What type of music is cafe del mar

Trouble in Paradise Variation On a Theme. Breather Arithunda Mix. Get Back to Serenity Beach Mix. Have You Kept Your Ticket? Castillos de Arena. Time Is the Enemy. Cha-Ka-Too Sunset Mix. Hibiki Connection. Holding On. Will You Catch Me? Tiny Tunes. Heading for the Sunrise feat. Annette Berg. Seven Seas. Plenitude, Pt. Soft Wave. Dreaming Of Rue du Soleil. Transmit Liberation. Single Cell Orchestra. Art Noveau. Jens Gad. Desire Ambient Mix. Hold On.

Sleep Will Come. Austrian newcomers Sonic Adventure Project contribute a perfectly gorgeous solo piano and strings piece with "Waters In Motion". Digby Jones' "Under The Sea" is one of the best instrumentals that Zero 7 never made, with a slightly spooky chord progression of lush strings played off against jazzy electric piano. All up, Volume 11 is among the best of the series, bathed in Balearic sunshine and with depth and tunefulness in abundance.

After Volume 11 , Bruno Lepetre left the franchise. Unlike Padilla, he made no memorable statements as to his reasons, but he did release a rather fine house-based chillout album of his own compositions soon afterwards called Puzzle He continues production work and DJ'ing to this day.

Unfortunately, and perhaps not coincidentally, the next release following his departure was the appallingly bland Euro muzak of Volume 12 - compiled by no one, it seems - which quality-wise sent the series into a fatal dive. Nothing released since then has recaptured the original magic, to the point where very few music zines, bloggers and DJ's even acknowledge that new Cafe Del Mar albums exist, let alone bother to review or play them.

Sometimes there is no DJ credit at all on the albums - suggesting pure generic product for an undiscerning crowd - though in more recent years a Finnish selector named Toni Simonen has occasionally hit the mark with some credible releases, including the wide-ranging Cafe Del Mar Volume 20 and V olume 21 But even these two struggle due to their inordinate length; the double-album format is now standard in the series and it's heavy going when the picks are so hit and miss.

Then there are the spin-off series like Aria, Chillhouse, Chillwave and Dreams. Some of these are actually worth digging through - if you have the patience. Cafe Del Mar's musical legacy is problematic, given the insidious presence nowadays of bland "cafe music" in so many public spaces across the world, and not just in eating and drinking establishments.

What started as a fresh musical movement and one DJ seeking a way to make a living has been bleached white and corporatised many times over. Ambient strains of dance and pop music have been appropriated and turned into pure wallpaper and, like it or not, the catalyst was Cafe Del Mar's initial success.

More underground and credible strains of Balearic chillout still exist, of course, but the worst of the genre is what the mainstream mostly sees and hears. And yet In a way these sounds are the easy-listening "beautiful music" of the mid 20th century reborn for the 21st. Like the best instrumentals of Mantovini, Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins, the music emphasises melody, lushness and hi-fidelity sound.

It's immediately appealing and easy on the ear without the blandness, and it reveals depth and complexity for those who care to dig deeper. Back to A-Z Essential Albums index. The best Cafe Del Mar albums date mostly from DJ Jose Padilla's time as curator of the series and they remain essential snapshots of warm, tech-savvy, post-dance chillout music Each is spread over a wide, blissed-out canvas that's as bright as a sunny day. The Bruno years Padilla wrapped up his involvement with the original series in Legacy Cafe Del Mar's musical legacy is problematic, given the insidious presence nowadays of bland "cafe music" in so many public spaces across the world, and not just in eating and drinking establishments.