I love music that plays somewhere in that glitterball-lit realm between disco, house, dub, funk, rock 'n roll, and pop. This site will host mixes I've made and songs I like that dance across the genres. Let me know what you think. And if you've got a party or night you'd like moving to this sound, drop me a line on rorychallands (at) gmail (dot) com.
So do you have a nice log fire ready? Are you wearing your advanced Norwegian knitwear? Well get cracking, people, because the Cold Comforts Mix Pt 2 is a toasty treat.
This collection puts the emotional and the lovelorn before the hedonistic. It turns down the disco, and turns up the swoon. Sure, you'll find some rave here, but it's raving with an ache in the heart. This is the most varied mix I've done for a while. It's also the one I've been most excited about for a goodly time too.
I'm a total Björk fan boy. I'm not sure there are many musical geniuses left these days, but I know she's one of them. Fact. So I've kicked off with the gorgeous It's Not Up To You of her Vespertine album. Then there's a nod to dubstep with the so-hottt-right-now combo of The XX and Joy Orbison. Mmmm... bass. If there's one tune I just can't stop listening to at the moment it's Randy Crawford's early 80s smooth soul classic, You Might Need Somebody. So you get that and a super-sensual dollop of JJ Cale too. Then it's back to the dance floor. Tensnake's Congolal is a wonderful bit of romantic instrumental electro-funk, full of yearning synths and slap bass. And then there's Four Tet. Love Cry is his latest record and it's deep and hypnotic, and I can't praise it enough. Four Tet's done some great stuff over the past decade, but this is possibly his best. And to wrap things up there's a righteous dubby version of Yazz's Fine Time.
Tracklisting: Björk - It's Not Up To You, Florence & The Machine - You've Got The Love (The XX remix), José James - Black Magic (Joy Orbison's recreation), Rubies - Diamonds On Fire (Pyramid Dub Version), Blaze - Lovelee Day (20:20 Soundsystem remix), Mayer Hawthorne - Green Eyed Love (Classixx remix), Randy Crawford - You Might Need Somebody, Social Disco Club - 4 Love, JJ Cale - Cherry, Electribe 101 - Talking With Myself (Frankie Knuckles mix), Tensnake - Congolal, Four Tet - Love Cry, Yazz feat. Colonel Mite - Fine Time (12" mix) DOWNLOAD MP3>
I've been rained on cycling about seven times in the last week. And I don't mean 'ooh, isn't that refreshing' rain. I mean 'tadpoles could flourish in my y-fronts' rain. I read some smugly optimistic tripe in a colour supplement once claiming if you cycled every day of the year, on average you'd only get wet eleven times. That journalist had better be calling in some serious prayers for a drought in 2010, or I'm going to be paying a soggy visit.
So this mix is supposed to be a nice warming one for rain drenched early December. Why not pop it on at your office Chrimbo party? I'm hoping to make it a two-parter, and follow up with some slower paced, more downtempo music - just right for plopping down in front of a log fire, clad in some advanced Norwegian knitwear.
Cold Comfort Pt 1 was recorded live, rather than pieced together over a week or so like most of my other mixes have been. Because of this there's a bit of a rough and ready hue to it, which I hope doesn't detract too much from the flow.
If you've been paying a visit to this blog for a bit there are a couple of tracks you'll recognise. There are some other corkers too... the Staple Singers get all gospel with their cover of Slippery People by the Talking Heads, Kariya's Let Me Love You For Tonight is a screaming bit of late 80s house, and Rory Phillips turns The Units' electro-punk classic into a proper mover. Also, if you are of the right sort of age to have thought the first Renaissance mix album made 1994 the high point of recorded music, then Slid by Fluke needs no additional comment.
Tracklisting: Phoenix - Fences (Def Starr version), The Staple Singers - Slippery People, The Joubert Singers - Stand On The Word (Unabomber's Love Touch edit), Kariya - Let Me Love You For Tonight, M - Pop Muzik (Todd Terje remix), Fuke - Slid, Konk - Your Life, Feist - Sea Lion Woman (Pitto Bootleg), The Units - High Pressure Days (Rory Phillips edit), Connie - Get On Down, 40 Thieves - Don't Turn It Off (Brennan Green remix), Sandee - Notice Me, Crazy P - Stop Space Return (Unabombers Dub), Krikor & The Dead Hillbillies - God Will Break It All DOWNLOAD MP3>
It's weird I haven't been into Fleetwood Mac longer than I actually have. I've always been a sucker for that place where polished 70s rock meets pop. But my almost fevered current obsession has only really been burning for a couple of years or so. I think the catalyst was my friend Dom telling me he'd never copied Rumours to his iPod, because the only situation worthy of being blessed by the great album was after a night out, drunk, lying on the sofa. Since my addiction has blossomed I've never been able to practice such self restraint.
Anyway, I went to see them in concert last weekend, and they were absolutely wonderful. Age has taken the higher notes out of Stevie Nicks' voice, and Christine McVie quit back in the 90s, but this is a band that still loves to play. They've got a staggering collection of great songs, and such a tumultuous personal history that each rendition seemed like a cathartic autobiography being played out in front me. Possibly the most jaw-dropping moment was Lindsey Buckingham doing a virtuoso solo accoustic version of Big Love. It climaxed (almost literally) with a possessed Buckingham howling out the oohs and ahhs that come (whoops) at the end. It's a song that obviously means a lot to him.
So, I thought I'd post a song each from their four biggest albums: Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, Tusk, and Tango In The Night. These aren't necessarily my absolute favourites, because there are too many of those, but they hopefully highlight the strengths of the band's three songwriter/singers.
Landslide is off the first album FM released after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had joined. They were a romantic couple as well as a musical one - but they weren't getting on while Fleetwood Mac was being recorded in 1975. Landslide is Stevie meditating on their relationship, and it shows off her earthy, sensual voice beautifully.
When Rumours was being written everything was going tits-up in a huge way. Nicks and Buckingham were splitting up, and the band's other couple bassist John McVie and his wife Christine were also on ropes. Christine was fed up with John's boozing, and had left him for the band's lighting guy. So she wrote You Make Loving Fun for her new fella. It's a lovely uptempo groover. I wonder what John was thinking as he tapped out that bass line. Rumours is an album born of total disfunction between band members - and it sold absolutely gazillions.
Tusk is a bit more difficult to choose from as it's so much bigger. It's a sprawling double album of 20 tracks that was the most expensive record ever produced when it was released in 1979. By the standards set by Rumours, Tusk was a commercial turkey. But it's still a phenomenal piece of work. I wanted to put a Buckingham track up from Tusk (he wrote the lion's share of it), but I've gone for another Christine McVie song. She's sometimes described as the most conventional writer of the band - yet Brown Eyes is anything but. It's got a minimalist aesthetic, and paradoxically manages to be lush at the same time. The hushed, layered vocals, and metronomic high-hat cymbal make this a really hypnotic song.
After Tusk, Fleetwood Mac were almost spent. Everyone was shagging someone they shouldn't have been, and writing songs about their twisted relationships with each other. And then there was the cocaine. Mountains of cocaine. Oh, and tranquillisers too. So Nicks and Buckingham drifted off for solo careers, and the next couple of FM albums, though strong in many parts, weren't classics. But in 1987 they managed to pull it back together for Tango In The Night. It's a very 80s album, full of synthesizers and pop sheen - and if you ever want to getting a wedding party jumping, play Everywhere or Little Lies. That sounds like faint praise, but it's really not meant like that. So here's Big Love, the Buckingham track I mentioned at the start, but in its original form.
I really urge you to get these albums. Not because Fleetwood Mac need the money (they really really don't) but because they're the high points of one of the best and most distinctive bands ever. I can't think of any other that's combined such singing/songwriting breadth with such a unique interpersonal dynamic.
Oh my. This one's a monster. From the happy clappy gospel disco of the Joubert Singers to the stomping, goth disco of Krikor & the Dead Hillbillies. Yin and Yang, shall we say.
God is the lead character in both these songs, but they describe quite different deities. Here, He's the lord of destruction, not creation - undoing all His previous work like a child kicking in its own sandcastle. This could be the devastatingly funky soundtrack to armageddon. I can imagine an army of miscreant angels listening to this on paradise-issue ghetto blasters as they lay waste to the world.
Hell, I might join them. It sounds like fun. DOWNLOAD MP3>
Buy it here, you sniveling little mortals. Amazon.co.uk
By the way, if you fancy a wangdoodle of a boogie this Halloween, come to this little hoedown.
It's at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, London, on Saturday 31st October. And somewhere down the bottom of the list you'll see me! Yes, I will be DJing from 0030-0200, and hopefully winding the proceedings to a sweaty and debauched climax of fake blood, faux terror, and real spandex. You will almost certainly be hearing the Unabombers edit of Stand On The Word (see last post), as well as a number of other new acquisitions and tried and tested off-kilter party jams.
Early bird tickets for a tenner run out today so be fleet of finger, and get yourself and your mates some. Here's all you need to know from the wonderful people at Winterwell:
Winterwell couldn’t take itself seriously if a little spattering of fancy dress wasn’t on the agenda, and the theme for our Halloween special is ‘80’s Horror show’. Admittedly the 80’s were a bit of a horror show, so do the math and you got it- anything goes!
Top Cats – (Natty Bo’s 10-piece ska, rocksteady band) The Monster Club The Clean Boys – (4 dec trickery, one effects unit) Count Sizzle Mr and Mrs Konal The Jinks (80's party set) Lou Young The Milky Bar Kid
Visit our website to find out more... http://winterwell.co.uk/halloween and get your Early Bird Tickets (£10, Limited Availability).
Sorry for the hiatus. I've been dicking about in foreign climes, and starting a new job, so posting music took a back seat for a bit. But I'm returning with two treatments of some Holy goodness.
I grew up in a totally godless house, so my exposure to religious music really only goes as far as a few dirgey hymns sung at school. Maybe if a bit more gospel had been thrown my way I'd have more of the spirit in me than I currently do. Sadly the plodding melodies and tempi of most Anglican musical worship was not ever going to inspire faith in this hoary heart.
So, the recounted history of Stand On The Word goes as follows. It was recorded in a church in Crown Heights, NYC, back in 1982 - but only for distribution among the congregation. A copy got into the hands of super producer (and born-again Christian) Walter Gibbons, who started playing it at his nearby record shop. This was where many of New York's finest DJs went to hang out and get their music, and soon it was being hammered in the Paradise Garage, Zanzibar, and the Loft. Thus an unlikely underground club classic was born.
Here's two versions for you; Larry Levan's early 80s disco remix, and a much newer edit from Manchester's the Unabombers. Both are fantastic, and get this otherwise committed heathen wondering if there are any benefits in putting cold rationality in the dustbin - and just believing.
Right you 'orrible lot. Here's the promised contraband. Would I welch on a deal? Of course not! There's only so long I could get away with fobbing you off with stale gear. So here is the Milky Bar Kid's Indian Summer Mix. It's fresh off the press - and I think it's a corker.
First of all, apologies and thanks to Mr Jonathan Moore from the awesome Leftside Wobble. He might be looking through this tracklisting thinking 'Erm, dude. Hands off my tunes.' He, and his Dub Disco Deli series have introduced me to many great songs, some of which I've shamelessly appropriated for this set. We share very similar tastes, and you know, imitation... flattery... etc.
I'm looking forward to busting this puppy out lying next to a pool in Spain. It's the kind of mix you need some slightly too tight swimming trunks, and a bottle of coconut oil for. Whip out your Jeffrey Archer novel, bask in the sun, and get swooney.
I've waffed on about it before, but I really think the Villa edit of Agnetha Fältskog's Wrap Your Arms Around Me is a thing of wonder. Yes, yes, I know she was in Abba, but this is the real deal. Big, lush, and emotional. Bobby Rush gets the treatment from Mark Very Disco, and boy is it a barnstorming slab of funk. There's also the ever-so-slightly-cheesy bouncy acid of Crazy P, and some darker, techier house towards the end. To finish things off you get the always lovely Sally Shapiro with a sumptuous bit of electro-pop.
I like this mix a lot. I hope you do too. Let me know what you think!
Tracklisting: Black Sabbath: Planet Caravan (DJ Steef edit), Agnetha Fältskog: Wrap Your Arms Around Me (Villa edit), Noir Desir: Le Vent Nous Portera (Rubber Room rerub), Bobby Rush: Do The Do (MVD Swamp Funk edit), Shriekback: My Spine Is The Bassline, Jazzy Dee: Get On Up (Situation edit), Dorothy's Fortress: The Revenger Of El Santoro, General Motors: King Of Kong, Crazy P: Stop Space Return, Azari & III: Reckless With Your Love, Shit Robot: Simple Things (Serge Santiago remix), TBD: What Is This?, Sally Shapiro: Moonlight Dance DOWNLOAD MP3>
I'm working on a new mix at the moment. But in the meantime, here's my oldest disco influenced mix. I made it in the spring/summer of 2005 - a stomper of a year for me. This was the first thing I gave my wonderful new girlfriend, and it was also what I took as gifts on my first trip to the Burning Man festival in America. I burned about 50 copies of it and brought about 42 back with me, so I'm obviously not as giving as I thought I was.
I was very into Arthur Russell at the time (and still am), so there are several of his tracks in various different guises. I kicked it off with his wondrous In The Light Of A Miracle. It's a gently ecstatic epic of a track that always manages to transport me and my head somewhere beautiful. I also used his totally uplifting Tell You Today, and the smuttily titled Is It All Over My Face? It's not all Arthur though. There's boogie, Italo, dub, and some mash-up filth to keep the censors busy.
Tracklisting: Arthur Russell: In The Light Of A Miracle, Sinnamon: Thanks To You, Midnight Star: Midas Touch, Loose Joints: Tell You Today, Charlie: Spacer Woman, Colourbox: Looks Like We're Shy One Horse, Colder: To The Music, The KBC: Poisonous Emblem, Dopplebanger: Pussylicker, Kerrier District: Let's Dance & Freak, Loose Joints: Is It All Over My Face?, Freeez: I.O.U., Alexander Robotnik: Problems D'Amour
If you're interested in the Arthur Russell stuff there's plenty available on Amazon and iTunes. I recommend starting with the Soul Jazz compilation, The World of Arthur Russell. Links below: Amazon.co.uk
Here's a little plug for something else. Henry's Yuppy Disco Podcast is a facebook music page linking to some great mixes. I'm listening to the African Pop mix at the moment and I'm struggling with not leaping up to dance around the room. Sod it, I'm going to.
I'm back from Berlin and still in love with the place. It manages to conjure so much style from such basic resources. Case in point: Dr Pong. A bare concrete space of a bar, bottles of beer for sale in one corner, DJ in another, and dominating the space in the middle a table tennis table with 40 or so people playing game after epic game of Round-the-Table. What's not to like? Anyway, during one particularly gruelling match, If There Is Something by Roxy Music came on, and I decided to post it when I got back.
Roxy Music fans tend to fall into two camps. There are those who think the band turned belly up after Brian Eno left, and there are those who think he was too weird and stopped Bryan Ferry writing the great pop songs he was free to do once Eno walked out the door. For my sins, I'm probably more in the Ferry camp.
But this song has their two minds working perfectly together, and it's a reminder Bryan Ferry could be a pretty weird fish too. It's off their self titled first album, and I think it's a work of genius. The song moves through three distinct movements. A jaunty hillbilly rock'n'roll style kicks things off - but a couple of minutes in things take a turn for the melancholy. The middle section strips down to a lonesome drum beat, a walking bass guitar, and a wailing saxaphone solo. But it's the end that really gives me the goosebumps. Ferry's voice really soars, as the song builds to an anthemic climax of strings, fuzzy guitar, backing vocals, and piano.
I'm off for a long weekend in Berlin, the city of the 24 hour party. I was wondering whether to put up some modern Berlin minimal techno as an appropriate post. But Christ, that stuff bores the tits off me most of the time.
So in a slightly different vein here's Liza Minelli's untouchable turn as Sally Bowles from the 1972 musical film, Cabaret. Set in the doomed and decadent glimmer of Berlin just before the rise of the Nazis, it's a film that manages to be both exuberantly joyful, and darkly sinister at the same time. In my view Cabaret is the best musical ever written. I can't think of any others that juggle such a potentially incongruous cocktail of totalitarian politics, sexual abandon, romantic love story, and cracking songs with anything near the humanity and skill that is pulled off in Cabaret. If you haven't seen it, do it. Schnell!
At the centre of it all is Liza Minelli. This was the role she was meant to perform, and by 'eck she puts some welly into it. She owns pretty much every scene she's in, and sings the shit out of every song she's given.
I grew up with the soundtrack to this playing often in the house, and it's now a constant companion on my iPod too. Masterful. So I'll be humming this along the streets and alleys of Germany's capital. Life is a cabaret, old chum.
House music is undeniably hedonistic. But sometimes it can also be immensely soulful too. And Someday from 1987 is an absolute, no arguments, stone-cold, soulful house classic. It's instantly recognisable, with that Marshall Jefferson bassline and piano riff having been sampled infinitely down the years. His production on this is nothing short of immaculate.
But it's the words that give Someday it's beauty, sung by CeCe Roger's honey-dipped voice. Early house music often had a yearningly utopian message. It was music that reached for a better future. You know - one love, one planet - all that crap. It may sound cheesy now, but listen to Someday and you get the feeling maybe that future's still worth striving for.
A little thought experiment for you. Try to imagine yourself as a big, burly queen who cries salty tears into his moustache at musicals, pampers his Chihuahua, and has a collection of leather sailor hats in his wardrobe. Not working?
OK, now play this amazing Villa edit of Agnetha Fältskogand then try again.There you go! Easy, wasn't it?
Thanks to the wonderful Oh, Baby I Like it Raw blog for putting this on my radar. There are a couple more Villa edits from the Mindless Boogie stable available for free download here.
And here's a new mix for y'all too. It's the most recent one I've done and I made it for my very good friend James' birthday. One of his many virtues is that he's very safety conscious. So I called it the Better Safe Than Sorry mix.
It starts pretty mellow with a bit of Fleetwood Mac (you can't beat The Mac!) and St Etienne, but this is certainly a harder edged mix than many I've done. It moves through some bumping, disco-y rap and pretty camp early house, before then getting a bit more deep and dirty.
I made this mix before Michael Jackson died, but now the inclusion of the Holy Ghost! edit of the amazing Get On The Floor seems very apt. It's Jackson at his most positive and effervescent, and Holy Ghost! wisely leave it mostly alone. It's just drawn out a bit, with a longer breakdown in the middle and a few well chosen effects to bring it up to date.
And if you recognise the last track, try not to think too much about its most famous usage. It's the song Buffalo Bill is listening to in Silence Of The Lambs when he's doing his make-up and trying on the human skin mask. But don't let that put you off. It's a beautiful song about countering cynicism and doomy nihilism. I love it.
Tracklisting: Fleetwood Mac: Over My Head, St Etienne: Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Andrew Weatherall Mix), The Bangles: Dub Like An Egyptian (Todd Terje Edit), Monie Love: It's A Shame (Red Zone Mix), Q-Tip: Breathe & Stop (The Revenge Mix), Fox The Fox: Precious Little Diamond, Raze: Break 4 Love, Lil' Louis & The World: I Called You, Kink & Neville: Full Flight, Azari & III: Hungry For The Power, Inner City: Big Fun (Magic Juan Mix), Laura Winslow: Neighbourhood Romeo, Laid Back: White Horse, Den Haan: Release The Beast, Visti & Meyland: All Nite (Trentemoller Remix), Caroline Crawford: Coming On Strong, Michael Jackson: Get On The Floor (Holy Ghost! Edit), Q Lazzarus: Goodbye Horses
It's a well known scientific fact that the elusive entity called 'the Groove' was perfected in 1982-1983. People had been having a go at it since the 1400s - but early attempts were stymied by the fact it's pretty much impossible to get your funk on with a lute.
The 50s and early 60s were too wired on speed to really dig 'the Groove', and in the late 60s they liked to call themselves 'groovy' - but that's not the same thing at all. By the mid 70s they actually started to really get close - but there wasn't quite enough dorkiness around to truly find the sweet spot.
Because that's the thing... perfection of 'the Groove' actually relied on just the right alchemy of coolness and nerdiness that the early 80s supplied in almost obscene quantities. Take the dudes on the right, for instance. You wouldn't have thought they were members of the high Magi who'd driven 'the Groove' to it's zenith. They're from Denmark. It's like spies, though. The best ones are the quiet dudes who could be lab technicians, but actually know 478 ways to kill you with a lavatory brush.
So in 1983 Laid Back released White Horse on the world. It's got a stripped back drum pattern. It's got weird, staccatto peeps and sqwacks. It's got jerky, spazzy synths. And then the bassline rolls in, scoops up all those dorky elements and fuses them into one motherfucker of a perfect groove. If George Orwell had known there'd be music like this in 1983, he wouldn't have written 1984.
Space. I think it's the best trick dub ever taught modern dance music. The sonic experiments of a handful of blisteringly stoned studio technicians in Jamaica in the 1970s exploded like a sub-woofered depth charge through the emerging street sounds of London and New York. Disco, hip-hop, electro, and then house all carried the ball passed from King Tubby, Lee Perry et al.
The tools are easy enough, but the effects are massive. A drenching of echo... a touch of reverb... and suddenly you're not in a musically flat plane anymore. You're in three dimensions and they stretch to the distance. Much rock music often sounds confined, like each instrument played comes from the same point in space as all the others. Dance music isn't immune from this problem either, but I often feel at its best it's braver at blasting through the studio walls to see what's outside. It has dub to thank.
I've chosen two songs I think use space particularly well. The first is Baby I Love You So by Colourbox. It wears its dub credentials firmly on its sleeve. In fact it's a cover of perhaps the best known dub track ever, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown. But Colourbox weren't grizzled Kingston rastas, they were two ex-punks from south east London excited by the musical possibilities of sequencers and samplers. In Baby I Love You So from 1986 they drop a mournful vocal over that monstrous bassline. But woven through are the echoing horn stabs and gunshot ricochets from old Western films that really turn this into the wonderful, cavernous beast it is. A year later they'd flip club music on it's head as M|A|R|R|S with Pump Up The Volume, the first UK house single to reach the top of the charts.
Next up is a much more contemporary track, the decidedly chilly Johan Agebjörn remix of Glassy Candy'sThe Chameleon. The icy synths and Ida No's monotonously seductive cooings about suicide set the tone. But then the song starts to slip away from you into the distance. No, it's not slipping away... you're following it... down into a vortex of sound that's so hugely spacious it's actually claustrophobic. This is one of those pieces of music that's beautiful and creepy at the same time. I went to see the Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In recently, and it's hung itself upside down next to this song in the same cold corner of my mind.
Now this song really fizzes. I think it's the combination of the drums and the piano. It's jazz, certainly, but there's a direct funkiness here a lot of jazz lacks. Every time I play this my hips involuntarily start to move. They can't help it.
Nina Simone had such a formidable voice its not that often you find her willing to let it take a back seat. But on Jelly Roll she initially lets her fingers do the singing for her. When she does open her mouth it's a burst of joy. Nina often sang about the difficulties of being black. But here it's all about the good stuff: eating sweet potato pie from the pan, drinking gin in sips, digging all the new sounds...
And of course it's about sex too. "I could go for a ride on your sweet jelly roll, but I wouldn't give nothing for my juicy, juicy soul. Aint that bad? Aint that black? And aint that fine?"
Jelly Roll is on a wonderful Simone compilation which majors on her blues and jazz output, and avoids all the ones you've heard a million times before. I recommend it. Click on the links under the music player to buy it.
DJs often get a bad rap. It's just playing other people's music, of course. And in these days of mixing programs and auto-syncing, most DJs can't really be arsed to mix. Fuck it, just press a button. That's what I do.
But for some DJs, the best ones, mixing is just a side issue anyway. What's really important is (and this is going to sound straight out of Pseud's Corner...) 'the Journey'. The legendary Larry Levan couldn't really be bothered to mix most of the time. It didn't matter. He was worshiped because his sets at the Paradise Garage took dancers on an odyssey through the night. He would ride them through disco, psychedelic rock, funk, european new wave, electro... anything. But it wasn't just genre box-ticking. He was the custodian of a mood.
I wouldn't ever compare myself to Larry Levan. I don't have the genius, the club, the sound system, the scene, or the drug habit. But I do try to give my mixes a structure, a flow that attempts to mirror the dynamics of a whole evening out. Of all the mixes I've done to date I think the Solar Flare Mix nails this the best.
It starts how I would want to start my perfect evening: sundrenched, slightly woozy, tropical. Antena's Camino del Sol is the sound of cocktails on sun loungers and relaxing in the last rays. The Balearic atmosphere continues through the dubby remix of Paul Simon's classic Diamond's On The Soles Of Her Shoes and JJ Cale's hip shakingly sexy Ride Me High.
When Alice Smith sings about the sun going down in Love Endeavor, it's time to stir and get the dancing shoes on. Under Escort's Starlight the disco really gets moving, before the DFA turn Justin Timberlake into Superstition-era Stevie Wonder. Then things get a little darker.
Optimo's breakbeat rumble makes Chris Isaak's yearning voice the perfect expression of laser-spangled dancefloor infatuation. Kathy Diamond gives you the woman's perspective - dancing as a declaration of independence, before !!!'s cautionary tale of taking hedonism too far. For LCD Soundsystem, the abandon of the musical moment makes you feel like a teenager.
And then it's morning. And you've possibly ended up with someone a bit too young. Is that wrong? Who cares, it's been a good night.
Tracklisting: Antena: Camino Del Sol (Todd Terje Edit), Holy Ghost: Walk On Air (Sun & Moon Mix), Tangoterje: Diamonds Dub, JJ Cale: Ride Me High (Joakim Edit), Alice Smith: Love Endeavor (Maurice Fulton Mix), Escort: Starlight, Justin Timberlake: My Love (DFA Mix), Optimo: Wicked Turntable Games, Newcleus: Jam On It (4Track Reference), Kathy Diamond: All Woman (Maurice Fulton Mix), !!!: Must Be The Moon (Emperor Machine Mix), LCD Soundsystem: Sound Of Silver, Junior Boys: In The Morning (Hot Chip Remix), Junior Boys: In The Morning
Making a mix can be tricky. Sometimes you want to go somewhere with it, but it takes you elsewhere. A bit like a budget airline. Actually this one went pretty much where I wanted it to, and I didn't find myself miles off-course with a heavy bag and a pocket full of the wrong money.
There's something I love about familiar old songs tweaked slightly for a more danceable mood. There are a few examples here: The wonderful Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve reworking of Roscoe by Midlake, Todd Terje's subtle oomph to America's psychedelic Horse With No Name, and the Cousin Cole treatment of The Boss. But there's plenty of disco ball here too. Every Dub by the Sunburst Band builds and builds until it literally bursts into sunshine, and Aeroplane use Kathy Diamond's slinky voice to such good effect on Whispers that I don't think they've bettered it yet. Cabin crew, seats for landing.
Tracklisting: Midlake: Roscoe (Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve Mix), America: Horse With No Shame (Wade Nichols Edit), Boat Club: Warmer Climes, Gameplay: Beirut Disco, Lykke Li: Little Bit, Bruce Springsteen: I'm On Fire (Cousin Cole's Bad Desire Remix), Sunburst Band: Every Dub, Beats International: Dub Be Good To Me, Eric B & Rakim: I Know You've Got Soul, Chic: I Want Your Love (Todd Terje Edit), Aeroplane feat. Kathy Diamond: Whispers, Prinzhorn Dance School: You Are The Space Invader (Optimo Espacio Mix), Charles B: Lack Of Love (Club Mix), Cut Copy: Lights & Music, New Order: Temptation (Secret Machines Mix)
I like music that makes me want to dance. Lots of it does. I make mixes of that music for my friends and you might like them too.
If you want me to play music like this at parties, festivals, club nights, contact me at rorychallands (at) gmail (dot) com.
I post music here because I think people should have more of it in their lives. If you like what I put put up, please follow the Amazon and iTunes links and buy the albums. People's livelihoods depend on it. If you're an artist and you want a song taken down for any reason please email me on rorychallands (at) gmail (dot) com.
So do you have a nice log fire ready? Are you wearing your advanced Norwegian knitwear? Well get cracking, people, because the Cold Comforts Mix Pt 2 is a toasty treat.
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