Looking For The Balearic Beat / William Orbit

Wild shouts, barks, yelps and handclaps accompany a fierce acoustic strum. Machines strike up a big, banging mid-tempo march, and an insane, insistent accordion leads a deranged, drunken dance. Party whistles blow and it’s on. Less a boogie, and more a barely contained riot. Soundtracking a scene so exciting, it’s almost frightening. The music mad, bad and dangerous to know. The track itself sounds hammered, reeling, jumping, pogoing, and the crowd all clap and scream along. A den of dodgy South London geezers and girls, in unison, “on one”, sharing a secret. E (1). The pop flamenco of The Gipsy Kings’ “Bamboleo” was an imaginary Mediterranean holiday for working class kids who’d never even been on a plane. Painting pictures of foreign beaches and foreign skies. Cementing an Ecstasy-induced sense of escape. A strange sense of nostalgia for something that hadn’t happened. A mix of joy and melancholy for something that, perhaps, might yet. But this, this was the crazed, out of control…