EVERY GENRE PROJECT - October 30 - Balearic Beat
Genre of the Day - Balearic Beat
Album of the Day - ƒIN by John Talabot (2012)
If there were ever a center of the international mainstream dance universe, it might be the Spanish island of Ibiza and its neighboring Balearic friends. It has become synonymous with the history of dance music, especially as a representation of blissful, lush surrender to the groove. Listeners’ and artists’ romantic interest in the Balearic islands is evident in the out-of-nowhere Mike Posner chart reappearance “I Took A Pill in Ibiza”; Katy Perry’s hackneyed attempt at capitalizing off of house’s increasing social-media capital borrowed breezy vibes by way of the islands; Wham! becoming synonymous with easygoing pop when they spoofed and fantasized about their flown-south for the holidays counterparts down in Ibiza on “Club Tropicana.” The cool winds of Balearic beat have been gently rustling dancers for over four decades by now, and so long as tourists jet to its supple sands and plentiful beach clubs, the beat will go on.
In mid-20th century Francoist Spain, artists and hippies seeking to escape the feeling of his authoritarian constraints while staying within the country’s borders poured into the Balearic islands due west of Barcelona. This palpable sense of freedom suffused the island with an easygoing culture, allowing a variety of musical strains oto mix. As Spain liberalized and reoriented towards leveraging its ample tourist attractions, visitors from higher-income European countries and high-profile musicians came flooding in and club culture flourished. As a result, the music played in clubs represented a composite of so many cultural forces—the disco and funk European audiences sought out, the rise of exciting new dance sounds, and the Mediterranean’s pristine shores as a center of cultures mixing for thousands of years.
The languid and relaxed dance sound of Balearic beat settled around 90-110 BPM, more consistent in speed than in its wide-spanning sonic influences that took the wide view of the sea surrounding the islands. Euro-disco, Italo-disco, funk, dub, reggae, and African music all shuffled through the door, sitting alongside each other in sets before mixing as DJs began to produce original music that constituted a genre of its own by the late ‘80s. From its inception, Balearic beat incorporated house and simultaneously foreshadowed deeper house developments in its sultry, laid-back ideals centered on the swaying yet insistent beats. Remarkably, the genre’s sound has remained quite unified since its beginnings; just as Goa has its trance, Ibiza has a beat tourists can depend on circling back to every time the paycheck allows for a Ryanair round-trip.
John Talabot’s ƒIN uses a strange symbol among other indie hallmarks for a Balearic beat experience that riffs on what makes the genre so accessible and loveable while extending it beyond the tourist economy and up into the wild hills of the rugged, dry islands. “Depak Ine” is a slow burn of an opener, ambient and murky before upping the ante into its sticky, dark Euro-disco. A stray scream punctures the bliss of the hypnagogic “Oro y Sangre.” The subtly talking drums of “Missing You” illustrate the characteristic dedication to the subtlest feelers of melody in Balearic beat’s unhurried grooves. “So Will Be Now” features a deep, elegant tech-house shuffle, suspending a Temptations sample in the azure waves. Not everyone is in close proximity to an Ibiza holiday, but every listener has a musical slice defining its sense of place at their fingertips.