This Friday Jezebell release their 20-track epic, Jezebellearic Beats Volume 1. With artwork that references FFRR’s genre-defining Balearic Beats compilation – sanctioned by the artist, the legendary Dave Little – the album collects 11 of the duo’s singles, while joining the dots with fresh pieces. 

Working together for 2 years the pair have developed some trademark production techniques. As they repurpose classics, beefing up beats, often spiking the results with acid. These re-imaginings are sometimes respectful, on other occasions they come up with something completely new – mixing the elements of favourites with details of obscure-er lesser known jewels. Making over Max Berlin, sampling Santana, tinkering with Tuilio de Piscopo. Taking Wham!’s George and Andy back to Pike’s. Nicking the odd Czech jazz nugget. 

If you wanted to generalise then you could label the results “mid-tempo chuggers”, with more than a touch of the indie-dance cross over of Creation Records gone crazy, circa 1990 / 1991. Dubby, timbale-tonking, and Weatherall-worshipping. The clues to the unadulterated originals can frequently be found in the track-titles – either blatantly – Hypnorise = Herb Alpert’s Rise – or more cryptically – Hush Hush = Kajagoogoo’s Too Shy. Combine this with the clever way that Jezebell deploy their samples – long enough for you to think, “Oh hang on, I recognise this”, but frequently too short for you to easily place the hook – and listening becomes a bit like playing Balearic Beat-The-Intro. For example, is Vibrations built on a little bit of Donna Summer’s State Of Independence? 

The game can also throw you curveballs. I was expecting Burning Bush to be a manhandling of Kate, when in fact, instead it’s a cracking Coldcut-like collaged remix of Eno & Byrne. Elkin & Nelson receive similar treatment. Jezebell’s hip hop “mash-up” of Jibaro, a go-go-not-go-go groove, is bound to have folks divided. Is it genius, or sacrilege? Less controversial are the strummed Spacemen 3 / Spectrum-like Wisdom and soft rock stomp of Swamp Shuffle – organ and fiddle-led Southern-fried voodoo boogie which casts its spell with a chant of “High, high, high!”

Jezebell’s Jezebellearic Beats Volume 1 is released tomorrow. You can order a copy via Bandcamp.