Project Club - El Mar Y La Luna

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  • Shame on the founders of Is It Balearic? for adding a question mark to the end of their label name: all along I thought I knew what Balearic was, and now I feel flush with anxiety. Perhaps, though, the question is meant as a simple A&R mantra, one to be recited when listening to demos. As far as "El Mar y La Luna" is concerned, I'm happy to report that the DNA test results have come back, and they're positive. "El Mar y La Luna" is sunburnt, sundazed, caked in sand and salt water, hungover, drifting out to sea, amnesia-ridden, a starfish in its mouth. The original strikes all the boxes on the Balearic checklist, relying heavily on atmosphere, dubbed-out percussion, soundtrack-y composition and evocative instrumentation—what merits attention is the fineness of its execution, which never allows its liberal use of psychedelic effects to drown out the melodic content. The two remixes here stay in the tripped-out mood and embellish the tune's potential: taken together the three form a kind of psychedelic rock suite not unlike Pink Floyd's "Echoes." The Shrinkwrap remix doesn't deviate heavily from the original, in fact given the tune's diffuse, jammy character you might get confused as to which mix is which: Shrinkwrap's is the drier of the two, and the acid line he tosses in its midst serves to glaze the hippie jams with a more futurist veneer. No worries: "El Mar y La Luna" could go on for an hour and you probably wouldn't notice it. The choice cut is probably Lovefingers' remix, which laces its gorgeous acoustic guitar with peyote-dance flourishes like hand percussion and "Aww-wooo!" vocals.
  • Tracklist
      A1 El Mar Y La Luna A2 El Mar Y La Luna (Shrinkwrap Acid Rerub) B El Mar Y La Luna (Lovefingers Remix)
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