Balearic London Vinyl & CDs

Review: Setting aside the tired old debates about what does and doesn't count as Balearic - at this point, that's down to the listener - the hard-to-describe genre does at least lend itself to the humble re-edit. If 'anything goes', then nothing is off limits. The shadowy Balearic London crew put that to the test on this versatile and rather good selection of reworks. They begin by slightly pitching down, tooling up and dubbing out pop 'classic' the Macarena on 'Mac & (Less) Cheese', before heading into safer Balearic territory via the glistening guitars, rubbery grooves and wide-eyed sound effects of 'Release The Hounds!' Elsewhere, 'Cities of Gold' is an extra-percussive slab of deep instrumental synth-pop/proto-house excellence, while 'Stellar Style' does a fine job in re-framing and tweaking an AOR pop gem from the early-to-mid 80s.