May 2014

  • Man, my urge to rock out lately has been close to nil. As much as I love it, a lot of it just seems so out of place to play right now. I’ve been more into laid-back and dance oriented tunes lately. I guess, the best thing to do is roll with this urge and…

  • Track of the Day: I didn’t get to this track during my party track rundown, but that’s ok, this great b-side is in its own way kind of special. From Tulsa, Oklahoma’s greatest band, the Gap Band, comes this wonderfully blooming ballad. Released on The Gap Band IV album, a great album itself full of hits like “Outstanding”,…

  • It’s been a long while since I’ve posted a Jamaican track. Well, this one is a truly great track. The Upsetter’s “Zion’s Blood” in many ways is the clarion call for all dub musicians. Lee “Scratch” Perry’s signature style is already in full bloom here, while the Upsetters perfectly marshall their talent into a mystical…

  • Nick Drake’s “Hazey Jane I” will always be the track that I hold closest to my head and heart. The older I get, the more its personal meaning keeps shifting its shape allowing me to understand my own sentiments. There are times when I feel the sadness in it, or when I feel the bracing…

  • The Memorial Day weekend is almost over. This is a great track to ease out of it. Who knew that a bunch of British funksters, who probably never traveled to the South, could capture the feel of a southern breeze. Freeez’s “Southern Freeez” is the perfect middle point between West Coast R&B and early British…

  • This party track I absolutely love. Rick James’s “Ghetto Life” hits you both in the booty and noodle. The booty can’t resist Rick’s ultra nasty syncopating groove. Then the mind, especially for someone like me raised in the ghetto, gets moved by Rick’s surprisingly honest and absolutely enlightening verses. Rick for all his negative aspects…

  • Track of the Day: When this party track hits, it hits hard (actual song starts at 1:30min mark). Cherelle’s “Saturday Love” produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis was a dry run for the beat driven R&B they introduced in Janet Jackson’s Control. Such a brilliant rhythm track, so spare at various strategic points, essentially…

  • Now this is an elemental track, the kind you put after a real banger like yesterday’s. Who’s Who “Hypnodance”, released in 1979 off of Palace Palace, is just a churning mystical slice of French space disco. Simply try resisting the groove. Resistance is futile. The track’s got you hooked. Just an interesting side note the…

  • Heatwave’s “The Groove Line” released in 1978 on the Central Heating album is just one mighty piece of rhythm. Its one of the best odes to just giving yourself up to the dance. Rod Temperton, from the decidedly unfunky English town of Cleethorpes, conceived and produced this groove a year before he was recruited by…

  • The party tracks continue. Roger Troutman, talk box/vocoder and guitar player extraordinaire, posits one serious statement for any partier: how much bounce is in your ounce? I have good reason to believe that the more you play Zapp’s “More Bounce to the Ounce” the more bounce you get to your ounce. In terms of party…

ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic