Black Sabbath receive unlikely Balearic makeover

It’s 5am. You’ve been up all night necking pills at Amnesia, one of Ibiza’s most infamous venues, and you need to chill. You find a quiet spot on the beach, and as the Mediterranean sun slowly rises above a shimmering horizon, dappled rays crest the silver surf and you turn to your mobile device for a suitably serene soundtrack. And you choose… Black Sabbath.

Sabbath but not be the most obvious choice as comedown material, but the band’s Planet Caravan has long found a home in the sets of more ambiently-inclined DJs, and British producer Robert E Lee has created a mix that focusses the spotlight on more of Sabbath’s quieter moments, from Caravan to Solitude, Laguna Sunrise and beyond.

The 40-minute mix is the very softest of soft rock, shuffling gently along in a hazy fug of gently-strummed guitar and scattered bongo beats. “It takes a trip through the more ambient/jazzy/mellow end of Sabbath’s back catalogue,” says Lee.

Listeners who enjoy this mix might find much to enjoy at AOR Disco, a site dedicated to such parallel alignments of rock and dance. It features a mix collating the smooth side of Chicago, and another entitled Turn Your Back On Love, which gives Crosby Stills & Nash an improbable disco revamp.

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