Windsurf
Coastline

Isn't it funny how quickly fads come and go? This year seems to the year of resurgent "disco", from Italo to no wave club sounds, to the current hype with Balearic, as producers find new ways to find expression through older styles of music. It is both infuriating and interesting how quickly a sound is hijacked and homogenised (or maybe I read too many blogs?). It seems only a few months ago that Balearic was resurrected, but already, in the main, I avoid even listening to stuff that describes itself in this way. Too many Chris Rea guitar hooks, soaked in reverb and cheap sounding beats. Of course similar sounds come from mining similar seams of influence, but what intrigues me is that people seem to find the same influences at the same time. Windsurf however manage to (mostly) elevate themselves above the status of (seeming to be) bandwagon jumpers on their debut album: "Coastline". Much of this album is very nice. Some of it is even great. Pocket Check and Windsurf are well thought out excursions into mid tempo electronica. Future Warriors is retro-futurist electro, from a place in time that is as much 2022 as it is 1982. But elsewhere, the vocals don’t gel with me. I am not a huge fan of vocal driven electronic tracks, unless their lyrical content is along the lines of ‘jack’ ‘get down’ or some other nonsense or they are made by Matthew Dear - see here . I certainly can’t buy in to them, where they’re contained in a musical blanket that is 3 shades short of pastiche and contains ethnic voices. But, that’s just my opinion – what has me reaching for ‘skip’ may have you reaching for the volume. And, out of 10 tracks, only 3 have vocals. So, this is all roundabout way of saying that this album, with the exception of a couple of bits not to my taste, manages to be both step outside the definitions of a genre and be a defining example of the very same thing