Various Artists - 'Ibiza: The Sound of Renaissance Vol. 3' (Renaissance) Released 31/07/06

Ibiza. Since the early Nineties the very name of the White Isle has been mindlessly used exploited to help shift units. While occasionally there are mix albums that do justice to the ambience and divergent sounds of the Balearic heaven, unfortunately for the most part we’re given diluted, cheesy farces from such perennial offenders as Ministry of Sound and that cunt Judge Jules. Thankfully, once again, Renaissance have come up trumps with the third instalment of their Ibiza series.

Split into two separate mixes, ‘Beach’ represents those hazy daytime sounds, while ‘Club’ offers an eclectic foray into the sounds of the house driven Renaissance night at Pacha. Rather inspiringly, the man at the helm of the opening mix is Pete Gooding, the man who’s soundtracked thousands of sunsets at the famous Mambo beach bar. His choice of tuneage drifts from the string-laden gems (4 Hero’s ‘Conception’) gorgeous breathy numbers (Granddad Bob’s ‘Hide Me’), funky oddities (Blaze’s ‘I Think Of You’) to stone cold, irrefutable electronic classics (Orbital’s ‘Belfast’). Never commercial or clichéd it’s a spine tingling collection peppered with gems. Christ, even a remix of David Gray manages to sound transcendental. The kind of collection that should be prescribed to those fried, serotonin depleted heads of the day after by Doctor’s orders. 

Naturally upping the ante, ‘Club’ once again abandons any commercialism in favour of giving us a true representation of a teeth-clenching night out at P acha. Staring off subdued with the likes of the lovely Phonique interpretation of Skye’s ‘What’s Wrong With Me’ and the bleep fest that is Claude Von Stoke’s ‘Who’s Afraid of Detroit?’, it’s later on that the mix shines and gathers substance. Kick started by Last Rhythm’s eponymous abrasive tech-house number, it’s a powerhouse taking in James Zabiela’s weird ‘Weird Science’ the pummelling ‘Hairy Hits’ by Montero and the sheer genius that is ‘Discopolis’ by Lifelike & Kris Menace. Despite trailing off slightly at the end, this is still pretty top notch stuff.