balearic house

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simon silverdollar

Guest
i was at raindance this weekend and they had an 89/90 house room, called the jenkins lane reunion room.
i think it was mainly the balearic house stuff they were playing in there, but i'm not sure. anyway, it was really magical, lush, gorgeous music.
so...my question is: does anyone have any 89/90 house that they could copy for me? i really want to hear this music again- it was amazing. i'll send you something nice, or pay you, whatever you prefer...
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
actually, i'd be interested in a "definition" of balearic house . . . .

stuff that i'd be tempted to call balearic includes:

(1) fpi project -- "rich in paradise"

(2) the dancehall-ish track on flying records that goes: "calling you african people, this is an african cause . . . . stay out!" or some such line

(3) pretty much everything on creative records

(4) black box

(5) ester b -- "pleasure of music"

(6) ambience -- "african love affair"

(7) izit - "stories"

(8) the mackenzie

(9) fsol -- "papua new guinea"

(10) billy preston -- "heroes"

(11) 1990-era massive attack/smith & mighty

(12) the softer side of vinyl solution -- stuff like "aquarius" and "sometimes i feel like i'll explode"

(13) tc 1991/92

(14) alex lee

(15) free fall featuring psychotropic -- "feel surreal"

(16) the orb

(17) primal scream/happy mondays dance mixes


but does this stuff actually constitute a category of music?

isn't it the case that much of this music points to or might more properly be regarded as:

(1) progressive house (when it was more trippy than trancey)

(2) rave music before the breakbeats kicked in -- i.e., the more anthemic, piano stuff

(3) trip hop

IN SHORT, what is "balearic house"? and would you agree with the examples I've offered?
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
i guess i don't know enough to either agree or disagree with the examples you gave, but the stuff i'm interested in trying to get hold of is the 89/90 house they played at raindance last weekend. i don't know any track names that were played so any description of what i'm looking for will be flawed, but it wasn't trip hop, and also had a distinct lack of piano loops. from the crowds reaction [many of whom looked old enough to have experienced this music first time around] i got the impression that the sets were mainly comprised of the 'greatest hits' of the era.
so, soft, gentle, sunny house from the late 80s, devoid of acid or piano-vamp elements, is what i'm looking for [i realise this is a pretty hopelessly vague description]. hope someone can help, [are there any good on line mixes available]
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
hmmmm . . . . think most of what i had in mind was 91/92, i.e., the stuff on creative especially . . . . 89/90 is slightly outside my frame of reference . . . . however, if you go to "everything starts with an e," they have old sasha mixes from 89/90 that you can download -- then it'd simply be a matter of identifying the tracks . . . . although sasha is a bit heavy on the piano vamps . . . . but as matters were explained to me, sasha was the key balearic dj, at least up manchester way
 
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xero

was minusone
your nans might be already be sucking eggs proper but:

balearic = balearic islands = ibiza

the original balearic djs were spanish or hispanic such as jose padilla & alfredo - they played all sorts of music including nascent house tunes from the us but also new beat, pop, aor, latin, new age - usually overlooked oddities which happened to work magic on the dancefloor or chill out place

brit jocks that holidayed in ibiza around 86/87, oakenfold, danny rampling, terry farley etc. brought the eclectic sound and occasionally the djs back to early acid house nights such as shoom, spectrum, land of oz etc.

lots of compilations including balearic beats vol1 that came out in 88, one that came out recently called rare balearic vol.1 is excellent

a lot of the uk house produced in the late 80s early 90s was influenced by the ibizan sound as much as chicago so that's probably yer 89/90 balearic house sound
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
actually, i just listened to one of the sasha mixes out of curiousity . . . . it's sasha playing rave tempo, not balearic, which makes sense considering the website is an old-skool rave site . . . . so looks like i'm not the man to help you
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
minusone said:
a lot of the uk house produced in the late 80s early 90s was influenced by the ibizan sound as much as chicago so that's probably yer 89/90 balearic house sound


yeah -- my impression has always been that balearic, whatever its genealogy, was a combined italian/english effort circa 89-92, and that sometime around 91/93, depending on how you draw the lines, balearic house became progressive house . . . . that is, just as there were always "junglistic" elements in the hardcore rave sound, dating back to say 89/90, suddenly in 93/94 the junglistic elements crystallized as jungle proper . . . . . similarly, balearic was the softer, more conventionally musical side of the dance music revolution, but the "progressive house" elements were already present in balearic, and at some point, let's say the fall of 92, progressive house crystallized and balearic house vanished
 

francesco

Minerva Estassi
sorry i don't have here with me those cds (so i can't make a copy) but should be easy to find, even downloading from somewhere, them:

classic balearic mastercut vol 1 (mastercut) (there isn't a volume 2)
back to love 1 - onward (the firsts 3 are the better) (hed kandy)
 
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simon silverdollar

Guest
thanks for all this, i'll try to get those comps, definitely.

some of those mixes on everything starts with an e are wicked. what a great resource. some well dodgy MCing, mind, but that's all part of the fun innit.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
balearic was never really a genre in and of itself. it was more a style of playing, mixing house with all sorts of other stuff and dropping completely unexpected stuff just coz it felt right. there really isn't any scuch thing as a "balearic tune" because the whole thing was based on a kind of hazy, blissed out elclecticism. tons of the tunes listed here were certainly around at this time and would have featured in sets by ibizan djs and are really nice, too, though. i dunno, for blissy chugging keys and just general floaty euphoria i always loved appolonia by bmex (aka sasha), too.
 

xero

was minusone
francesco said:
classic balearic mastercut vol 1 (mastercut) (there isn't a volume 2)

never making it to vol.2 seems to be the hallmark of a balearic comp!

simon, for the current state of balearica see recent mixes by harvey, balearic mike & moonboots (pm me & i'll sort you out if u want)
 

mms

sometimes
one of the first ever house records i got was called baleric beats vol one and had the residents. nitzer ebb and mandy smith on it amongst lots of slightly dodgy italo piano stuff, some of it was good tho.
wish i still had that actually.
 

Tim H

Member
This kind of thing comes to mind when I think of '89-'90 house, especially the Don Carlos, Soft House Co & Nightwriters tracks.

It's a good comp & you can pick it up for pennies...

JOEY NEGRO - The Voyage (X:treme records)

Subculture Featuring Marcus - The Voyage
Arnold Jarvis - Take Some Time Out
Don Carlos - Alone
Kym Mazelle - Useless (Morales Remix)
Night Writers - Let The Music (Use You)
Underground Solution - Luv Dancin'
Soft House Company - What You Need
On The House - Pleasure Control
Bas Noir - I'm Glad You Came To Me
Intense - Holdin' On
Stardust - Love Will Find A Way
Fingers Inc. - Never More Lonely
 

Blueski

Fool On The Hill
i think the term transcends any specific two-three year period. i think Slam's 'Eterna' fits the bill perfectly. Last Rhythm's 'Last Rhythm' forms a useful bridge between that and say 'Sueno Latino'.
 

arcaNa

Snakes + Ladders
dominic said:
izit - "stories"
...wasn't Izit more acid jazz-y,though??
...the album i've got by them certainly is...!!(-but maybe they got remixed, later? -i'm not sure...?)
 

xero

was minusone
arcaNa said:
...wasn't Izit more acid jazz-y,though??
...the album i've got by them certainly is...!!(-but maybe they got remixed, later? -i'm not sure...?)

izit's stories is very much acid jazz, but that just goes to prove that anything can be balearic ;)


as a trivia aside, i think their label - tongue & groove - turned into the drum&bass label hospital records or something like that
 

arcaNa

Snakes + Ladders
minusone said:
izit's stories is very much acid jazz, but that just goes to prove that anything can be balearic ;)

as a trivia aside, i think their label - tongue & groove - turned into the drum&bass label hospital records or something like that
ah, yeah! ;) thought so...
...(you don't happen to know what happened to them, do you? always wondered that...)
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
dominic said:
but as matters were explained to me, sasha was the key balearic dj, at least up manchester way

i ran this by some of my uk friends the past couple of days . . . .

(1) my mancunian friend says that Graeme Park, not Sasha (who was ravier), was the big Balearic dj in Manchester -- and that "Carino" was the first big Balearic hit

he went on to say that Balearic came on board in 89, and it was the house sound that replaced the Chicago sound . . . . and that "thrills, pills, bellyaches" is Balearic through and through, in terms of TEMPO & FEEL

he also said stuff about disco 45s being pitched down to 33

and that in Manchester they liked the music groovy and slow and trippy, i.e., Balearic, and that in London they insisted on speeding everything up (but he also likes to have it both ways and claims that the earliest junglistic hardcore nights were in Manchester and Coventry, at places like Eclipse)

finally, he says that Balearic currents can still be found in stuff like nu jazz

(2) my other friend says that Balearic is not a genre at all -- merely a way of playing records -- a feeling, not a form
 
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