Joan Bibiloni: El Sur Vinyl LP

Music From Memory have firmly committed to profiling artists (oftentimes underdogs and outsiders) first and foremost, rather than releasing fleeting surveys of any particular scene or sound. Unlike most reissue labels to emerge in recent years, MFM came out of the gate strong with thorough and exhaustive long-playing tributes to three unique creators from disparate lands. This compilation of tracks by Spanish guitarist Joan Bibiloni, alongside Leon Lowman's Liquid DIamonds and Gigi Masin's Talk To The Sea established MFM as one of the most faithful and reliable archival projects in recent memory (heh), and reveals a kinship between the three artists in the depth of their work and breadth of their abilities. El Sur sees Bibiloni floating effortlessly from prog to ambient and jazz fusion with his virtuosic, inimitable guitar playing and breezy, balaeric production aesthetic fully intact. Tracks like "Agua Profunda," "Sa Fosca" and "El Salto Del Martin" immediately conjure a warm dip in the glistening Mediterranean sea, and on the opposite end of the spectrum, "Valerie" and "The Boogie" are neatly primed for a packed discoteque. The fiercely funky, crunchy and hard-hitting "El Cumpleaños Se Jaimito" almost sounds like an accidental Justice or DJ Mehdi production. The tracklist is assembled from the very best of Bibiloni's 7-inch and full-length releases throughout the 1980s on his own Blau imprint, many of which are incredibly rare and impossible to find in Spain, let alone anywhere else. Recommended.

• music label: Music From Memory 2014

reviewed by peanut dust 08/2017