Sunset to sunrise electronic music label from the Balearic Ultras


Digital dealers for discerning dancefloors and sophisticated sun downs, Higher Love Recordings, return on April 1st with a 3 track EP by the uber talented Jesse Fahnestock in his 10:40 guise. The title track, Kissed Again, featured as the closing track to the much-loved Higher Love Vol.1 compilation released at the end of summer 2021.

In the words of Dr Rob, “Kissed Again begins by bubbling bucolically, before its big piano chords build an end-of-the-night excitement, and a climatic acid breakdown cements its anthem-sized ambition”.

This EP is backed by 2 new cuts showcasing the different production styles the American born Stockholm based producer is renowned for. Fin is a haunting blissed-out beauty tailor made for the majesty of a warm summer sunset. Coat Check  closes the EP and sees Jesse head into his Jezebell playbook producing a slo-mo spacey sojourn into an electrochug wilderness.

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Discography

Attraktors - Heavy Water (Ron Basejam Remix)

Heavy Water rushes in on a siren-like synthetic fanfare, while dramatic, rattling percussion promises some kind ofimminent lift-off. Mr. Basejam doesn’t disappoint, delivering a dynamite, deep, bass-heavy chug, tested by depth-charge sonar blips. A menacing LFO arpeggio propelling the piece out onto the peak-time dance-floor. Its snarlsoftened slightly as Ron launches that fanfare once more. Moody, magnificent, body-moving, it drops down to a congabreak, and then hits you with some real horns, before bringing that bolshy bastard of a beat back. Ltd edition 10" vinyl available from Juno

The White Isle's Residentes Balearicos come bouncing back with a debut EP, Viajes Orgaizado, for Brighton`s Higher Love Recordings. The super prolific Italian duo of Luca Averna and Ale Doretto, who’ve now made Ibiza their home, have perviously released music, across a range of tempos - from serene sunset shuffles to nocturnal, psychedelic, shamanic shakedowns. Gracing labels such as Shades Of Sound, Music For Dreams, Balearic Ensemble, and Takeo Toyama`s Archipelago (RIP). Noteworthy names such as Joe Morris and Robin Lee`s Rudy’s Midnight Machine have remixed the results, while they frequently collaborate with current king of “chillout”, Melodica`s Chris Coco. This fresh four-track outing finds the friends fashioning two new tunes, each given an additional guest “twist”.

D110 starts with a solid rock drum battery, quickly joined by characteristically bionic “balearicos” bass. Ripe with rave-y synth signals, and filled with flickering frequencies, the track taps directly into their Italo disco roots. Its sleazy, suggestive, stomping novo new beat, countered by breakdowns of cute cascading bells and chimes - raining prettily above the punchy, pumping, pounding. Mancunian musician James Bright, himself a Higher Love veteran - as well as working with imprints such as Sveva, Quattro, and Eclectics - smooths out the still banging, gargantuan groove. Manufacturing melody from masked marimba and energetic, particulate, ping-ponging patterns, while making excellent use of echo to build, and release, tension.
Juno’s Dream is technologically tribal. Its robotic rhythm rising and falling hypnotically, while grounded by more “organic” finger clicks. The warm, womb-like, constantly mutating, bottom-end, an homage to both acid house and bleep. Bali-based Liverpudlian Joey Fiztgerald, aka Gold Suite adds trippy gated sequences, and bonus human hand percussion, in the shape of bongos and congas. Then tops this off with huge rushing waves, swirls, of stirring, emotive, synthetic strings.
Copy by Dr Rob @banbantonton / Art by Gary Burns @garyburnstattoo
Digital dealers for discerning dance-floors and sophisticated sundowns, Higher Love Recordings, celebrate their first birthday with a damn fine compilation. Birthed by Brighton-based collective, The Balearic Ultras, just over 12 months ago, the label now launches an expansive selection of tracks, submitted by friends and extended family, that serves as an imprint sampler of sorts. Giving listeners a taste of the artists that have already helped along the way, plus a glimpse of a few future releases to come. Featuring luminaries of labels, kindred contemporaries, including Eclectics, Is It Balearic?, Melodica, NuNorthern Soul, and Paisley Dark.

In the 21st Century, as and well it should be, this balearic beat business is a global affair. The music here has travelled from Daytona Beach, Dubai, London, Manchester, Moscow, Santa Fe, and Stockholm - plus, of course, a couple of bits from Brighton, showcasing local talent such as Perry Granville, and Andres Y Xavi. The former a pseudonym of Hotel Pellirocco stalwart, Dave Sibley, whose Dexter In Dub pays tribute to the early `90s work of The Grid and Andrew Weatherall, with seismic subs, rattling rimshots, and an ethereal damsel echoing around an equally ethereal organ melody. The latter, the duo of Steve Ellis and Glenn Fallows, teamed up with Rolo McGinty, of The Woodentops. What Do You See In Me? is taken from their recent album, Sounds From The Secret Bar, but given an exclusive, fresh spin, one rocking some righteous axe action and soaked in Soul II Soul strings. 

Some of the players surprise by stretching themselves to expand into previously personally unexplored genres. For example Adam Warped, ditching the disco-not-disco floor-fillers of this own Cala Tanida Musica and Whiskey Pickle imprints to deliver the avant ambient atmosphere of Zolpidem. The Strange Days radio show resident drawing inspiration from drone and vaporwave for a serene stream of sustained, splintered notes. Others stick to what they do best. Glass Coffee`s Kunafa With Jose recalls the DJ / producer`s last conversation with the sorely missed original sunset maestro,
Jose Padilla, where they discussed sharing said Middle Eastern desert, laughing as they decided to add a Ramadan fast-busting beer to accompany the sugary syrup and filo. He soundtracks the scene with sampled surf, tides of new age, Suzanne Ciani-Like, keys, and the romantic ache of a Romany violin. Faint Waves` Dancing Flame `21 - reworked from the Sol den Serra E.P. - is a sleepy, sun-stroked, keyboard-driven skank, which touches all tropical basses with snatches of steel pans, Spanish guitar, and the odd click of castanets. James Bright`s Quaquaversal kinda updates Art Of Noise`s Moments In Love. Surrounding that act`s trademark treated heavenly vocals with IDM squiggles - gentle post-rave fractals - and warm, rushing, rumbling LFOs. Alterleo plucks and picks at traditional stringed instruments, hammers hand-percussion, to compliment the sampled savannah chants and impassioned, spirit-lifting lead vocal on his tune, titled Long Way. Initially limiting the electronics to an unobtrusive bottom-end hum, before turning his TB-303 on.

Of the new-comers, Harbor Tea Rooms` Summer `99 is a slo-mo electro boogie, designed to send folks back to their hopefully care-free childhood, while Alex Donofrio`s mindful, consciousness-questioning, Look For What’s Looking, buoys Durutti Column-esque dexterity with bulbous, bass-y, looped beats, floats fragile snippets of song, sailing, on stirring cinematic orchestration. Atlantic Brain`s Tough Problems, Easy Solutions is a lush, dark, Tangerine Dream-flavoured, phased, electronic, kosmische pulse. Go Satta drum up a little drama on Leaving Town Was Wise, with collected bongos and congas supplemented by synthetic swells and pads. All dancing beneath a lyric that details a betrayed, cheated, lover, and deployed with an aesthetic that summons “balearic goddesses” Anna Domino, and Linda DiFranco. Remixed by Ed Mahon, of Cowbell Radio and Alfresco Festival fame, the track`s bashed by a bad (meaning good) reggae bass-line, dubwise effects and a breakbeat. The fabulous Jesse Fahnestock, in his 10:40 guise, fashions the set`s finale. His Kissed Again begins by bubbling bucolically, before its big piano chords build an end-of-the-night excitement, and a climatic acid breakdown cements its anthem-sized ambition.

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© Higher Love Recordings 2020