Belle Isle Balearic aka Rocksteady Disco aka Peter Croce and Blair French played a magic hour from a rooftop in downtown Detroit, for The Chill Out Tent – Around The World. As the sun dipped and helicopters tracking the Black Lives Matter protests swooped overhead they weaved together a back to back set of brilliant Balearic beauties. It’s now available as a limited cassette only release on their Bandcamp page 

‘One of the things we miss the most about pandemic-induced-lockdown times is how fewer “music-makes-the-world-feel-smaller” moments I have. Chat rooms and connecting with old friends is wonderful and I’m so grateful for that. But making new friends traveling through Detroit or making friends on my own travels is one of the greatest perks of the job.

But 2020’s Summer Solstice created those serendipitous beloved community moments again thanks to The Chill Out Tent. Phat Phil and Chris Coco orchestrated an around the world sunset tour to celebrate the solstice, with a heavy lineup to boot. The joy started the Monday before, when we filmed with Christian Lathers, Corey Boland, and Gene Wilson. Amy Kaherl saved the day by providing a perfect location to film— flanked by the buildings that HQ Underground Resistance, Kenny Dixon Jr, Dirt Tech Reck, & and the former Fit building. Heavy vibes.

Blair & I plugged in the CDJs, E&S, and a delay pedal while our crew setup their battery of cameras. We started playing some mood music, cracked some Labatts, and waited for the sun to set just a little lower before we pressed record. Once the sun was in position we were off. Despite not playing together for months Blair and I gelled right back into our yin & yang selves.

We traversed the globe musically, from Benin to London to Belgium to Chicago to Norway and of course Detroit. We played some exclusive edits and unreleased tunes just for the set. A deeply spiritual highlight was playing Island Times’s unreleased Acoustic mix of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”, less than a mile from the Motown HQ while police helicopters flew overhead to track the protestors.

Massive love to Phat Phil, Chris Coco, Amy Kaherl, Christian Lathers, Corey Boland, Gene Wilson, Blair French, the producers of the music we played, and everyone who shared so much love with us in the chat room.

Enjoy the mix for free and cop the cassette if you dig it. $4 of each cassette purchase will go towards the Detroit Justice Center for Black Lives Matter. ‘