J B Pickers – Super Soul Theme
Lynden David Hall – Do I Qualify?
Erykah Badu – No Love
Marvin Gaye – Whats Goin On
Four Tops – Still Water (Love)
Amp Fiddler – Heaven
Israel Tolbert – Big Leg Woman (Short Short Mini Skirt)
Soul Tornadoes – Funky Thang
Sweet Linda Devine – I’ll say it again
The Modulations – Rough Out Here
Debra Laws – How Long?
Dionne Warwick – Move me no Mountain
Tyrone Thomas & The Whole Darn Family – Fly Away Love Bird
Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators – Invisible Man
Betty Moorer – Speed Up
Mr Konfuse – The Sensational
Jazzanova – Look what your doin to me
Booker T Averhart – Heart & Soul
The Roe-O-Tation – Special Category
Jimmy Walker – Where do we go from here?
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings – Make it good to me
Stevie Wonder – He’s misstra know it all
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles – Tracks of my tears
Marvin Gaye – I want you
Jamie Liddell – Another Day
Curtis Mayfield – Give me your love
The Sylvers – Whats it all about
Side Effect – Midnight Lover
Pure Essence – Wake up
Eugene Record – Overdose of joy
Jazzanova Feat Ben Westbeech – I can see
Johnny Jones & The King Casuals – Purple Haze
Frank Wilson – Do i Love you
-
Shoutbox
I’ve just found out that one of my favourite English blues/folk musicians, John Martyn has died today, after a long battle with alcoholism and drug addiction.
Throughout his career, John Martyn blurred the lines between blues, folk, and dub, experimenting with taking the traditional folk sound and adding elecronic effects in the 70’s. he mixed with some of the most influential musicians of the era, including Jimi Hendrix, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, David Gilmour and Eric Clapton.
He hit the big-time with his 1973 album, ‘Solid Air’, written in response to the death of his friend, Nick Drake. He followed this up with a number of live album, before the breakup of his marriage inspired John to write ‘Grace and Danger’. The material was so close to the bone that Island Records initially refused to release it. John described himself as ‘going off a cliff’ after it’s release, and started on a downward spiral of drugs and drink.
I first heard John Martyn’s work on a compilation, where he covered Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’ so well that I thought it was the original. Soon afterwards I picked up on of the Cafe del Mar compilations that had Talvin Singh’s remix of ‘Sunshine’s Better’, which is equally fantastic. His ‘Solid Air’ album was such a favourite of mine and my wifes that we played ‘May You Never’ during the signing of the register at our wedding.
John Martyn / Sunshine’s Better (Talvin Singh Remix)
I’m sad he’s gone. RIP John Martyn
Heartbreaking news, but a lovely tribute from ElevenThirtyEight.
Following up a recent recommendation, I picked up a ‘Walking Backwards’ by the slightly mysterious Clutchy Hopkins a couple of weeks ago. If you’re a fan of old school, soul based instrumental hip-hop a la MF DOOM then this is definitely worth a look.
If you believe the blurb on his website, Clutchy is the son of a Motown engineer, who went to Japan to be Zen Monk, before going to India to study Yoga. As if this wasn’t enough he moved to Nigeria to learn the drums, before being persuaded into becoming a gun runner during their civil war, then went back to the States to release his music, which he’s being doing under different identities since the 70’s before retiring to live in an underground cave in the desert. The album was bought as a set of reels found at a yard sale in 1992.
Obviously, this information could only be revealed by his friend, a Mohave Indian Shaman, making the entire far-fetched tale even more unlikely.
The Internet rumour mill has been working itself into overdrive in an attempt to work out who he really is, with suggestions as to his real identity running from Cut Chemist, via the Beastie Boys, to Money Mark.
All I know is that the album is brilliant, full of dry snare cracks, organic woodwind and shimmering organ lines, perfect for late night listening.
Clutchy Hopkins / Percy’s on the One
I’d bag a copy now before it turns out to be DJ Shadow in disguise, and copies start turning up on eBay for £200 a time …
Popcorn – Hot Butter
Kraftwerk – The Model
Kraftwerk – Spacelab
Kraftwerk – Metropolis
Kraftwerk – Radioactivity
Kraftwerk – Ruckzuck
Kraftwerk – Tanzmusik
Africa Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force – Planet Rock
Kraftwerk – Computer Love
Chemical Brothers – Leave Home
Senor Coconut – Home Computer
Whitwerk – I Wanna Dance with Numbers (Girls On Top Mix)
Kraftwerk – Autobahn (Live)
Kraftwerk – Neon Lights
Download : http://www.sothisis.co.uk/music/purple/SoThisIs_Simon-Kraftwerk-Twiffy-250109.mp3
82Mb @ 128kbps
If you are like me, then you occasionally get obsessed with a song.
I’ve been playing Playing Dead for three months and I still can’t get enough. There’s something magical about it – the percussion is deep, the strings are mournful, the words are hard to work out but ultimately optimistic, he’s got a bit of Bill Callahan about him and she sounds like she’s fifty years too late. It’d be easy to lump this in with Bon Iver and the rest of them, but there’s something extra special about it.
Who knows who Breathe Owl Breathe are, but they look great and I hope they come over here soon.
Breathe Owl Breathe – Playing Dead
Buy Breathe Owl Breathe at eMusic
“I got you, didn’t I.” Yep, you did.
Fire In Water – Emotion Comes From Motion (DJ Cipster Progressive Breaks mix)
Kuka & Kareras – Test Of Feather
DJ Grad – Wind Step
SweetnCandy – Bloody Minds / Opossum
Big Game James Bobby Deep – Take A Breath (original mix)
Moody – Freeki Mutha Fucker
Aly-Us – Follow Me
Muzique Tropique – Stella Sunday
16 Bit Lolita’s – Puppet Show
Quench DC – Sexy Dance
Deepchild – Donut Hound (Tiger Stripes remix)
Hardfloor – Da Revivial
Wink – Superfreak (Freak)
The Mulder – I Take You Out To Space (2007)
Beat Pharmacy – Frozen (dub)
Vibrant – Born Again (Garry Trace Deep House mix)
From P60 – Enjoy The Sound
The Timewriter Feat. Theresa Baltimore – Thunderball
Willie Graff & T Tauri – Motion Reconstruct (edit)
Skin 4 – Do You Love Me Too?
Cinematic Orchesta Feat. Roots Manuva – All Things To All Men
Language Lab – Burning Disaster
The Aloof – One Night Stand (The Long Night and the Samba : Ashely Beedle Remix)
Jakatta – American Dream
Juan Trip – Switch Out The Sun
Jam On The Mutha – Hotel California (Orbitally Ambient Mix)
Download http://www.sothisis.co.uk/music/purple/SoThisIs_Simon-DeepFreeze9-210109.mp3
160Mb @ 128kbps
Thanks to eleventhirtyeight for this twisted birthday tribute to Ray Dolby who was born three calendar days ago, in 1933.
“Ray Dolby not dobly. Ray invented the Dolby noise reduction system and also co-invented video recording on tapes. It says this of the Dolby system on Rays wikipedia entry.
‘Dolby noise reduction works by increasing the volume of high-frequency sounds during recording and correspondingly reducing them during playback. This reduction in high-frequency volume reduces the audible level of tape hiss.’
This is probably true but to me Dolby was the switch on my dad’s old cassette deck. If turned to the on position it took away hiss, simulated high frequency hearing range deafness and added a smattering of ‘this sounds a little bit shitter than it did without it’ to anything played on it. Thanks Ray.
Ray also co-invented video tape recording and in doing so probably hoped to and actually did co-invent the home porn film collection. Ray is also said to be worth $2.9 billion. He married a lady who has now the misfortune to be called Dagmar Dolby. He also has two children, B Dolby and C Dolby. Ray was inducted into the consumer electronics hall of fame in 2004. What an event that must have been…one other inductee that night was Woo Paik. There’s no wiki on Woo Paik. I’d hazard a small wager that Woo was a stooge hired that night by Ray to dissuade anyone from thinking Dagmar Dolby had the funniest name at the buffet.
Ray and Dagmar have contributed 16 million dollars to a stem cell research centre in San Francisco. Happy Birthday Ray. ”
Cheers Stu.
As today sees the world wave goodbye to what has to be the least popular commander-in-chief in living memory, I thought I’d put up a track that has been written to welcome his replacement.
Barack Obama seems to have had the support from a lot of artists since the early days of his run for the Presidency of the USA, with musicians of all colours, creeds and musical styles all doing their bit to support the ‘Great White Hope’ of the more liberal side of the American public.
This track is from a recently discovered artist for me, as much as I love Hip-Hop, I tend to steer clear of a lot of the American pseudo-gangster style, but Brother Ali’s album, The Undisputed Truth, has some stand out tracks on it. In the course of finding out more about his work, I came across this:
Brother Ali – Mr. President (You’re The Man)
I might well play this tonight on my show from 10-12 GMT, in honour of the first Black President of the USA – hope you listen in. If you do, get involved on the Purple Radio Forum
Apparently tomorrow is Blue Monday, according to the BBC (have a search on Google for “blue monday” and “19th January 2009″). I like the idea of it being reclaimed by the International Optimists Society though.
Expect a version of New Order’s Blue Monday on tomorrow night’s Rob on the Radio, but in the meantime, here’s a link to a gabba flavoured version, which was part of the 1995 release remixes.
New Order – Blue Monday (Plutone Remix).
New Order at Amazon
