Balearic Rock

The Sunset Sounds From The EMI Music Archives series, put together on streaming services by EMI Sweden in 2012, as neo-Balearic eclecticism was becoming big business in Scandinavia, is a mixed bag to say the least. Some volumes are stellar digs through history by someone who obviously knows their onions, others seem like an excuse to remarket mid-range Scandi electronic acts. But when it’s of the quality of this, Volume 9 in the series, it’s hard to argue. There’s dirty 70s boogie (Suzi Quatro, Hawkwind, Cozy Powell, Alexis Korner‘s C.C.S.), there’s new wave (The Stranglers, Fad Gadget, Flying Lizards), there’s a little of the early 90s dance-rock expressly inspired by Ibiza (a very early Andrew Weatherall remix of former Undertones members That Petrol Emotion). But the real joy here is how that elusive Balearic quality emerges as you play through this — it’s a coherent set, it’s danceable, and somehow there’s a hidden connecting thread through it all.