FAINT WAVES

Unsung Balearic hero The Sun Lounge has been quietly writing about, reviewing, and cataloging music releases for years. The Sun Lounge (or Octagon Eyes, as I’ve come to know him) has covered both physical and digital music but specializes in vinyl and tape releases. He uses the descriptors  “Psychedelic, Balearic, Ambient, and Rave”, against a lovely Hiroshi Nagai backdrop, to sum up his extensive library of posts. It casts an appropriately wide net, as the breadth of his musical coverage is expansive, even within the aforementioned confines. 

I first discovered this recreational collector, archivist, and writer many years ago. I believe it was less than a year after he started The Sun Lounge in 2017. I actually had to look back on his posts and our earliest interactions to get a general sense of when I first found The Sun Lounge. The exact means by which I found him, I’m unsure at this point, but I have no doubt it was in his covering and collecting of the eclectic and Balearic that I stumbled upon his many reviews and write-ups. We seemed to be disparate parts of the same world, connected through the music.

Likely from a fellow artist I had been following whom he covered, I had found someone who liked and wrote about the acts and labels I had been following closely on Facebook, SoundCloud, and Bandcamp at the time—acts like Psychemagik, Blank & Jones, Joe Morris, Sorcerer, Max Essa, Private Agenda, and Seahawks, to name a few. While also covering legacy acts such as Tears for Fears, Laraaji, Clive Stevens, and even Hawkwind. It was kismet, which is probably why we ended up getting to know one another a bit and talking music quite a bit over the years too. 

I may be biased, as my own work has been reviewed and (exceptionally) covered a couple times within the archive, but it’s irrefutable the magic and magnitude of what has been catalogued on this small corner of the internet. Whether singular write-ups or year-in-review style articles; The Sun Lounge was and still is a haven for music discovery and, in my opinion, has carved out a place in the annals of Balearic history. I can’t think of anything more “Balearic” as it were, than the coverage of the new and old, the strange and abstract, the dreamy and ethereal, and the deep and clubby.

While his last Tumblr post is from 2022, he’s taken to Twitter and Instagram in more recent history to share bits of his collection in a similar fashion. A recent highlight for me was a post featuring his tape of Morning Dove White by One Dove (a great record), with a reply describing the Guitar Paradise mix of “White Love” as “one of his favorite guitar tracks.” He provides a nicely staged photo and shares a few concise words along the way. The medium may have changed, but the man and the magic have not. I’m happy to have found The Sun Lounge, to be part of his extensive musical archive, and to call him a friend of mine. Here’s to 5+ years of Sun Lounge and of knowing you, pal.

~FW.

You can find The Sun Lounge on Tumblr and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.