When you think of the Spanish island of Ibiza (apparently pronounced 'E-Beetha'), thanks to the likes of bad 'reality' television and Kevin and Perry Go Large you'll most likely have visions of hedonistic drugged-up Brits, DOOF music and vomit. At least Visions of Ibiza - Volume 1 avoids these in favour of a generally more earthy look at the isle.

Essentially a collection of random visions accompanied by a mix of modern day chill out music assembled by DJ Chris Coco, Visions of - Ibiza Volume 1 is just under an hour's worth of program that I'm still struggling a little to work out a use for. With the laidback vibe of most of the aural presentation it's hardly going to kick your party into full swing, and to sit down and simply watch it (at least without the addition of certain substances to your bloodstream) is pretty much an exercise in torture - I know, as I had to do it sans said substances. Perhaps it would be a good way to clear those last party stragglers out, or just pleasant background fodder for the next game of Scrabble?

Anyway, back to the vision. What's provided is a mix of computer generated imagery (you know the stuff, nondescript swirly things and globules dancing about), accompanied at varying times by vision of waves, people dancing trippily on beaches, rocks, waves, people swimming, more beaches, boats, birds, cacti, more waves, caves, roads, markets, cafes (including the Café Del Mar, which has spawned a series of CDs on its own), sunsets, even more waves and winged gold people playing with fire. Oh, did I mention the waves?

Musically we get a selection of 11 ambient-styled choons mixed together in one continuous blob, to be more precise they are...

If you didn’t quite get the vibe on offer here, I think those song titles should help somewhat.

Shot on video, some of the visuals here are quite stunning, with much lovely use of colour both natural and otherwise, nice contrast and various effects often adding pleasantly to the experience. But then there's the stuff that looks like Shazza and Craig took the handheld Sony down to the market, which kind of kills the mood a bit. There are some frighteningly obvious examples of that Lego-esque block effect at times, and whoever did the computer graphics seemingly forgot to set anti-aliasing to 'on', however facing facts this isn’t really the kind of disc you sit down to watch like a hawk and worry about every single minor blotch that shows up.

Sonically there's a choice of Dolby Stereo or 5.1, the latter in particular proving quite impressive. Being an essentially DOOFless affair the subwoofwoof doesn’t see any Thomastown-styled Commodore type action, but it is used to nice effect on occasions. The infinite amount of swirly sounds on hand get some lovely surround treatment, and I can only presume that if you're coming down after a rather big night dancing in a forest somewhere or whatever this could very well be quite the wonderful experience.

There's a decent selection of extras for a music disc. The most impressive of all is an entire CD featuring the DVD soundtrack, with the addition of two songs, Arapapa by Bliss and Shrift by Airlock, bringing the running time up to around 70 minutes. Whilst I didn’t go out in my faithful Starlet for a cruise with this blaring from all two speakers (sob!), I can see it quite possibly working better as a music disc than a visual presentation. And who knows? Being so chilled out it may be a way of avoiding some road rage - maybe this disc could be packaged as a standard feature with all new Falcons?

Next up is an interview with DJ Chris Coco, running for just under ten minutes we get some behind the scenes vision (which is infinitely more pleasant to look at than his face, sunnies or no sunnies), as he waxes lyrical about the project, the spirit of Ibiza, and how sunsets make you want to hug people. Silly me, I always thought it was the 'E' that did that!

Rounding out the package is a three minute feature entitled The Big Blue, and guess what? It's more bloody waves! Still, this is rather pleasant, as accompanying the undulating visuals is a quite beautiful mix of wave sounds, incredibly enveloping and if popped onto loop play I daresay fabulous company for your next massage. There's also a nicely presented 12-page booklet sandwiched in the middle of the single-sized, double disc carrying package, offering one person's perspective of Ibiza, quotes, credits, a track-listing and advertisements for more product.

Finally there's a couple of plugs for other D rom releases of DVD and CD sets in this series, Visions of Ibiza - Volume 2 and The UK Garage Project. Both have brief samples of what's on offer (basically more computer graphics) that end rather abruptly (damn, you killed my vibe man!). For those who may be wondering, 'garage' is a genre of music, so the latter disc has nothing at all to do with home improvement.

Certain to be welcomed with open (swaying) arms by some, if nothing else this disc offers proof that the hippie movement never died, it just toddled off to Ibiza and discovered technology...