Love for Gooding Coco

Thomas H Green says this at theartsdesk.com.

Pete Gooding and Chris Coco featuring Peter Coyle, Believe (Nang)

For the sake of full disclosure I should say that I have known DJ-producer Chris Coco for many years. He used to be my boss, once upon a time, and I have a hefty affection for him. I should also point out, though, that I have never consequently felt duty bound to rave about his musical output. Indeed, I was not very keen in print on his band City Reverb. Chris is Mr Balearic as is his pal, the Ibiza-bound DJ Pete Gooding. Balearic, as a musical mood, can often be a recipe for disaster, a beachside guilty-pleasures party where, God help us, Chris Rea and Phil Collins are suddenly cool. With “Believe”, however, the duo have created a bona fide Balearic pop classic, harking back to the early-Nineties Ibiza golden age of songs such as A Man Called Adam’s “Barefoot in the Head”. It’s loping golden-sunshine music, lazy and lovely, with a drowsy vocal by Peter Coyle who was briefly an Eighties pop star as half of the Lotus Eaters (anyone remember “The First Picture of You”?). There are mixes, of which the spaced breakbeat of Russian producer Volta Cab is the best, but the original captures an ecstastic chilled glow that’s seldom been nailed so deliciously in recent years. (THG)