Four BPM separate the slowest cut from the fastest on this ninth volume: Aliot's 'Just A Beat' turns at 122 while Nau Leone's 'Goodbyes' and K1CHE's 'Rainbow' top out at 126. With the tempo band that compressed, the contrasts on Future Sounds Of The Lucky Islands Vol. 9 play out elsewhere: in length, in mode and in the genre split.
The shortest and longest cuts draw the whole arc. Avar Garden's 'Sundaysi' opens with 4:40 of indie dance in C minor, the briefest track here; 'Rainbow', at 6:36, is the most expansive, stretching its A-flat major almost to the end. Between them the tonal balance ends level —five cuts in minor, six in major— and the record opens and closes in C minor, since 'Viciosa' by Alex Medina lands in the same key Avar Garden started from. And Medina is no casual guest: a Canary Islander active since 1993, with stops at Innervisions, Diynamic and Watergate according to his Resident Advisor biography, he founded Mumbai Records in 2017 — the 'lucky islands' of the title are exactly that, the Canaries the label calls home.
The other contrast is one of family: six indie dance cuts against four of melodic house & techno, with Alani's 'You've Changed' —a name that recurs alongside Medina in the label's catalogue— as the lone deep house piece, an islet within the archipelago. One last detail for rarity hunters: ten originals and a single alternate mix, the 'Underground Mix' of 'Feel Your Energy' by Human Machine and Carlos (IT), which at 123 BPM in A major hinges the two blocks together. A volume that doesn't shake you with tempo jumps but with nuance: major against minor, brief against expansive, home base against proving ground.
Sources: RA · Beatport