International Feel Uruguay

Review: Despite a career in electronic music that stretches right back to the mid 1990s, this album marks the first time that International Feel boss Mark Barrott has released music under his own name. That's a surprise, but then the whole project - quickly recorded and mixed during a period spent living in Ibiza - has a delightfully spontaneous feel about it. Exotic, humid, atmospheric and richly immersive, Sketches From An Island sees Barrott in full on Balearic mode, laying down a series of instrumental soundscapes variously influenced by Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Peter Green and the Orb. It's pretty darn good, too, sounding like a sassier, more cultured version of his 2007 Future Loop Foundation set Memories From A Fading Room.

Review: International Feel main man Mark Barrott has been unfeasibly productive in the last couple of years, releasing a string of fine mini-albums, and 12" singles, which touch on a variety of styles. This latest outing is every bit as magical as some of those excursions, with A-side "Cascades" offering a life-affirming blend of undulating, Tangerine Dream style synthesizers, soft touch, D.K style beat patterns, and breathlessly sun-kissed atmospherics. It's ambient, kids, but not as you know it. The Ibiza-based producer moves further towards Jose Padilla territory on the hot and humid, tropical-tinged flipside "Tagomago", whose combination of live instrumentation and blissful electronics is near perfect.

Review: Globetrotting producer Mark Barrott has been creatively reinvigorated since moving from Uruguay to Ibiza a few years back. Here, the exiled Sheffielder serves up a second helping of Sketches From An Island, once again proving that his Balearic instincts are as sharp as ever. As with the first volume, Barrott focuses on sun-kissed positivity, variously blending head-nodding hip-hop beats, jazzy guitars, dreamy synths, hazy trumpet solos, Jose Padilla influences, Reichian marimba patterns, and a variety of knowing global influences. This is music to soundtrack sunsets, sunrises, lazy afternoons by the pool, and humid evenings supping ice-cold cocktails. In truth, few do it better than Barrott.

Review: According to International Feel boss Mark Barrott, Music For Presence is an attempt to broaden the evocative, downtempo sound he's been pursuing for the last few years. There's certainly a wider palette of influences on show, with opener "Shopenhauer's Garden" adding fluid synth solos to a backing track that doffs a cap to 1970s German synthesizer greats such as Tangerine Dream. The humid and sticky ambience of "Emile" sounds like Finis Africae jamming with Steve Hillage, while "Mokusho" blends cascading, life-affirming synthesizer motifs with spaced-out electronic beats and glistening chords. Closer "Lysander", with its bubbly electronics, cascading trumpet and impeccable piano work, could have come from the studio of Music From Memory regulars Gaussian Curve.

Review: International Feel's recently launched mini album series continues, with long-serving downtempo producer CFCF delivering his vision of a lazy Balearic holiday. Sitting somewhere between Jose Padilla, Joan Bibiloni, and Gigi Masin's collaborations with Templehof, the extended player's eight tracks bristle with authentic live instrumentation, most notably jazzy guitars, soft-focus acoustics, reflective pianos and humid accordions. These are effortlessly blended with subtle electronics to create sun-kissed, early morning mood pieces that undoubtedly define the Balearic, after-hours experience. What's most striking about On Vacation, though, is just how beautiful it is. At times, it's breathtakingly stunning.

Review: Following his limited edition tape debut on SFV, Scott Gilmore makes an even deeper mark on the mighty International Feel. Once again a blurred collage is revealed where references to library music, kosmiche and psychedelia all play key roles in his unique music narrative; his more hands-on experimental rock side is subtly shown on "Flight Through Grey" while clear parallels are made with Gainsbourg on the title track and other moments such as the touching closer "Walking Underground". Elsewhere we're dazzled by Balearica on "E70 No 01" and blindsided by ambient introspection on "Lady Street Racer". Beautiful, heavily layered and continually revealing more; this is an immaculate piece of work from all concerned.

Review: As debut albums go, this sumptuous set from the previously unheralded Scott Gilmore is extremely impressive. It's made up of eight evocative and emotion-rich compositions layered in Jonny Nash style guitar, meandering analogue synthesizer motifs, swirling sonic textures and the sounds of dusty old instruments bought at yard sales in the producer's native California. While his influences - think Eno and Byrne, the Walker Brothers, quirky 1970s library music, easy listening and early Air, for starters - are obvious, none of the included tracks sound like heartfelt tributes. In fact, it's Gilmore's own musical voice - imaginative, atmospheric and quietly colourful, with a passion for lo-fi recording techniques - that makes Subtle Vertigo such a rewarding listen.

Review: There was a sense of inevitability when Mark Barrott's International Feel label revealed plans to issue a new album from Ibizan legend Jose Padilla, the pair go together like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. What makes So Many Colours particularly special is the fact Padilla got the chance to work with Barrott, Running Back affiliate Telephones, Australian producer Tornado Wallace and Jan 'Wolf Muller' Schulte, a list of artists that share a common approach to the idea and concept of being Balearic. As you would expect, copious amounts of fluttering beats, Spanish guitar strumming and deep throbbing arpeggiated basslines feature throughout So Many Colours and it's really a pleasure from beginning to end!

Review: Shelter began his production career re-editing quirky cuts of a Balearic persuasion, before dropping a fine collection of original tracks on Uber last autumn. That set of woozy, horizontal gems clearly impressed International Feel boss Mark Barrott, as he's decided to release the French producer's debut album. Zon Zon Zon is arguably a little more varied than some may expect, with Shelter combining his usual new age inspired melodies and tropical flavours with nods to rubbery, post-disco pop, dub, woozy ambient and the kind of fluid, sun-baked electronica that defies easy categorization. However you describe it, Zon Zon Zon is mightily impressive, delivering a near perfect blend of electronic and acoustric instrumentation.

Review: Three years on from his first Talamanca System collaboration with Tuff City Kids duo Gerd Janson and Phillip Lauer, Mark Barrott gets the gang back together for an album of typically loved-up excursions. International Feel's eccentric press release describes it as "a sunburned imagination of a day and night spent on Ibiza during a moment in time that probably never was". Given the album's repeated nods to baggy, piano-laden Italian house, the saucer-eyed, sunrise-friendly brilliance of 808 State's "Pacific State", sun-kissed post Italo-disco chuggers, percussion-laden tropical workouts and head-in-the-clouds ambience, it's actually rather an apt description. It's shamelessly Balearic from start to finish, but pulls it off with an authenticity that others can only dream of.