Balearica Discodelica

For no other reason than it's Thursday when I thought it was Friday, a six-song selection of choice Cosmodelica cuts, courtesy of Colleen Murphy.

The half dozen versions span one of her earliest excursions in 2009 through to a red hot remix of a 70s classic, released a couple of weeks ago, touching on multiple points of excellence along the way. 

I haven't yet heard Colleen's take on The Cure from their recently released Mixes From A Lost World album, but I'm confident that it will have turned Robert Smith's frown upside down!

1) Stop Apologising (Cosmodelica Extended Mix): David Holmes ft. Raven Violet (2024)

2) God Gets A Little Busy Sometimes (Cosmodelica Remix): Izo FitzRoy (2023)

3) Holiday Romance (Cosmodelica Holiday Drama Mix): Detachments (2010)

4) I Wanna Get Over (Cosmodelica Remix): Street People (2025)

5) When The Rain Falls (Cosmodelica Remix): Horace Andy & Ashley Beedle (2009)

6) Berlin (Cosmodelica Remix): A Certain Ratio (2021)

Balearica Discodelica (45:14) (Mega)

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the usual second link to KrakenFiles is absent. This is what happened when I tried to log in this morning:

I will look for an alternative: Box has been a pain in the arse previously and other blogging buddies seem to lean towards GoogleDrive or DropBox, so I will have a secondary link up and running from the weekend.

Songs For A Friend I've Never Met

Sending love, strength and best wishes.

1) Pray For Me (Acts Of Faith: Act 9, Part 1): SAULT

2) Hello My Friends (Part 2): Hardway Bros ft. Roses Sabra

3) Joyness Magnificent (We'll Find The Light Together) (Live): 100 Poems

4) Loved: Four Tet

5) Pass A Wish (Single Version): Pandit Pam Pam

6) Lovely Day (Cover of Bill Withers): Pepe Link

7) Moving Forward (Cosmodelica Remix - Full Length): Bryony Jarman-Pinto

Songs For A Friend I've Never Met (37:25) (KF) (Mega)

Fight For The Edge Of A Notion, A Notion To Be Free

Bryony Jarman-Pinto is an artist that I've stumbled across in an online search for another artist. 

In this case, I was tracking remixes by Colleen Murphy aka Cosmodelica, someone else I've discovered belatedly and have been attempting to catch up with since. My search led me to the Cosmodelica remix of Bryony's song Moving Forward, released as a single in July.

It's a wonderfully uplifting song, uniting Bryony's jazzy vocals with Colleen's Studio 54-inspired disco dynamics. Better still, it comes in three versions: an eight and a half minute vocal, a radio edit and a full length instrumental. 

More recently, Bryony marked Hallowe'en with Willow (Birch Community Mix), a reworking of another song from her second album, Below Dawn. This remix sees Bryony reunited with childhood friend Tom Leah aka Werkha, who produced her debut album and currently performs in her live band. 

Swiss Adam may be particularly interested to note that the remix is named after Birch Community Centre in Manchester, which Werkha lived next to growing up, going there for after-school club jam sandwiches. Again, this tribute comes in full vocal, clean edit and instrumental variations.

I've cherry picked a few other top drawer remixes from Bryony's catalogue, including Dego aka Dennis McFarlane (4Hero), Wu-Lu aka Miles Romans Hopcraft and Wonky Logic aka Dwayne Kilvington, plus an older collaboration with Werkha from 2015. 

Sour Face (dego Remix) (2020)

Sweet Sweet (Wu-Lu Remix) (2019)

Dusk (Single Version): Werkha ft. Bryony Jarman-Pinto (2015)

All About Life (Wonky Logic Remix) (2019)

The post is topped and tailed with 2019 single Saffron Yellow, which also provides today's title lyric. As well as a remix by Jesse Fischer, Saffron Yellow follows the singles format trend of additionally offering up a radio edit or a capella and an instrumental. 

Smooth and groovy? Yes, please!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Am Not Unconscious, I Am Wide Awake

David Holmes and Raven Violet are back with a new single, Stop Apologising, less than a month after their previous release, Necessary Genius.

 

Stop Apologising is a pulsing, electro glam rock stomp, a 2020s relative of Goldfrapp's Ooh La La. The radio edit is a stripped back affair, lyrically pared down to a singular chorus cycle

 

Stop apologising 

For the things you’ve never done 

Stop catastrophizing 

Get your feet back on the ground 

Intoxicating promises 

Losing touch with my own mind 

I am not unconscious, I am wide awake 

And not so blind

 

The single offers up the full length version plus a pair of remixes (vocal and instrumental) each from Horse Meat Disco and Cosmodelica. The former push the Giorgio Moroder needle into the red, upping the tempo and creating an insistent, throbbing dancefloor pulse with stabbing keyboard chords and an additional verse to boot

 

Before I die 

I wanna know that I have lived 

So I called the locksmith 

He did the best with what he had 

He helped me deal with things 

I did not understand 

Cautionary mycology 

Now putty in my hands 

Colleen Murphy's remixes pull the song and stretch it into elastic funk, the underpinning bassline immediately reminding me of the CSS remix of Office Boy by Bonde Do Role from 2007. The Cosmodelica remix takes things further, with rising waves of synths crashing over funky guitar licks and Raven's vocals. Right now, impossible to pick a favourite, they're all excellent.

For added enjoyment/nostalgia value, the accompanying video for Stop Apologising looks like it was created on a ZX81. Wow and then wow.

 

Necessary Genius is also a superb single, one that evokes the sound and feel of Holmes' previous album The Holy Pictures and particularly the Andrew Weatherall remix of I Feel Wonders. Raven runs through a call list of "dreamers, misfits, radicals, outcasts", name checking Angela Davis, Tony Wilson, Nina Simone, Lord Sabre and the recently departed, deeply missed Sinéad O'Connor. 

The digital release is a bumper package with seven additional remixes from Skymas, Decius, Phil Kieran (vocal and dub versions), Robin Wylie and two 'Dub And Response' reworks from Andrew Hogge aka Lovefingers at 142 and 130 bpm respectively. All are worth your time and your money.

 

All of this is a precursor to the release of David Holmes' fifth album (ignoring his numerous film and TV soundtracks), Blind On A Galloping Horse, on 10th November. 

 

In addition to Raven Violet's contrbution throughout, "there are spoken word accounts from Afghan and Ukrainian refugees now welcomed as residents in Belfast, alongside a Palestinian ambulance driver and French and Irish observers of the UK’s turmoil of recent years. Their voices add to the feeling that this record is a call to action, a motivation and a head clearing, slate wiping journey."

 

On the strength of these two songs, the inclusion of previous singles Hope Is The Last Thing To Die and It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love in updated versions and the promise of Holmes' recording of an unreleased Andrew Weatherall song called I Laugh Myself To Sleep, Blind On A Galloping Horse is a surefire contender for my (very long) list of album highlights of 2023.

Blind On A Galloping Horse is available for pre-order in physical and digital formats right now from the usual suspects. I was going to add it to my Christmas list but I just couldn't wait.

Alien Feelings

After her stellar performance at Glastonbury, time to spotlight my favourite dancefloor diva. Diana Ross? Sod that, it's Róisín Murphy.

 

Bless the BBC and their Glastonbury coverage. Having the iPlayer app means that I've been able to dip in and out of the festival over the weekend and I can continue to do over the next week. It's absolutely not the same as being at a festival but some artists really pull out all the stops to provide the audience in the field and at home. 

 

Róisín kicked off her set like it was one of those Top Of The Pops "live across the Atlantic" performances that they featured in the early 2000s, backstage, travelling band walking behind her as she launched into a version of Moloko's Fun For Me. Even when Róisín arrived on stage, her eyes and performance were locked on the people at home, detracting attention from the band taking up position behind their kit. And then, as it remembering the thousands of people right there with her, Róisín skipped to the front of the stage to complete the song.

With as many costume (or accessory) changes as there were songs, it's an hour and half of pent up joy, finally released to an appreciate audience. Even on a Sunday night, sitting shattered on a sofa (try saying that ten times in quick succession), I felt my energy levels and sense of well-being rising.

 

In an amateur attempt to recapture that sense of euphoria and forestall the reality of a Monday back at work, today's selection features Róisín Murphy in uptempo mode, from (I think) her first solo outing before Moloko split covering Pulp to remixes from the superb lockdown panacea, 2020's Róisín Machine. What an absolute legend.

Oh, and early love and best wishes for Róisín's birthday next Tuesday, 5th July.

 

1) Sorted? (Cover of 'Sorted For E's & Whizz' by Pulp) (2002)

2) Murphy's Law (Cosmodelica Remix) (Full Length) (2020)

3) Sow Into You (Bugz In The Attic Remix) (2005)

4) Movie Star (Sam & Di Angelis 'For Jodie Harsh' Remix) (2008)

5) Unputdownable (Prosumer Remix) (2015)

6) Slave To Love (Single Version) (Cover of Bryan Ferry) (2008)

7) If We're In Love (Matthew Herbert's Lovers Remix) (2005)

8) Evil Eyes (Hercules & Love Affair Remix) (2015)

9) Primitive (Album Version) (2007)

10) Incapable (The Reflex Re√ision) (2021)

11) Overpowered (Kris Menace Remix) (2007)

12) In Sintesi (Psychemagik Remix) (2014)

Alien Feelings (1:11:00) (Box) (Mega)