The contradiction sits right in the title: Ibiza, island of the endless summer, imagined here for winter. And the tracklist takes it seriously. Between the 69 BPM of Steen Thottrup's 'Liv's Song (Pt. 2)' and the 160 of 'Kundalini' (Sami Sivananda) and 'Heaven And Here' (Faro) lie 91 beats, a startling gulf for a record billed as chill out. The extremes are no accident: they are the argument.
The bulk of the set — twenty of the thirty cuts — rolls at 100 BPM or less, blanket-and-window territory inhabited by Marc Hartman ('Tears Run For Love', 93) or Weathertunes ('Blueberry Field', 70). But every few tracks the record swerves: from the 82 of 'Aguda' (Ielo) to the 155 of 'Falling Down To The Earth' (Capa) without warning, or from the 97 of 'Monteroca' (David Garcia) to Faro's 160. Rather than breaking the mood, those jolts reframe it: stillness reads better right after vertigo.
'After Midnight' versus 'Book of Dreams'
Contrast is also measured in minutes. Svendaq takes 6:46 — the longest cut — to unfold 'After Midnight' at 85 BPM, while at the other end Eric Sherat's 'Book of Dreams (Balearic Sunset Mix)' delivers its postcard in 2:29. A curious detail: the only two versions with a sunset in their name — Sherat's and the 'Sunset Beach Remix' of 'Balearic Consciousness' (Calmabohain) — sit among the shortest here, as if dusk were an urgent matter.
The tonal balance leans just as hard: 22 cuts in minor keys against 8 in major, with G minor as the shared home of six of them, closer included. And there lies the final contrast: the one switching off the lights is Lemongrass with 'Pacific' at 140 BPM, the project German producer Roland Voss has kept running since 1996, which later grew into the Lemongrassmusic label, founded in 2005 with his brother Daniel, a reference name in global chillout. A veteran closing a winter record from the island of summer at high tempo: hard to sum this compilation up any better.
Sources: Wikipedia · Lemongrassmusic
