Juno Recommends Balearic / Downtempo May 2021

Review: Heralding brighter days is surely the job of Is It Balearic?, a label whose entire raison d'etre is silky smooth sounds for long days spent sipping cocktails on sunkissed terraces. This time around, Max Essa and Eddie C have gone head to head, with the former delivering the original tunes and the latter dropping the remixes. Essa gets into full-spectrum deep house for the baggy crowd on 'Jigsaw Moon', which Eddie C promptly pitch shifts and rubs down with some understated acid. 'Jules Y Cyntia' is a mellower offering, revelling in languid guitar, only to be gently pumped up by Eddie C with a heavy, chugging undercarriage to take you deep into the sundown.

Review: Although the end is now finally in sight, we are still very much spending time at home, gazing off into the distance and dreaming of better times. Enter this sumptuous soundtrack from Hillside, whose Sunday In June album on the ever classy Claremont 56 is a perfect accompaniment to you lazy afternoons. The gorgeous record is utterly doused in sun, with sparkling keys, go-slow beats and lush strings all oozing cool yet bribing with warmth. It's the sound of perfect afternoon in the garden, or on the beach, with tropical grooves and Balearic bliss flowing freely from front to back.

Review: As the winter beats a hasty retreat, we're very much ready for a fresh dose of Balearic goodness, and who better to serve it up than Coyote? This new five tracker gives us exactly what our souls are in need of - laconic grooves lingering in an eternal sunset reverie with rock solid rhythm matched by a loose, organic flow as though the tracks just breathed themselves into existence. From the heavy-lidded dream of 'Return To life' to the super-smooth lounge pop of 'Save Me', the meditative mantra of 'The Eagle & The Snake' to the slick, catchy 'Wonderful', this is Coyote doing what Coyote do best.

Review: Between them as solo artists, London-based producer Ulrich Schnauss and Danish guitarist and producer Jonas Munk have many decades of experience of laying down unique electronic music. They have also do so in collaboration for much of that time, but now serve up their first new record in almost a decade. 'Eight Fragments Of An Illusion' suits the ties in that it is a reflective and thoughtful album of ambient soundscapes and blissed out melodies. The synth float, the guitar patterns drift by like clouds, and the whole record is underpinned by a steady pulse that keeps it, and you, moving forwards.

Review: Music From Memory has unearthed more majestic Balearic beat makers here with The Zenmenn. This marks their debut release and little known is more about the band other than their work being described as "an experiment in harmonic convergence emerging from a deep respect for cosmic symmetry and a resistance to the prevailing Zeitgeist." The sounds sure are warm and calming, with gentle guitar strums, new age keys, fluttering harps, live sounding drums and an idyllic beach vibe that will soothe even the fastest racing minds.

Review: With the help of a symphony orchestra of 42 musicians, Hooverphonic played a famous concert that marked one of their career highlights. Now a recording of it is pressed to 180g audiophile vinyl with a gate fold sleeve for the first overtime. The 2012 concert happened in Koningin Elizabethzaal in Antwerpen and the set list took in seven of their biggest hits including 'Eden', '2Wicky,' 'Mad About You,' 'Sometimes', 'The Night Before', 'Jackie Cane' and many more which now make it to silver marbled wax. The leading lady Noemie Wolfs is in fine fashion as se heads up each song with determination and sexuality and Alex Callier, Raymond Geerts and drummer Arnout Hellof all do a fine job of giving her a rich musical platform.

Review: Over the last 11 years, Ulrich Schnauss and Jonas Munk have periodically got together in the studio to record ear-catching and atmospheric electronic music that frequently prioritises mood and melody over specific sonic traits or stylistic approaches. Eight Fragments of an Illusion, their third album-length collaboration, takes their 'maximal ambient' sound to sun-soaked new places, with Schauss's minimalist melodic movements (think Terry Riley's synthesizer works) and sparkling electronic sounds being overlaid with gorgeous, effects-laden electric guitar textures courtesy of Munk. It's a gorgeous, life-affirming combination that guarantees blissful brilliance throughout. To our ears, there's no doubt that it's the duo's best joint work to date.

Review: Parisian sound artist Jonathan Fitoussi resides in Paris. He works on minimalist and contemporary musical forms, with solo works in recent years having explored a fusion of electronic ?and acoustic sounds with melodic textures, colours and emotions. On his latest release titled Music For Xavier Veilhan, it features 'Music for Les Rayons (Sarus) (2016)' which was created for a sculpture by the named artist. It is defined by its blissful and hypnotic melody against a backdrop of glistening ambient drones. On the flip, we have a more cinematic sonic excursion in the form of "Music for Mutant Stage 8 (2017)" created for a film by Veilhan with Marie-Agnees Gillot & Dimitri Chamblas, which will captivate you with its delicate tapestry of chimes.

Review: On the Love Affair EP, Geneva-based producers Androo & Bony Fly have composed six tracks that strike the balance between sound experimentation and dancefloor orientation. The results of their research stemmed from a shared passion for dub, dancehall and its infinite variations, combined with a particular attention to subtle and harmonious sound textures. From the glacial and cavernous delay exercises so gloriously displayed on 'Xoxo Dub', to the deeply meditative tribal rhythms of 'Dancehall Science' (interlude mix) to the off-kilter club bounce of 'As A Sign" and ending with the lo-fi riddims of 'Classic (Beaucoup) Trop Classic' (radio dub mix). A solid effort.

Review: The first exhibition at The Imaginary Museum is a collaborative effort between Utopia Cloak and The Jaffa Kid. Each artist takes one side each and offers up their own musical artefacts from the world of melodic electronica. Utopia Cloak opens up with a nostalgic and airy piece that takes you back to a long summer in your childhood. 'Matter Changing State' is just as blissful and has its head in the clouds, then the Mause Brighton Beach Sunset Brewskie remix layers in a little more drive with some glitchy beats. The Jaffa Kid offers post rave ambient breaks, slick electro and pad laced breakbeats for his three fine efforts.

Review: Bosquemar hails from Chile and is a mysterious artist about whom very little is known. This marks a debut release, and one that fuses leftfield South American electronics with steamy jungle mystique and percussive grooves. 'Bosque' starts in warm and welcoming fashion with synths you might hear on a Caribou record, then 'Mar' is a loose limbed jaunt though the undergrowth. 'Animales' is a seductive rhythm that rocks back and forth, with distant flutes, an enchanting female voice and withering pads all making it hugely evocative before Rodrigo Gallardo remixes it into a more rolling and dubby affair.

Review: If you dig the kind of mid-1980s instrumental music that couldn't quite decide whether it was new-age ambient, deep synth-pop or horizontal, synthesizer-fired jazz-funk, you may well already be aware of Erik Wollo's 1987 album Silver Beach, an Andreas Wollenwieder style affair that's loved by many Balearic selectors. At the time of release, the album was described as "synthetic walkabout music" and that's a fairly accurate description; it's all gentle rhythms, bubbly melodies, colourful synthesizer textures and smile-inducing arrangements. This expanded reissue not only boasts the entire album in freshly remastered form, but also a second record featuring similarly attractive cuts recorded in the same period, some of which have only ever been available on CD.

Review: Black Gravity is a collection of tunes that aims to find the perfect sweet-spot between groove and soul. It is named after the Herbie Hancock and A Guy Called Gerald collaboration from 2001 which, say the label, achieved just that. Belgium's 21-year-old AliA, already a revered digger, puts togther the first collection and sure does unearth some late night treasures. These sounds are future fusions of jazz, broken beat and bossa that are richly musical and atmospheric. There are deep cuts from Pippin, punchy rhythms from Forbidden Fruit and sun-worshipping synth grooves like Windows Daidu that all add up to an essential first volume.