Staring Into Air

Time for another round up of tunes and beats that have been lodged in my brain this year.

A brisk run through of seven songs in forty-four minutes, some tracks featured previously albeit in different mixes, some more recently purchased, all pressing my buttons.

If you like what you hear, go buy! Links below.

Happy Friday, everyone!

1) Little Fluffy Clouds (Ambience Of Coconut Mix): The Orb (Feed Your Head! The Second Course: 15 Mind Altering Classics (Mojo magazine promo CD))

2) Like Fire (The Machine Soul Morning Chord Mix By Robert Folkesson): Airsine (Like Fire EP)

3) KGLW (GIFT Remix) Pt. 3: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (KGLW (GIFT Extended Rave Remix) EP)

4) Field Of Dreams (Rude Audio Remix By Mark Ratcliff): Hugo Nicolson (Field Of Dreams EP)

5) Mystery (Dub Mix): Kapote ft. Guinny (Mystery EP)

6) Love Filter (Strings Of Love): Kito Jempere (New Life EP)

7) Lazy Arc One (Rework By Gaudi): Roedelius, Story, Gaudi (Lazy Arc One EP)

Staring Into Air (44:17) (GD) (M)

Seven Sleeps To Go

Never one to shy away from shoehorning in a theme, however tenuous the link, here are some 2024 releases relating to sleep.

Peirons has remixed Eels' 2004 song I Need Some Sleep, mashing it with a video edit of Steve Cutts' 2017 animated short Happiness (you can see the original version here), adding some Italian rapping (presumably his own) over the top. I love it all.

There was a time when I would buy anything that had Moby's name on, whether his own albums or singles, or his remixes for everyone from The B-52's to Metallica, Aerosmith to O.M.D. That time is long past, but I do occasionally dip into his new releases.

Moby's umpteenth album, Always Centered At Night, came out in June. I referenced it in a post about lead-in single Dark Days back in March...and then it completely passed me by. 

An album of remixes - 58 of them! - has emerged this month, good value at $25 but again not on my essential purchase list. However, Prins Thomas offers up a couple of remixes of Should Sleep which I was immediately drawn to.

The 5-minute Diskomix appeared on a previous single release, but this is the first time I've heard the 9-minute Extended Mix and it's the pick of the two for me. Both feature J.P. Bimeni's vocals left pretty much intact and used to great effect. 

Several tracks from Kito Jempere aka Kirill Sergeev's Part Time Chaos Part Time Calmness have featured in previous posts and selections. The album has marked an evolution in the Russian's musical journey, moving away from the house music that established him into a much broader span of styles and genres. Sleeping With The TV On is more of a jump than a (quantum) leap, but it's an intriguing 4 minutes of samples and beats.

Branching out from Rheinzand, hubby and wife duo Charlotte & Reinhard dropped the Guardian Of Sleep EP as a prescursor to a full length album. Sensuous, sexy disco... it ticks all the boxes.

 

Sensuous, sexy disco is not a phrase that you would use to describe a song by Field Music and I'm not about to start now. However, they've got a song called The Guardian Of Sleep which appeared on their latest album Levels Of Language in October. And it's one of their funkier ones, for sure. That bassline!

 

Another artist that I've revisited this year via a new album is Denmark's finest, Hess Is More. The album CÆKE is a sparse, minmalist treat, packed with melodies and nonchalant vocals, and Are You Sleeping is a prime example. Difficult to resist humming or whistling along to any of these, which is recommendation enough, surely?

But for those of you who can't sleep, rest assured that pretty much every week of the year, some have-a-go, would-be superstar DJ will post yet another remix of Insomnia by Faithless.

December's offering is by DJ Coruja from Brazil. Whereas most contemporary remixers seem obsessed with upping the BPMs, dropping 'mad' breaks and adding far too many bells, whistles and parps than the brain can hope to process, this one happily goes the other way. 

Lifting an electro rhythm - I'd like to say with confidence that it's Scorpio by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, but I'm not sure - the rest is positively restrained and, better still, complements Maxi Jazz's sublime vocal delivery throughout. At 11 minutes, it's more than a match for the original version and might be a tad too long, but it's head and shoulders above any of the other efforts that I've heard this year.

A Song For You

Another selection of 2024 highlights, the theme being names in song titles.

 

Many of the usual suspects - Barry Adamson, Momus, Julian Cope, HANN - and a couple appearing here for the first time, with 100 Poems (aka Mike Wilson) and Mat Ducasse (best known to me for his work with Skylab). 

 

A Man Called Adam originally released Estelle in 1998 and it reappeared again this year with some new versions and contemporary remixes that had been gathering dust in a box for decades. I've included the traditional 7" version here, a reminder of summers past and the summer that never quite materialised here in 2024.

Another 'comeback' of sorts was China Crisis, who revisited their back catalogue with lush orchestral arrangements, a common practice these days perhaps, but not always successful. No such worry here though, China Greatness is a delight. A second CD supplied alternative mixes of the album tracks, including Christian, which closes today's selection.

I'll be coming back to some of the artists featured here over the next week, to wax lyrical about their respective albums. Gosh, it's been a good year, musically speaking.

 

1) Amen White Jesus: Barry Adamson (Cut To Black)

2) Trump: Momus (20 Frisky Whiskies)

3) Iris: Future Islands (People Who Aren’t There Anymore)

4) Estelle (7 Inch Edit): A Man Called Adam (Estelle EP)

5) Four Jehovahs In A Volvo Estate: Julian Cope (Friar Tuck)

6) Song For Claire (Your Life Is Your Life) (Album Version): 100 Poems (Balearic As A System Of Belief)

7) Rebecca's Desk: Xan Tyler (Holding Up Half The Sky)

8) Reka: Kito Jempere ft. Moral Kiosk & LINAMARI (Part Time Chaos Part Time Calmness)

9) Steve: Billy Reeves (Steve (A Weekend In Egham, 1996))

10) This Is Liam: HANN (Forever In A Glance)

11) Song For David (Single Version): Mat Ducasse (Song For David EP)

12) Christian (WW1 Mix): China Crisis (China Greatness)

A Song For You (47:30) (KF) (Mega)

What Will I Do Without The Weight Of You?

Today's selection is inadvertently a dozen highlights from 2024, connected simply by virtue of incredible voices.

 

All of the albums, EPs and one-offs deserve a post in their own right, but suffice to say here that every single one is worth tracking down. It's been an embarrassment of riches these past twelve months, without a doubt.

 

Many of the artists here have become firm favourites thanks to the discerning taste and recommendations of my fellow travellers in the blogosphere. A shout out therefore for the following: HANN (C @ Sun Dried Sparrows), Humanist (Mike @ well, here pretty often), Nana Benz Du Togo (Ernie @ 27 Leggies) and Acid Klaus (Swiss Adam @ Bagging Area). Legends, all of you!

There's a connection to my birthplace Bristol, too, as three of the artists are based there: Emily Breeze, tor aka Tor Maries aka Billy Nomates and Katy J Pearson. I've been fortunate to see Emily and Katy live in concert. I was hoping to see Tor perform an intimate hometown gig last week at the wonderful Strange Brew, but unfortunately couldn't make it. One day, one day...

 

It was hard to narrow this selection down to a mere twelve, given the quality and quantity of great music. Criminal omissions include albums from Beth Gibbons, Ibibio Sound Machine, Isobel Campbell, Jane Weaver, Jo Bartlett, Sam Morton, Starless and Xan Tyler, and many more singles and EPs. Needless to say, I'm already thinking of a companion selection...

For today though, enjoy the next three quarters of an hour of subllime sounds.

1) Shade To The Sunshine: HANN (Forever In A Glance)

2) When I Look At You: Gates Of Light (Gates Of Light II)

3) Love You More: Humanist ft. Isobel Campbell (On The Edge Of A Lost And Lonely World)

4) Wicked Game (Cover of Chris Isaak): The Anchoress (Versions: Encore EP)*

5) Graceland (Single Version) (Cover of Paul Simon): Emily Breeze (Second Rodeo EP)

6) Tite (Kiledjian 'The Womb' Remix): Nana Benz Du Togo (Tite (Kiledjian Remixes) EP)

7) Aerodromes (Single Version): Acid Klaus ft. Philly Piper (P.T.S.D By Proxy EP)

8) Trance Stance (Single Version): Electric Blue Vision (Trance Stance EP)

9) wwid: tor (wwid EP)

10) In The Countryside: Kito Jempere ft. Lena Tronina (Part Time Chaos Part Time Calmness)

11) Sylvia (Album Version): Lisa Moorish (Divine Chaos)

12) Sky: Katy J Pearson (Someday, Now)

What Will I Do Without The Weight Of You? (44:40) (KF) (Mega)

* Yes, I know that Catherine Anne Davies originally recorded and released Wicked Game as a standalone single during lockdown in 2020. However, the song received it's first physical release at the weekend, on the 6-track Versions: Encore, a limited edition of 500 12" EPs on eco-vinyl. Each 12" is manufactured from leftover wax pellets, resulting in a completely unique colour combination, and hand signed by Catherine. But hurry up, only 17 left at the time of this posting!