There is a hidden map in the track titles of 'Ibiza Summer': the first half stays close to the ground —'Kijiko', 'Cera', 'Si Oui', 'Natalia'— while the second lifts off toward the cosmos with 'Jupiter Jazz', 'Galactic Call' and 'Nebulae'. That arc matches the record's stylistic range across deep progressive, organic, melodic house & techno and electronica: the earthy, organic side rules the opening stretch, the melodic and spacey side takes over near the end, and 'Thunderstorm On The Catwalk', Daniel Pinho (US)'s VIP, closes like a lightning strike over the runway.
The durations sketch the emotional terrain. The longest cut arrives early: 'Si Oui', the collaboration between Pedro Mercado and Malek Mhedhbi, stretches its 7:45 in second position — a sign this record does not climb gradually; the deep valley opens almost from the start. The album's midsection gathers the peaks —'Sacred Lights Rebirth' (7:01), 'Scarlet Witch' (7:06) and 'Jupiter Jazz' (7:30)— while shorter pieces like 'Natalia', 'Escape', 'Spin' or 'Flames Of Fall' act as plateaus between climbs. The result is rolling topography rather than isolated summits: fifteen cuts between five and eight minutes, handing over to one another without cliffs.
The Paul Sawyer paradox
The most seasoned name on the lineup draws, curiously, the shortest line on the map: 'Coming Back For More' gets it done in 5:03. Sawyer has been DJing since 1992, has run Krafted Underground —a label devoted to progressive house and melodic techno— since 2013, and holds a catalogue on imprints like Perfecto, Black Hole and Toolroom; that concision, surrounded by seven-minute peaks, reads like pure craft.
Two remixes reshape someone else's terrain —Akpala over Kevin Kinembe's 'Kijiko', Konfluence over Geuzz's 'Conflicting Minds'— and Kinembe himself, the only artist to appear twice, also signs 'Cera'. Planet Ibiza Music's 'Ibiza Summer' series is not new either: there was already a 2021 edition, and this one confirms its calling as a sonic postcard of the island, the one running from hot beach sand to the open sky of the early hours.
Sources: RA · SoundCloud
