Cosmic | Balearic 16 Items

Degrees of Freedom is a Canadian musical group founded in 1984 in Montreal by Janet Cadman (vocals and percussion), Martin Chartrand (bass, guitar, rhythm programming and vocals) and David Curtis (keyboards, vocals, and percussion). Established as a 5-piece New Wave cover band, Degrees of Freedom evolved into its classic quartet configuration following the departure of the original guitarist and drummer, and the subsequent enlistment of Santino Mastrocola on drums. With this lineup change came a new musical mission: the writing, recording and live presentation of original material only. Since Santino's withdrawal from the band in 1988, Degrees of Freedom has carried on as a trio in the studio while augmenting concert performances with additional musicians.

In February 1985, Degrees of Freedom performed at the newly formed S.O.S. (Save Our Songwriters) Club in Montreal. Like other participants in the S.O.S. project, Degrees of Freedom was rewarded with studio time to record some of its own songs. One of these, "August is an Angel" was selected to close out the locally produced 1985 band anthology album "Listen - A Faze Compilation of Montreal Music." The next year, a new track "In This Room," was included in the follow-up release "Listen 2." Both songs, with four newly recorded works, were issued in 1988 as Degrees of Freedom's eponymous sole vinyl release, informally known as the “China” album.

In 2015, the music of Degrees of Freedom experienced a renaissance thanks to a new generation of club DJs, traditional and internet-based radio hosts, vinyl disc collectors, and other aficionados of synth-based music. Local and international recognition has come in the form of record sales to fans in Canada as well as in the USA, Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Lithuania, Sweden, Bulgaria, Australia, Vietnam, and Japan. Responding to the resurgence of interest, Degrees of Freedom has twice re-issued the disc (2017 and 2019). Today, with eyes on the future and the past, Janet, Martin and David continue to collaborate on new material including the songs, "Metal Flesh" and "Be This Way" both accessible on the band's YouTube channel.

Sähkö Recordings offspring and Helsinki's house music label #1 Keys Of Life presents their first part of two balearic 12inches by DJ Sotofett & SVN.

Each heading for their own side, DJ Sotofett stretches epic coastal synths, shaking tambourines, stomping bass notes and whirling crystal resonance to a 14 min ride. SVN on the flip side goes deeper, to the late night or early morning, with spacial rhythms, reverberated back drops and warm pads with a hint of acid.

Sean Johnston has put together some righteous compadres to form a new project - The Summerisle Six. Featuring Jo Bartlett (Yellow Moon Band) on vocals, Andy Bell (Oasis and Ride amongst others) & Duncan Gray on guitars, Kev Sharkey (That Petrol Emotion, The Undertones, Elvis Costello to name a few) on percussion, Mick Somerset Ward on Sax (Clock DVA, Was Not Was, Crooked Man). This Is Something is a driving pop groover reminiscent of a late 80's early 90's Indie Dance anthem. The Dub mix invites the OG mix to Alfos, turns the lights off and presses the smoke button for a chuggy heartwarming trip across the dance floor. There are no words to describe Rico Connings mix other than to say this 10 min journey has to be heard to be believed. A genuine Balearic gem.

La Musica' is a dreamy track for the perfect Balearic experience. Written by the 'Balearicos' it comes with two great remixes, one from the chillout legend Cris Coco and another one from Rudy's Midnight Machine. Residentes Balearicos are a duo from Ibiza, consisting of Luca Averna and Alessandro Doretto. Luca is a DJ and works mainly with his friend Camilo Miranda at the legendary Pikes Hotel. Echoes and synthetic pads build up the atmosphere across the original version's intro taking you to a heavenly happy place until the beloved classic combo of a Tr909 and Korg M1 piano send us all straight back to a '90s open air dance floor in Ibiza. This is where the journey starts, accompanied by the piano chords and Brazilian sounding voices washing over you with calls of 'La Musica'. Perfect for a set on the beach, soft sand under foot or as a warmup record in the club, it will fit perfectly in your Balearic session. Rudy's Midnight Machine takes the elements written by R.B. and shakes everything into a disco dimension. All the elements for the perfect track are in place: funky bassline, open hi hats and muted guitar plus an exploding chorus with a great melodic hook. This is a must have tune if you are into disco with a classy and modern feel. Chris Coco's remix is a classic take made with great taste. He keeps the harmonic elements as well as the bass line almost intact, playing around with the vocals and adding melodic touches that give a tropical feeling to proceedings. Don't be fooled by the soft intro because the rhythm will soon take you dancing with a smile spread across your face.

After "Il Mare Di Fronte", Flankup Recordings returns with its second album release “Sidi Bou Said” which presents another substantial 5-track EP composed and produced by Paolo Russi (Discojuice) and Marco Lanfranchi (Indy). Harnessing both disco and Afro Balearic beats, the record will be released both on vinyl and in digital versions and will feature a dynamic remix of the track El Haouharia by none other than Byron The Aquarius titled “Late nite Dub”.

A little mystery goes a long way, but it's fair to say the appetite for unearthing those secret tunes and lost classics has rarely been stronger. A Love That Never Dies give us a peek inside their formidable archive with four more wonderful pieces of coveted music, in very short supply in their original form. One super limited, clear vinyl pressing.

Music is a language. This new label is a hypothetical sound trip between skyscrapers, wild places, deep imaginary oceans in our mistreated, but fascinating globe. No specific musical genre, but a sort of global beat, winking especially at the Balearic sounds. You can call them edits or re-publications, but our belief is that you can make tracks that are extremely expensive, in their original version or that have never been printed on vinyl. Imaginária wants to respect the publishers, authors, producers and musicians of the published songs, but fundamentally you who promote our idea.

Digging deep through old and new, Basso captures arcane woodland fusion, serene electronic suites and wide eyed Balearic bliss on this first Growing Bin compilation. This collection celebrates those precious records which land in your life on their own terms. Even the most advanced digger will admit that chance is the secret ingredient in any successful haul.

Young Marco mines deep into the 90s era Italian house underground and strikes absolute gold... Part 2 of 2..

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This spring, Safe Trip will release Welcome To Paradiso, an expansive retrospective of the Italian dream house sound co-compiled by label founder Young Marco.

At the tail end of the 1980s, a new take on deep house began to emerge from Italian studios. 'Dream house' drew inspiration from key U.S deep house records of the period – the spacey melodiousness of Larry Heard's productions, and the rich jazziness of tracks originating in New Jersey in particular – but sounded distinctly different. Its' 'head-in-the-clouds' feel – all rich chords, tactile basslines, fluid piano lines and starry electronics – made 'dream house' a uniquely Italian proposition.

First and foremost, the style echoed the wavy, glassy-eyed positivity of the period more than any other. While music in the UK and the low countries was getting faster and heavier, Italy's 'dream house' producers continued to create music shot through with warmth and colourful musicality until 1993. While few 'dream house' records were made after then, its' sounds and loose aesthetic influenced subsequent styles such as trance and progressive house.

During its' peak, dream house – or, as it was tagged by leading Italian label DFC, 'ambient house' (echoing the similarly minded work of UK pioneers such as The Orb and The KLF) – could be heard blaring from club sound systems across Europe. The style's popularity was fuelled, in part at least, by the runaway international success of "Sueno Latino".

Welcome To Paradiso gathers together some of the finest examples of the style for the first time since the turn of the 90s. It includes a smattering of scene anthems – Key Tronics Ensemble's peerless "Calypso of House", Morenas's "Sonnambulism", the ambient mix of Last Rhythm's Italo-house classic "Last Rhythm" – alongside a swathe of hard-to-find, in-demand and forgotten gems.

There are cuts from key players in the movement – the likes of Don Pablos Animals, Sasha (later to find fame with a strong of bouncy, piano-heavy Italo-house cuts), and Dreamatic – plus a string of lesser-known names whose contribution to the evolution of the sound should not be overlooked. Young Marco has also found space for Leo Anibaldi's "Elements", a rare deep house outing from a producer who later helped define the sound of Roman techno.

Over the course of two double-vinyl compilations (and one extended digital download package), Welcome To Paradiso celebrates one of the most evocative and imaginative musical styles of electronic music's golden era. Kick off your shoes, turn your gaze skywards, and immerse yourself in the music.

Recorded mostly as a live-jam, august 2019, Il Sogno di Carmen is the result of a solitary producer meeting a nomad musician, Viscardi & Alano Santo. A brand new friendship. From there, the duo leads us to a spontaneous and fragile vacation story that yet manages to frame, with a sometimes mischievous accuracy, the current Genevan musical spirit: experimental, sincere, hybrid and hot. “I have no idea where this will lead us. But I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange. Deep into summer, most definitely. The season of torrid bodies, of slowed down movements ; where melancholy creeps in the form of light and inconstant paragraphs, italian-style. Dragged around in hedonistic reunions, spiritual vagrancies and the soothing coolness of the Rhone river, Carmen is smooth and frivolous. She loosens up. Nothing is important. It can wait. Him too, you mainly. Geneva in the tropics, Bongo Joe on the terrace, stolen emerald glances & air-conditioned airports. That's it. A wonderful and insignifiant story”.

Viscardi & Il Duo Magnetico is the collaborative project between italo-swiss DJ, producer and singer Pascal Viscardi, Yavor Lilov and Alain Sandri, respectively drummer and percussionist of the swiss cult band L’Éclair. The three musicians joined forces in Geneva and worked in the studio for the past two years with Viscardi as the main vocalist, Lilov producing the tracks and playing drums, bass and keys, and Sandri on guitar, percussions, and backing vocals. The result is a unique and contemporary version of italian pop, peppered with new-wave, boogie, disco and world music references.

After the release of the first two singles, Sale Sole & Jamba Club in June 2023, Cosmic Romance is proud to present their first full-length effort: Elka Mare.

Like a mystical portal that opens on a digital journey through sunny Boogie and Mellow Reggae, Art Pop and Ambient New Age, the eight songs that make up the album draw on a vocabulary composed of fragmentary images, unusual verses and original assonances, where maritime themes mix with the gray of the city and the Neapolitan dialect sparsely appears; witness to a paternal emigration. The journey sounds like dreaming of Campania beaches in the midst of Geneva traffic, or fantasizing about speeding motorboats and Balearic bonfires while listening to Enzo Carella on the sixth floor of a council building. And then dance until the sun rises on the last slow song of the night.

Originally digitally released February 11, 2023 and now on vinyl for the first time, 'How To See Through Walls' by Windows 96.

Mike Paradinas, veteran producer and Planet Mu label owner has written a new album called ‘Grush' and it's full of weird bangers that reclaim the 'dance' part of the woeful term IDM. A back-to-first-principles record, inspired in part by the group of artists IDM was coined for; melodic dance music that didn't come out of urban scenes, but interpreted them from a distance.

The tracks on ‘Grush’ are all road-tested live favorites developed with feedback from Mike's touring partner and visuals guy Mora (Jan Moravec). It's a detailed and energetic journey which replicates the flow of a live gig. A lot of the tracks have been made in hotel rooms in response to shows, ‘Imperial Crescent’ is named after a Japanese Hotel, as is ‘Belvedere’ in Prague, while some tracks such as ‘Hyper Daddy’ were created specifically to play live.

Drums are confidently at the fore here and the album feels like it traces Mike's musical history and interests neatly around his sweetly nostalgic melodies, with atmospheres and structures which twist and turn with a charming softness which contrasts with the tension in the drums. Take ‘Hyper Daddy’s’ spiralling notes and twinkling piano which remind one of early Black Dog or Omni Trio rushing alongside splashy jungle drums, or the aquatic acid footwork of the title track with its drums softly bubbling and kicking. Elsewhere there's territory which harks back to his Tusken Raiders pseudonym, like the heads down Drexciyan funk of ‘Windsor Safari Park,’ which transforms from moody electro into a sunny hardcore track midway. The album is interspersed with Reticulum A, B and C at the start middle and end of the album which suggest a theme which carries across the music in an effortless and joyful way. ‘Grush’ is a strong album that works both for listening and DJing and a great snapshot of where Mike Paradinas musical head is at in 2024.