Island

Early in 2014, Copenhagen's Kenneth Bager asked electronic wizard and remix entrepreneur Ruf Dug if he would make an album for his acclaimed Balearic imprint Music For Dreams. That summer, Ruf Dug headed off to spend three months on the island of Guadeloupe in the French Caribbean. Seizing the opportunity to live out his own Compass Point fantasy, he put together a portable studio that would fit into a suitcase - two half-rack synthesizers, a couple of effects units, his laptop and a 4-track cassette recorder. He set up the studio in the spare bedroom in a rented villa and spent the next 12 weeks watching the sun set and making the album. All tracks were written and recorded in Guadeloupe, with Nev Cottee beaming in vocals and guitar parts for a couple of the tracks direct from the heart of Mancunia, hooking into the powerful and long-standing musical relationship between Manchester and that most famous of sunset islands - Ibiza. This is music not only for sunsets, but also for late-night smuggling adventures; for tropical storms and rum-soaked afternoons; for pirates, playboys and people like you and me. The end result hopefully transports you to an island in the sun: neither Guadeloupe nor Ibiza particularly, but rather that island of the imagination, one we all escape to from time to time, no matter where we find ourselves. Welcome to 'Island' - the nine track debut album by Ruf Dug on Copenhagen's Music For Dreams.