Music for Dreams 20 Years: The Sunset Sessions Vol. 10

It was a somewhat grim irony that Balearic — an aesthetic that originally could only be defined by context and juxtaposition in multi-genre DJ sets — began through the 90s and into the 00s to become a predictable genre in itself. Many hundreds of labels sprang up specialising in wafty chill-out beats with breathy voices, Spanish guitars and pictures of swimming pools on the cover. But amongst the glut, there were gems too — and nowhere more so than on Danish DJ Kenneth Bager’s label Music for Dreams. Bager had a long history as a DJ going back to the early 80s himself, so he made sure that the label was imbued with the variety and weirdness of his original Balearic inspirations — and as this album of its output through the first two decades of the millennium shows amply, there was plenty of mileage in it. Lush and surging electronic soul songs, barely-there ambient, New Order-style electronic pop: this is chill out with guts and heart.