Tuesday 10 February 2015

I'd like to teach the world to sing....Balearic

Recently I found myself saying to a friend that I have a new ambition – to introduce the world to the Balearic musical vibe. I’m not really sure how this could happen, but ever since saying it I’ve felt a growing sense of excitement.

Ibiza was not the starting point of the Dance music scene, which began in the mid 80’s, but it was a crucible, blending together many of the ingredients which had been gestating in various parts of the world. One of the familiar tales that people will tell of those early days of the Ibiza scene was the sense of musical freedom. Yes the club might have been pumping out an evening of disco and early electro hits but there was always the lingering possibility that someone like DJ Alfredo would, with no warning, drop something by Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or……well that was the point, there were no boundaries and, if the vibe was right the dancers would respond to whatever was thrown at them.

This spirit of musical inclusivity eventually became known as the Balearic vibe or simply Balearic. This style of DJing is really given its full expression in the beach bars, cocktails lounges and private villa parties that abound on the island because only there, away from the Beats Per Minute tyranny of clubs, can the eclectic nature of Balearic be given full and free rein.

When the dance music scene began it was made up of quite young ravers (I was one). Dance music was never intended to live very long, at least that’s what the critics said. However, they were wrong and it became a crucible for the creation of new sounds and has since multiplied and divided into countless genres and sub genres all linked by the egalitarian heartbeat of looped rhythms. Many of the, now older, ravers (grey ravers or Gravers) have ‘been there and got the T shirt’ with night clubs but still want to enjoy contemporary Dance music. Turning away from clubs many of them are finding stimulus in DJ bars, cocktail lounges - venues for people who like dance music but don’t necessarily want to dance.

People who go to nightclubs don’t want to wait for it to get started and the beat is pretty uniform so that people can jump on it and dance from the moment they arrive. Don’t get me wrong, I have great admiration for many club DJ’s. It’s a very demanding skilled job keeping everyone dancing and knowing when and how to build the atmosphere. It only takes one badly chosen track and you can find that half the dance floor spontaneously decides to go for a drink and you end up with a half empty dance floor.

Once dance music leaves the dance club environment the criteria change. How do you entertain people for two hours of conversation and canapés? If the objective in a beach or cocktail bar is not to get people dancing how do you gauge your success? How do you know if everyone is engaged and stimulated by their experience? Firstly I think DJ’s have to change their priorities. In a previous blog I tried to define what DJ’s do and broke it down into the three elements of selecting, mixing and nob twiddling. I could have added a fourth dimension of reading the mood. On a dance floor the criteria of success are fairly obvious - are they dancing and having fun? Reading and manipulating the mood of a more passive audience is harder. Yes I look for the head-nodders and feet tapping under a table but there are also levels of enthusiasm in conversations and sense of energy in the room. I’ve started to think that whereas DJ’s traditionally think of beat mixing as the way to create transitions, I am now more interested in the concept of mood mixing. However, in order to do this successfully you need a broad palette to work with and hence my love of Balearic.

Most Balearic DJ’s tend to play long sets so they can take people on a musical journey either from early afternoon into early evening or late afternoon till late at night. So, what is Balearic? Firstly I should say that nothing is excluded but it does have a number of regular strands and I thought it might be an idea to consider some of them. 

Chill-Out and Ambient
The whole chill-out genre was probably best encapsulated by the Café Del Mar series of releases. 


Much of this music was concocted to be taken with delicious sunsets but then, as people took the music and the vibe back home with them, it also found favour with afternoon garden parties and cool dinner parties. However, I think that what many fans failed to recognise was that this music was not designed to be played as background sound filler but rather, when played at significant volume, its psychedelic soul has the power to take your head off. However, be warned: too much chilling turns your brain to mush.


Lounge Music
Another bedfellow is what has come to be known as Lounge music. A major constituent of ‘Lounge’ music is more chilled versions of popular dance and rock tracks. Sometimes, slowing a track down and placing what might have been quite angry lyrics against a more lyrical backdrop, can bring a new sense of clarity or add a sense of irony and humour. I like humour in music.


Jazz, the original ‘lounge music’, also found a new lease of life in dance’s Lounge genre but generally its more demanding elements were eschewed in favour of Cool Jazz. I think the popularity of Lounge music grew because bar owners were looking for music that wouldn’t ruffle feathers. Sadly this often resulted in a musical diet of tunes which sound as though their soul has been surgically removed.

One of my favourite Lounge tracks is Barefoot’s Cool Jazzversion of Grandmaster Flash’s anti-coke Hip Hop anthem, White Lines. When I first played at London’s Groucho Club this was my opening track as I thought it was an appropriately ironic take on that sophisticated but hedonistic environment.


World Music
Parisian restaurant Buddha Bar with DJ Claude Challe was one of the prime movers bringing Oriental, Arabic and African rhythms under the Dance umbrella and all thanks to them for opening things up. 


Ibiza's Bambuddha Grove also produced a beautifully eclectic world series produced by the wonderful MOC Paoli.


However their very successful concept was quickly copied and before long record shops began touting dire collections with titles like “Buddha Best Hits” and “Desert Lounge Greats” Whatever, the arrival of world music on the dance scene certainly enriched the musical palette. One of my favourite early Oriental Dance tracks is Substances from French producer DJ Cam.


Deep House
Some of the more ‘sophisticated’ cocktail bars now frequently serve a diet of Deep House. I love Deep House but how would I define it? Well initially I think it was House music which had a more subdued tone and often I used to think that it sounded as though it was played through a muffler as though the hard edges had been rounded out. As it’s progressed this has also often meant that highs and lows of emotion are eradicated in favour of a more minimal, comforting warm groove. 

I really appreciate the phasing and psychedelic nature of many of its tracks but sometimes, when sifting through hundreds of Deep House tracks searching for new gems, I find myself thinking, “Gosh this is so dull” and much of it undoubtedly is. Maybe it’s because, like a lot of Dance music, it is produced by people who don’t really have a very good grasp of music and rely rather too heavily on the groove.  This is one of my favourite Deep House tracks which certainly has musicality:


Nu Disco
I must admit that I didn’t really like Disco music when it first appeared as, for someone raised on Soul, much of it seemed rather sugary sweet to my taste. However I love Nu Disco. Nu Disco largely consists of Disco tracks which have been slowed down, vocals degraded or minimised and a much heavier, sometimes darker beat added to give it an almost hypnotic tone. Nu Disco cuts across age barriers. It is particularly popular with Gravers because it brings the comfort and reassurance of familiarity but with a contemporary twist. At the same time it uses production techniques which are attractive to a younger audience.

One of my favourite Nu Disco tracks is Just a Memory from Glasgow’s 6th Borough Project. The original was “You’ll Never Know” by Hi Gloss from 1981. 


In the Nu Disco version the vocals have been virtually eradicated in favour of an incessant introduction. By the time the chorus arrives I am so wound up with anticipation that I feel like shouting for joy and it seems to have a similar effect on many people hearing it for the first time.


A few years back a musical genre known as Folk Psych emerged. These were largely acoustic or stripped back laments. Once the remixers got to work they helped introduce many subtle song-based tracks into the Dance canon. A producer friend of mine is so enamoured with this genre that he trawls albums by many famous rock bands looking for more acoustic tracks to edit in such a way as to bring out what might be regarded as their Balearic quality. In fact he is so enthused with this particular style that he once, during one of my sets, had the cheek to tell me that I wasn’t a real Balearic DJ because I played too many looped beats. I didn’t have the inclination to discuss this with him in depth as I was busy lining up the next track but had just enough time to wink and spit the word “Fascist!” at him. As I said, to my mind, there are no barriers with Balearic.


So, Balearic is all of the above but mixed with a magic sprinkling of Latin, Jazz, Breaks, Tribal Beats, Reggae, Dub, Techno, Hip Hop, House, R&B, Funk, and just about any other musical genre you can think of as long as it’s appropriate to the changing time and mood of the audience.

So why do I want to take the Balearic vibe to the world? Because I think the maturing audience for Dance music deserves it. People are often much more sophisticated than entertainment professionals admit. Variety can be refreshing, enlivening and inspirational. If you don’t want your feathers ruffled you should stay home and drown in Easy Listening music. If you are out and about meeting people you deserve something that will draw you in, entertain and stimulate you.

If you check out my latest mix below you should be able to namecheck some of the genres mentioned above though my suggestion would be that you simply play it and enjoy the journey.


NB. I could have named it Tribal Electro Nu Disco Deep House Rock Remix Chilled R&B Funky Hip Hop Island Jazz but the title wouldn’t have fit on a CD.

Lest anyone thinks that I am trying to lay sole claim to the Balearic vibe I would like to pay my respect to some of the founding fathers of this movement, all of whom I am pleased to say are very active largely in Ibiza with periodic gigs around the world to places where an audience for Balearic has developed.The following links will take you to either their biogs or their musical interpretations of Balearic.

The Godfathers of the scene in Ibiza were Alfredo, JosePadilla, DJ Pipi and the man who inspired me to begin DJing in the first place, Jonathan Sa Trinxa. On Ibiza Sonica Radio a number of DJ’s and producers host regular weekly shows including Andy Wilson, Pete Herbert, and Danish record boss and producer Kenneth Bager. Others notable advocates are producer/DJ’s Phil Mison and Kelvin Andrews.

A number of record labels also feed the well of Balearic music, including Kenneth Bager’s Music For Dreams, North of England label Is ItBalearic?, and Claremont 66

The web site for Piccadilly Records in Manchester features a weekly best of Balearic releases which largely focuses on the lush, chilled, downbeat and quirky aspects of the genre.

There are many, many more names and places but if you are really interested then these are good starting points.

Enjoy the Music and Magic

Howard






Saturday 31 January 2015

Lost In Translation

I am rather ashamed to say that, after two years living in Spain, my grasp of the language is progressing at a glacial pace. However, it seems that I’m not alone amongst expats and periodically this can lead to some interesting misunderstanding. Every couple of months I put together a new 2 hour mix featuring my recent favourite tracks.


Towards the end of last year one of my friends told me how much they loved the VIP song on one of my mixes. I wasn’t quite sure what she was talking about but thanked her and thought nothing more until another friend told me about how she and her daughter loved dancing round the kitchen dancing to the “VIP” song. Obviously something was resonating with people and so I began researching which of my nearly 50 mixes they were talking about. In the end I discovered that the track in question was a jolly Brazilian number called, “Take Me Back to (no not the VIP but) Paiui” by Juco Chaves. When I bought the track I had no idea where Paiui was (it’s north eastern Brazil) but from the enthusiasm of the singers it sounds as though it’s worth visiting and is much more exciting than any VIP area I have been in. However, it appears that some of my friends have a much more positive experience of VIP areas which is why they are so enthusiastic to return to those privileged places.


Although my understanding of Spanish is less than basic I love the sound of it and while I might regard French as sounding sweetly sexy, to my ignorant ears, the sound of some female Spanish singers is positively erotic. In fact amongst my enthusiastic collecting of various Latin music I have a particular penchant for that which feature the husky whispering of erotic sounding Spanish women.

So it was that one day last year I found myself playing to a full beach restaurant including many Spanish families. I had been proudly playing an assortment of Latin flavoured vibes for the past half hour when I decided I would drop a gentle deep house track with an almost whispered female vocal. But of course, while it might have been whispered in the mix, played through the clarity of a Funktion One sound system all was perfectly clear to hear. The track hadn’t been playing long before I was jolted by the site of a women, seated with her young children on the other side of the restaurant, who shot me a sudden and staggering glance of outrage. She said nothing but I knew immediately she was in effect saying, “What the fuck do you think you are doing playing that with young children present.” I didn’t stop to query but rapidly brought down the fader to replace it with another more neutral track. It was only in retrospect that it occurred to me that the reason the voice sounded so enticing and erotic was because it was sampled from a Spanish language porno film. I have still have no idea exactly what she was saying but now, listening to it again, its intent is as clear to me as the young mothers withering glance.

Then, a couple of weeks back, I came across a Tango style song. The vocals were male and there was something lascivious and cheeky about his voice. I loved it immediately but based on my previous experience was determined to be a bit more circumspect before playing it in public. So, before playing it at a gig I approached one of the waitresses and asked her to listen out to the lyrics and tell me if it said anything inappropriate and if so to please let me know immediately so that I could mix to something else. When I put it on she was on the other side of the restaurant and turned to smile to me waving positively as it progressed. After it finished she came over to tell me that the words were saying something like, “They say I have a big nose but I am enjoying my life.” She then added, “I think they are talking about cocaine but it is never mentioned.” Phew, got away with that one then.

If you would like to hear the rest of the mix featuring Take Me Back to Paiui here’s a link:

Warm Winter Beaches

Alternatively here is my latest mix:

Gratitude for Sunshine











Tuesday 7 October 2014

DJ's Wanted

Along with the tourists who flood to the island there are thousands of experienced and wannabe DJ’s who perform at just about every bar and restaurant. For a long time there has been something of a running complaint amongst resident DJ’s that many of the newcomers haven’t the faintest idea how to entertain in sun-drenched daytime hangouts. In fact it seems as though many of them are merely playing their full on night time sets, to musically bludgeoned diners, in the hope that they are going to be discovered and launched into a mega career as club DJ’s. Instead of which, some of them will spend the whole summer playing for very little, if any, money just for the thrill of ‘living the dream’.

At the other end of the scale there are the large corporate venues, some coming from successful ventures in other European countries, who are now looking to grab a slice of the summer season action. Admittedly they do not tolerate such wanton abandon with the musical menu but it seems to me that in many cases, they are just providing a bland filler which ticks the box of ‘resident DJ’. In one venue I played, the preceding DJ informed me that the rule was that we were not to play anything above 115bpm during the afternoon set. Then even before I had played my first track the assistant manager came over to proudly demonstrate his understanding of DJ techniques by repeating nugget of esoteric doctrine. 

I understand the rationale that if you limit the DJ’s to a certain bpm then it will keep the atmosphere chilled but in reality many of the most sublime and blissful Balearic tracks come in at much higher bpm and the real challenge is to find DJ’s who know what they are doing and trust their judgement. This of  course requires musical judgement by the management and in truth they have more on their mind and so, for some venues, the hiring of DJ’s is just another post to be filled along with getting a decent washer up for the kitchen.

The other end of the corporate music culture is to be witnessed in many of the new wealthy visitors. I was playing a chilled set round a hotel pool the other day when towards the end a group of around eight residents appeared all dressed up for their night ahead. One of the things that has always impressed me with the island is that it is non-ageist and it wasn’t just the age of these guests which I noted rather their demeanour and fashion sense. I felt confident that back in the UK their regular hangs outs would not have been rave clubs but more likely the local golf club or even Conservative club. So, where were this crew going for the night? Why to Ushuaia Hotel, one of the islands more full on and expensive venues. 

As they walked off towards their cabs I noted to a friend that they were going to absolutely hate it and would no doubt find themselves shelling out several hundred pounds during the evening and returning home lighter of wallet but full of tales of what an appalling night of cacophony they had to endure and how they were forced to pay exorbitant prices for drinks and food. The owners of Ushuaia aren’t too bothered though as, while this group might not visit their establishment again, there are many more to keen to buy into the ‘Ibiza experience’. 

I am now starting to wonder where some of these Ibiza venues are advertising. Are they placing enticing ads in Saga Magazine, The Lady and Country Life? Probably not but what has happened is that Middle England has been introduced to the delights of Ibiza through the celebrity columns of the Daily Mail and everyone wants a bit of the dream.

Lest I sound rather jaded in my comments I would add that the island continues to delight and entertain. Its spirit draws to it many open minded creative individuals and I am continually surprised how many DJ’s can produce sets which feature track after track of new tunes to my ears which, given the amount of time I personally put into listening to new music, is always a surprise and delight.


One of my fellow DJ friends here is MOC Paoli (to my mind a much under appreciated local treasure) who has long been resident DJ and responsible for much of the ambience of the exotic Bambuddha Grove. Paoli dates back to the Goa Trance scene of the early 70's and in fact is credited as being one of the people who helped to develop this particular genre of music. Noting that the early 70's was way before the dance scene kicked off in Europe and before sampling machines had even been imagined, I asked him how it came about. He remarked that at the time it was not uncommon for acid beach parties to take place in Goa with up to 700 people in attendance. DJing at these precursors of the rave scene he had noted that with so many people crammed together, many of whom were experiencing extreme LSD hallucinations, playing tracks with too many prominent and possibly ambiguous vocals tended to 'mess with peoples heads'. 

He explained how he and a few fellow DJ's got together with two tape decks and set about creating their own rough edits. This largely consisted of recording the intro to a track, pausing the record machine, rewinding the player and playing and recording the intro again. This might be repeated several times before winding on the track past the vocals to the instrumental break. This would again be looped several times. This simple formula formed the basis of a style of music which would eventually grow to maturity some years later when the first sampling machines became available and Goa Trance joined with music which had been similarly engineered in other parts of the world to form one of the many strands that would become dance music.

We have often joked about Paoli's ability to ‘DJ blind’, that is to mix tracks without using the headphones by cleverly and quickly manipulating the EQing of each track, blending them together using the house PA system. Standing by him the other night I was asking him about some of the tracks he was playing. I know that until recently he didn’t have internet in his house so was dependent on sitting in cafes with his laptop to download new tracks. I joked that he must have sat for hours with his headphones on before downloading the new tracks and he remarked that he often downloads them without listening because he knows their lineage and is reasonably confident of what to expect. So, maybe he is the DJ equivalent of The Who’s character, 'That deaf dumb and blind kid’ who played a mean pinball. 

All praise to Paoli who can downloads tracks he has never even heard, and mixes them with no preparation (and without using headphones) to create an endlessly entertaining set full of musical gems!

For my part here is a one of my recent mixes:

Balearic Spring Part 1

Balearic Spring Part 2

A Trip To The Beach

It must have been around 16 years ago that I first visited the island. I had been working in Saudi Arabia for a couple of months and phoned my partner to suggest she book a cheap package tour holiday to leave a couple of days after my return. As we had a friend who had moved to live here a couple of years before this seemed a good opportunity to visit. In truth I had never been on a package holiday before but it seemed like a simple option. We arrived late at night to a hotel, which has since been converted into one of the most desirable up market venues on the island. At the time it was anything but and we arrived around 2am to settle into our cell like room. No problem, we just needed somewhere to lay our heads at night. 

The next morning my partner noted that free breakfast was part of the deal so we made our way to the restaurant. It turned out this was less of a restaurant and more like a works canteen with seating for around 400 people. We joined the queue for deep fried eggs and dried bacon and took our place next to a family of six, two of whom were wearing the latest football shirts and already limbering up for the day by bouncing a ball round the breakfast table. 

Father, whose enormous gut was stretching a more classic football strip, the emblem of which was echoed on the very visible tattoo on his calf, tried to calm his young offspring with a vicious roar of expletives. It was at this point that I remarked that this wasn’t my idea of an ideal holiday breakfast and we opted to leave our half eaten slop and head off to find something better on a nearby beach.

Fortunately, a German friend, hearing that we were headed for 'the white isle, had written some instructions on a Post-it note. The words were: Salinas Beach, Sa Trinxa Bar, DJ Jonathan, The man with the Spanish guitar sells the drugs. As I made my way to that same beach again this year I noted that not much had changed: as weathered gypsy face of the guitarist still smiled from under an umbrella offering some over priced hash.


I must have spent the best part of an hour sitting in the DJ booth before deciding to go for a swim. The sea here is particularly salty and the first intake in my nostrils as I dived in was a shock to the system. But then feeling very relaxed I opted for floating in the limpid sea. If floating was an Olympic event I have no doubt that I would be on the UK team and so was luxuriating in this sport when I noted two young couples jump in off the walkway that leads over the rocks. I took no further notice of them and was intent on floating and stretching my frame when I became away of some sort of conflict going on between one of the couples, who were embracing in the waves. 

I turned to look at them some three yards away and quickly deciphered what was going on. He had just suggested that they make love in the waves where they were (somewhat surrounded by other bathers) The look on her face was one of shock and outrage as I saw her mouthing the complaint that, “everyone can see us.” Then his voice assumed that of a small boy being denied an ice lolly as he pleaded, “But I’ve been dreaming about this.” Ah the collision of romance and reality. 

I turned slightly and glimpsed the other couple who, clearly feeling less inhibited, were giggling as they tried to further entwine themselves while keeping afloat. At this point I decided that this was all a little bit too personal for me. I silently wished them well, climbed back on to the walkway and found my way back to the isolated comfort of my friends DJ booth.