9AM

Wake up very slowly, make a coffee and head onto the balcony. The sun is halfway up its daily ascent and you’ve got a vista of the sea, the City Skyline or perhaps some mountains. The remains of last night’s balearic session are strewn across the table.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

12PM 

Have a banana, because there’s nothing more balearic than that. Enjoy an apero with the spaced-out sounds of Idjut Boys as you squint in the midday sun.

​

3PM

Cocktails, swimming, a quick game of football, a phone call to a friend... anything you like. But, most importantly, some Japanese balearic sounds to see you through the afternoon.

​

7PM

Blurry sunset over the horizon. Good friends around and a feeling of extreme contentedness with the world and everything in it. On the speakers ? 

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

9PM

A quick change of clothes, if you feel that way out, before heading off into the night and all its vices. Booze, lust, anticipation. 

​

11PM  

You’re on the way to somewhere, but you’re not quite sure where, or why, and you’re a bit pissed. All you know is that you’re going there... and it’s balearic !

​

1AM

You’ve made loads of new friends and you’ve already forgotten most of them. The DJ is a maverick and decides to turn things south. Cue the rolling synth lines of Rozlyne Clarke’s ‘Dancin’ Is Like Making Love’ (Dub 2).

​

3AM

Who better than Italo house pioneer Don Carlos to take the dancers by the hand, guiding you into wide-eyed euphoria? When the keys of ‘Play It Again’ come in, it feels like the stars above are spinning a magic tapestry just for you.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

5AM

The crowd has thinned out, leaving a devoted core of balearic warriors to dance away the last remaining hours of night. When the Cool & Breezy Mix of Mandy Smith’s ‘I Just Can’t Wait’ is played, everyone thinks that they finally know what balearic is.

​

7AM

The first warm rays of the morning sun slip out over the horizon, and you’ve moved onto the beach with a motley crew of drinkers & dancers. By the time the double-time frenzy of the last section of Elkin & Nelson’s ‘Jibaro’ is over, the sun sits firmly in the morning sky and you want to do it all over again. So you do.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

Is there a common thread that runs through all of this music? In my mind, its the waves. The image of Waves is something that I believe is central to what we call balearic music and its sound, its roots, its ethos and its persistence.

 

Rolling synths, lapping drums and build ups that never come, guitar lines that could go on forever, a beat that never ends. Balearic music, like the waves, is in constant flux, ebbing and flowing with the world around it, always reinvigorating itself, always fresh.

 

Balearic is brilliant, off-the-grid, spiritual, restless, downtempo, uptempo, tribal, disco, folky, eclectic, endless and free. It can be anything you want it to be !

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

​

It includes old pop/rock songs that sound good to clubbers, and anything that sounds good in the sunshine – be that because of lush instrumentation, a laid-back beat, or simply lyrics that encourage you to slam another Mojito and celebrate the summer a bit more - !

​

There’s an element of “guilty pleasures” about the genre, for sure. When all comes together, you can get very eclectic Soundscapes that go from Carly Simon to Bat For Lashes or Bill Laswell - often re-edited or remixed - without dropping a beat, smoothly blended with today's minimal or deep house, cosmic disco, trippy dubstep and even DJ Shadow-style hip-hop.

 

Go with the flow, be surprised, groove and chill... Balearic is one of the most intriguing music scenes simply because it is so hard to pin down, and it depends upon taking often pretty uncool source material and crafting it into something that is artistic and unique. Think sunshine, eclectic, timeless, club sensibility and you’re half way there… and think Ibiza, too, where it all began and where it got its name.

​

If you haven’t experienced dancing to dawn in an Ibiza club with the roof off, Balearic may not make much sense to you.