Daniele Baldelli & DJ Rocca – Quagga (2017)

Its just over a year since we started our new label, Real Balearic. For our second artist album we are really pleased (and honoured) to welcome one of the few DJs who can claim to be one of the founders of the eclectic Balearic sound. Take a trip back to the 70s and 80s in Northern Italy and you will fine Daniele Baldelli mixing up electronic, African and slo-mo disco records to co-create the Electronica Meccanica sub genre. Records often would be played at the wrong or variable speed to be made to fit into a wide aural tapestry of his unexpected-but-seamlessly-flowing DJ sets. This of course is an aesthetic close to us here at Real Balearic. A sound we are ever so pleased to have as part of the mixing pot for our new Balearic label. For the album he pairs up with fellow Italian DJ Rocca to serve up an eclectic – electronic – Balearic feast.

For those Zoologists out there you may notice that the albums song titles (mostly) are all extinct animals. A clever naming concept but as you will hear the music is far from primeval. The LP opens up with recent single Poouli. It registers at the top of the Balearic speed end but the varied synthesizer grooves and vibe are pure 90's balearic (i.e. looking back to the 80s sound and mish-mashing a collage of styles and sound). Quagga follows and the tempo and grooves are toned down a few notches. This summer-haze smoulderer features lazy guitar and the summer sky-lark flute of Rocca (not only a DJ a fine musician too).

Recent single Pongo. The Kalimba is out in full force as are the lethargic grooves and lazy bass guitar. Stabby synth and quirky counter melodies round off sound with just enough quirkiness to succeed. Dodo sees proceedings take a slight leftfield detour with its weaving (and slightly menacing) hot-sun synth lines setting the tone.

The flip side of the LP opens up with Megaloceros. The track is heavy and large on percussion and latin-inspired shakers. The sparse instrumentation leaving space for the track to fill let the beach-time moods flood in to complete it. Oryx Dammah is an early evening sonic-builder full of terrace-sweeping pluck-synth groove. The LP closes with Java Tiger. It slow, low, mysterious and powerful just as its name sake.