacts]

An important reminder of the disastrous consequences of touristic massification.

I translated another article about the housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands.

The Balearic Islands are Mallorca (sometimes known in English as Majorca), Menorca (sometimes known in English as Minorca) and includes the Pityusic Islands, which are Eivissa (usually called Ibiza in English) and Formentera. All of them are found in the Southern Europe, in the Mediterranean sea, and are extremely popular holiday spots, particularly for German and British tourists, but also tourists from the rest of the world. Their local language is Catalan, in which this article is originally written.

Sad is he who without love has to search for a home (in the Balearic Islands)

Opinion piece by Sebastià Alzamora

The housing emergency in the Balearic and Pityusic Islands has existed for some time and it's taking more dramatic tones every day. From teachers who have been destined to Eivissa as a substitute and spend their weeks in the island sleeping in their car (because with a salary of 1,000€ it doesn't make sense to rent even just one room for 700€ or 800€ per month) to the situation showed by a recent Caritas report on poverty in the Balearic Islands: many low-income families, or with uncertain incomes (often hotel workers) who cut the money they should spend on food to be able to pay rent (with all the consequences of cutting short your food, specially for children). Also, the explanation of the "no vacancies" mysterious phenomenon that the Balearic Islands, and particularly Mallorca, achieved last summer: since everyone knows that the housing prices in these lucky islands are unfeasible, hotel owners this season take advantage of local workers (paying them a salary so low that doesn't allow them to move out of their parents' home or, even worse, their ex-spouse, as it also happens often).

It was precisely at the beginning of last summer that the Valencian and Balearic governments met to work together on the housing emergency. [...] they agreed to ask Sareb to give them some flats to be used as public housing. In fact, the Company for the Management of Assets Proceeding from the Restructuring of the Banking System (also known as Sareb, also known as the bad bank) has over 8,500 houses in the Valencian Country and over 1,000 in the Balearic Islands. Since Sareb took these apartments when their inhabitants were evicted as a result of the trash mortgages given by banks during prosperous years, it makes sense that now they will be destined (at least some of them) to housing.

I don't know how these good intentions have evolved, but the search and/or building of protected housing, even though it might be necessary as an emergency measure, is nothing more than a palliative or a patch to a situation with well-known causes. This is what's behind the problem: the overexploitation of the land, the urban speculation, a market with out-of-control prices, and a touristic saturation that makes guiris [tourists] literally invade the towns, neighbourhoods and areas that not so long ago were still the indigenous population's.

The famous quality tourism has turned out to be European multimillionaires, often with fortunes of a suspicious origin, who buy or order to build their mansions with heliport for exorbitant prices, bursting the local price for square meter. This is the strict market logic, but if the market logic isn't somehow corrected, we can find ourselves in a triple massive migration: for climate reasons (the Mediterranean is one of the places in the world where global warming is most noticeable, and the Balearic Islands are one of the most heated places in the Mediterranean), for the lack of job opportunities (also for the young people whose university degrees aren't about tourism, and who can't find work here), and for lack of access to housing.

[twistedsoulmusic]

“Sai do Coração” by Nuno Beats is an innovative release from Lisburn label Príncipe Discos, known for spotlighting local and worldwide talent from the electronic music scene. Nuno Beats’ remarkable production style is at its finest display on this album.

[phonographica]

Residentes Balearicos – Mediterráneo (2022)

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Artà, Mallorca, 07-12-23