I knew I was going to like this record when the first languorous, swarthy jazz measures of 4 Hero’s ‘Conception’ came loping out of the speaker like some deep and rich Mochacinno flowing across the table at café Mambo with a sitar hooked up to the orchestra somewhere in the background. I guess this is what you called chilled, Frappecinno style. Plain, low and slow, higher and lower, all those things hinted at in Afterlife’s ‘Half Time’. Which leads me neatly to the new Renaissance compilation – a game of two-halves – a ‘Beach’ half and a ‘Club’ half and featuring a slow and easy listening mix of some 14 hypnotising Balearic tracks (Disc 1: ‘Beach’) in addition to 12 or so techno filtered house numbers, combining the likes of Tiefschwarz (featuring ‘Missing’s Tracey Thorn), the slippery keys of Phonique’s Skye remix, and folks like the electro boutique’in’ Chris Lake.
Okay, another week, another Renaissance compilation, that’s much is true but given the fairly conventional house-remits that Ibiza comps generally operate within, this one does include some faintly audacious choices, not least the Avenger remix of ‘Hide Me’ from the eclectic weird-science of Sheffield’s Grandadbob, Groove Armada’s ‘Never, Never, Never’ featuring the glamorous Shirley Bassey, plus a stormbrewing Nick Fraglen remix of the creepy Coldcut track, ‘Man In A Garage’. Hip-Hop in Ibiza? Well the times they really are a-changin’.
One of the cleanest and cleverest Ibiza comps in a long while.