Kelvin Andrews and Balearic Mike return, somewhat belatedly (it’s been 10 years) with the latest instalment of their celebrated compilation series, Down To The Sea And Back. Opening, appropriately, with crashing surf, and Spanish guitar, both captured in an expanse of echo, the new collection closes with an amazing, addictive acoustic cover of The Cult’s gothic smash She Sells Sanctuary. In between you get everything from the bongo-led blue-eyed soul of a Greek Robbie Williams to a promo-only Idjut Boys remix (where the the dub-disco duo summon scary speaker punishing subs from somewhere within the shiny pop of Len’s Steal My Sunshine). Kelvin and Mike effectively go back to back, playing musical tag with a superb selection of oddities, obscurities, rarities, overlooked b-sides and album tracks. Ignoring genres and chronologically jumping, jaunting – as they please – between 1976 and 2017.*

Lee Ryda’s Electro Eyes , for example, is a completely under the radar Art Of Noise-esque electronic library music cue. Its sexy saxophone and panpipe-like pads offset by some screaming axe shredding. Francisco Lupica’s Heal Yourself is funky Californian folk, hammered out on home-made instruments, with huge hippie, Hair-like, group harmonies. Vidderna’s Villfarelser is a relatively modern piece of kosmische. The Emperor Machine contributes Dying By Wits, an uncharacteristic, totally surprising, shot of Fender Rhodes-driven soft / yacht rock. Tumbling frantically on snazzy syncopated snares, Pressure Drop proffer some ace acid jazz on the horn-y and Hammond B3-y Unify. A strange mix of strummed strings and synthesised squelches, Enzo Carella’s Malamore gives fellow Italian `70s chart-topper Adriano Celentano a run for his money. Car Crash Set’s Fall From Grace is cracking Antipodean electro pop, that sounds like Chris & Cosey, and Joy Divison’s Ian Curtis, doing Men Without Hats’ Safety Dance. La Couleur’s Underage could be a chopped and screwed Larry Heard tune, with Serge Gainsbourg crooning on top. Sunshine Jones’ Fall In Love Not In Line is San Franciscan house dynamite. Shuffling along, for quite a stretch, on shaken percussion, buzzed by a big, euphoric synth riff, it breaks down to just strings and drone, before banging back in, and Sunshine starts reciting his manifesto for personal freedom. This last one is an epic, surefire, can’t fail, dancefloor hit.

Kelvin and Mike have also included a few afro / Cosmic classics, such as Meo’s chanted, fusion flavoured Cikuana (part Tony Esposito, part Don Cherry’s Brown Rice), and Tri Atma’s chunky, chugging Fairlight and Synclavier fashioned Yummy Moon, with its bright brass hook.** Ad Visser’s Giddyap A Gogo is a tune that I’ll always associate with Mike, since he put this bouncing, silly yeah, but stupidly catchy sing-along in one of his now legendary Cosmic Alphonsus Mixes decades ago.***

Predictably, with the compliers’ considerable combined knowledge and experience, the compilation plays out like a perfectly put together mixtape, with a fair amount of all-back-to-mine, have-you-heard-this-one (knowing full well that you haven’t) showing off. Extensive sleeve notes, penned by the pair, accompany the package, detailing how they discovered these records, via globe-trotting gigs, digs, and clued-up pals. Most of the music here you’d never be aware of, let alone find, otherwise.

*Anyone reading old enough to remember The Tomorrow People?
**Dualismo Sound did a decent reissue a few years back.
**I purchased my copy, just like Mike, from the mighty Mark Seven.
***Bods of a Balearic bent might recognise the song’s hook, since it was borrowed by Mod No.4’s “mash-up” of Zobi La Mouche, which was a Boys Own Fanzine favourite.

Kelvin Andrews and Balearic Mike’s Down To The Sea And Back Volume Tres can be preordered here, with a little help from Music For Dreams.