Twelve minor keys against two majors: that is the first deliberate imbalance in 'Sunset Ritual Ibiza Vol. 1', and far from the only one. This RH2 collection squeezes its tempo into a five-beat window —from the 120 BPM of 'Ni Roi Ni Reine' to the 125 of 'Lilimar' and 'Revive The Groove'— and shifts its contrasts elsewhere: running times, careers and texture.
The most visible one is length. D.M.P's 'Something New' stretches to 7:36, the longest cut on the record; 'Bohemian Tide' by Tons Of Noise wraps its idea up in exactly 4:00. They are opposite poles of the same school: one unfolds unhurried, the other gets in and out without ceremony. In between, manZoni's 'Groov'it' with Apostoli Floyd (7:26) sides with the slow burners, while N.W.N.'s remix of Hanna's 'Sometimes' (4:20) argues for brevity and, along the way, supplies one of the record's two major keys.
The second contrast is one of mileage. Demarkus Lewis, behind 'Revive The Groove', has been at it since his first record deal in 2000: he founded Grin Music, has played booths like Berlin's Tresor, and his work has landed on compilations by Mark Farina and Roger Sanchez. Around him, names with far less public track record share the minutes as equals; fitting for RH2, a label with a torrential Beatport catalogue that works as a collective showcase rather than a closed club.
There is a third mirror game in the credits: Soire shows up twice, with his own 'In A Dream' and remixing Tidy Daps' 'Nothing Hurts'; author and reinterpreter on the same record. And the closer marks the final divergence: 'Love', signed by three hands —Jonathan Touch, Vitaliy Rybakin and Alice Manakhova— is the only cut tagged organic house among thirteen deep house entries. After so much balancing of extremes, the compilation chooses to bow out by stepping outside the very genre that names it.
Sources: RA · Beatport
