Mark Barrott – Everything Changes, Nothing Ends (2023)
By Rafi Mercer
There are albums that feel like postcards from another place, and there are albums that become the place itself. Mark Barrott’s Everything Changes, Nothing Ends, released in 2023, belongs firmly in the latter camp. Known for his Balearic productions, his role in founding the International Feel label, and his ability to conjure soundscapes that feel both intimate and expansive, Barrott here delivers a record that is more than music. It is atmosphere sculpted into permanence.
The title alone sets the tone: change and continuity, flux and stillness, endings that are never final. Listening to this album is to enter a philosophy of sound where time moves differently, where rhythms are slower, horizons wider. It is not music that demands; it is music that allows, and in that allowance, it becomes profound.
The opening tracks shimmer like heat on water. Synths glisten, pads swell and recede, motifs emerge and dissolve. Barrott has always had a gift for restraint — never cluttering his arrangements, never forcing resolution. Instead, he lets sounds breathe, trusting in repetition and subtle evolution. The result is music that feels both infinite and fragile, like the play of light at sunset. On vinyl, these textures bloom with particular warmth, the low end pulsing softly, the highs glinting like glass.
As the record unfolds, you begin to notice its architecture. Each track feels like a room in the same house, different in mood yet part of a whole. One might be built on a gentle arpeggio, another on a slowly unfurling chord progression, another on a rhythmic pulse that suggests movement without insisting on it. The continuity lies not in hooks but in atmosphere. This is music that makes space for thought, for reflection, for stillness.
What is remarkable is how Barrott manages to avoid cliché. Balearic music has often been reduced to sun-drenched escapism, pleasant but shallow. Everything Changes, Nothing Ends has depth. It acknowledges light but also shadow, joy but also melancholy. The beauty here is tinged with awareness that nothing lasts, that all is passing. Yet rather than despair, the record radiates acceptance. It is the sound of learning to live with impermanence.
In a listening bar, the album is transformative. Drop the needle and conversations soften, the room shifts. It doesn’t dominate, it recalibrates. Listeners find themselves breathing more slowly, noticing details — the shimmer of a synth tail, the resonance of a chord, the way silence becomes part of the composition. This is music that works not by command but by invitation. It does not insist you listen; it makes listening irresistible.
On a high-fidelity system, the details are endless. The sub-bass is present but never heavy, grounding without intruding. The midrange is lush, carrying the warmth of synths and pads with fullness. The treble sparkles without sharpness, like light filtered through mist. You hear the care in the production — every sound placed with precision, every texture shaped to fit the whole. This is an album that tests not the limits of a system but its ability to reveal nuance, to hold space without collapsing.
The emotional core of the record lies in its balance between intimacy and expanse. At times, it feels like music for solitude — the kind of album you put on late at night, headphones on, letting thought dissolve into atmosphere. At other times, it feels communal, a soundtrack for shared silence, for moments when people gather not to talk but to be together. In both settings, it delivers the same gift: presence.
There is a track midway through the album where everything seems to pause, a drone hovering, faint melodic fragments drifting. It feels almost static, but within that stasis is movement: overtones shifting, harmonics colliding, silence shaping sound. It is as if Barrott is reminding us that change and stillness are not opposites but twins. Everything changes, yes, but nothing ends. The music holds both truths at once.
By the time the record closes, you feel altered. Not in the way a dramatic symphony alters, not in the way a dance track propels, but in a subtler, deeper way. You feel steadied. The noise of the world recedes, and in its place is clarity, acceptance, calm. Few albums achieve this effect. Everything Changes, Nothing Ends does so with humility, with precision, with love.
For listening culture, this album is significant. It shows that ambient and Balearic music, when treated with seriousness, can stand alongside jazz, classical, and experimental forms as art for deep listening. It proves that sound designed for relaxation can also hold depth, that beauty can carry philosophy. In the canon of albums that transform rooms rather than simply fill them, this one deserves a place.
On a Sunday, it feels especially apt. It carries the stillness of morning, the reflection of afternoon, the glow of evening. It is not background; it is foreground disguised as atmosphere. It teaches you to notice, to slow down, to accept. It is music not for distraction but for presence.
Mark Barrott has always understood that sound can be more than entertainment. Here, he proves it again. Everything Changes, Nothing Ends is not just an album. It is a practice, a philosophy, a way of listening to the world. Drop the needle and you enter its truth: everything changes, nothing ends.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
