Computer Incarnations for World Peace cover

Computer Incarnations for World Peace

Released

This is where the crate-digging DJ ethos of the Balearic generation of the 80s starts to blur around the edges. Germans Gerd Jansen and Jazzanova are best known for house/techno and nu-jazz respectively — but for this compilation they dip into their collections of mostly new wave era music. There’s tracks from Serbia (Propaganda — not to be confused with the ZZT mainstays), Belgium (Aksak Maboul), the US (Will Powers — an all-star satirical collective around photographer Lynn Goldsmith). There’s synth music that’s disco-leaning (Sylvester) and prog-leaning (the track that gives the compilation its title, from violinist Jean-Luc Ponty), there’s lo-fi and expensive sounding stuff. But is it Balearic? Is anything? Certainly it taps into he same rewiring of the past and present through contextualisation that the OG Balearic DJs did, and brings out a whole new coherent personality from an extremely diverse set of tracks.

Joe Muggs

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