Black Sabbath receive unlikely Balearic makeover

Balearic Sabbath

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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