Moonbeam Levels

Hihi,

What’s been happening?

The ground has split over here and tried to swallow me from the ankle up. I have been hobbling around after doing high knees into a gaping hole. It was a violent wobble. Then came a sharp pain and the humiliation of lying helplessly on the ground, pleading with Finchy not to leave me.

Once I got to my feet, he lay flat and expected me to carry him out of the park (again). They are nicknamed Bassholes for a reason 🐶

Amazing how an injury like this knocks you off balance, in more ways than one. RICE aside, patience is the key to a swift recovery but I don’t have much of it. Between now and a long-mooted escape to a little Greek island this week, the goal is to tread carefully. Also a good motto in life 😉

Now this month I was looking forward to speaking to an emerging filmmaker/composer about his debut feature, but he pulled out at the last minute. This was after weeks of preparation on my side.

There is a pecking order with these things. I’m not Empire, Variety or whoever, but there has to be a bit more consideration for those of us trying to produce original work with a far smaller platform. Thousands of words had already been dedicated to this film, which should have earned the time.

I wallowed for a few days over another brush-off and then decided to pivot to a special show on film scores. As a viewer, this is an area I have been paying closer attention to over the past decade. However, my interest in the use of sound to set the tone or enhance the mood/texture of a scene dates back to 2000 when DJ Shadow worked on Marc Singer’s 2000 documentary Dark Days.

Music for film can be hard to grasp without the visuals. So much of it is designed to complement and enhance the story being told through moving image, and amplify the emotions of the characters you’re watching.

There was a time when movie music would sit in the background and try not to be noticed. Well, in this soundscape I have chosen cues that can and do stand on their own, even if they don’t call for much attention. In fact, some of these selections led me to the film, not the other way around.

Most of them hover in an intriguing space between traditional orchestration and experimental electronic. Many were conceived this century but there are a few exceptions. All are timeless to me.

Are you ready for the greatest cinema in sound?

Stay close,

Amar

PS I need your help. Please like and share this show so it finds its audience. And get in touch [at]amarofpatel with your own film score reflections and recommendations.

*****

GORDON PARKS – Bluebird [Warner]Parks was a true inspiration for his unwillingness to stay in one lane. I came to him first through his photography. One of the most important (self-taught) documentarians of Black life in America, he was particularly celebrated for his work on staff at Life magazine between 1948 and 1972.

But the polymath was also a publisher of 12 books, a director, the writer of a ballet about Martin Luther King and the composer of several film scores. One of those was for his novel The Learning Tree, which was based on his bittersweet childhood in Fort Scott, Kansas. Parks has described it as a movie about “complicated people”, one that “will promote understanding and hope between every race".

“Bluebird’ is the momentary sound of calm after the storm. Beauty all around. Glancing over a radiant horizon at what could be if humanity just pulled together. Like blind Uncle Rob tells Newt later in the film, “I think sometimes if all the people in the world were made up of colours, instead of just black and white, it would be a happy world.”

For more about Parks the composer, listen to this NTS special with Justen Leroy, who curated the recent exhibition The Sound of Gordon Parks at CAAM.

NICHOLAS BRITELL – The Children of Our Age [Invada] 3m 46sBritell’s score for If Beale Street Could Talk is at the heart of Barry Jenkins’ 2018 adaptation of James Baldwin’s book. I was caught up in its rise and fall from scene to scene, from orchestral bliss to the hushed defiance that’s transmitted through the strains and flutters of brass (French horn, flugelhorn, cornet) and woodwind.

Its central motif feels like the true love between soulmates Fonny (Stephan James) and Tish (KiKi Layne) – recurring, going through phases yet being sustained. Later, as Britell has described, the melody gets bent, distorted and “harmed” as systemic injustice and Fonny’s wrongful imprisonment test their commitment like never before.

Similarly, in a standout scene, Daniel (Brian Tyree Henry) recounts his experience of incarceration to Fonny, flipping from lovable joker to tormented soul. Miles Davis’ ‘Blue in Green’ gives way to a now discordant and broken version of ‘Eros’. “When you’re in there, they can do with you whatever they want,” Daniel shudders. “I mean what-ever they want.”

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON & YAIR ELAZAR GLOTMAN – Childhood & The Land of the Young [Deutsche Grammophon] 5m 20sYou’re going to be hearing a lot by Jóhannsson in the next hour or two. I became aware of him after his Oscar nomination for The Theory of Everything. But the one-time practitioner of shoegaze, indie rock and everything in between, had been scoring since the early 2000s. Copenhagen Dreams and The Miner’s Hymns are two of his most lauded early efforts.

Once the Icelandic composer began working with Denis Villeneuve on Prisoners, many people started to hail him as the next great film composer. Here was an iconoclast with an unmatched, ever-expanding vocabulary. Speaking to The Talks around the time of their next collaboration, Sicario (see below), he said ”I’m more a film composer than I am a musician. It’s something that’s always been a part of what I do.”

With Last and First Men, Jóhannsson added director to his CV. Based on the 1930 novel by Olaf Stapledon, it’s been described as an “eerie epitaph to humankind”, featuring black-and-white 16mm footage of spomenik monuments scattered around remote South Slavic locations.

They were built to mark the tragedy of war in former Yugoslavia and commemorate resistance to fascism. In the film, they also represent the last remaining accomplishments of humanity and act as beacons for receiving psychic messages from a bleak future two billaion years away.

Epitaph or harbinger, it’s a stunning achievement, and this piece carries the full weight of what’s at stake.

DUVAL TIMOTHY & CJ MIRRA – Journey to Lagos [Carrying Colour] 10m 30sDuval Timothy and CJ Mirra’s work on My Father’s Shadow is the kind of score that has you rushing to the cinema for full audio-visual immersion. The details are important. They aren’t just effects. They are saying something.

Director Akinola Davis Jr told Crack he wanted it to “feel like fruit that’s decomposing”, adding, “On one side it looks fine, and then you turn it around, and it’s all organically caving in on itself.”

Set over a single day in Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, his debut feature film follows an estranged dad guiding his two young boys across the city as political unrest threatens their journey home. I’m always interested in complex father-son stories. Aren’t they always?

Fans of Moonbeam Levels will be familiar with Timothy and his gift for building layers of emotion through gentle waves of piano. But his partnership with Mirra, who was also the sound supervisor on the film, conjures atmospheres around them. Together, they explore fading memory and the process of disintegration.

My Father’s Shadow comes to Netflix on 21 September.

KANGDING RAY – Les Marches [Invada] 14m 30sÓliver Laxe’s Sirāt deranges your senses and the music is a huge part of that as Luis (Sergi López) goes looking for his missing daughter deep in the Moroccan desert. Accompanied by his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), he falls in with a group of travelling ravers who he suspects might know something.

After the military breaks up the party, they head to their next rave. Luis and Esteban tag along. They are shown compassion but offered few clues. As the tension builds and this wide expanse threatens to swallow them, you’re left wondering where will it all end?

Laxe wanted Kangding Ray, the recording alias of David Letellier, to shift the score from pounding waves of techno to a state of desolate ambience (mirroring the father’s mounting existentialism and a decaying plot). A process he calls “dematerialisation”, which they started to discuss a few years before shooting began. ‘Les Marches’ sounds like the culmination of that transition.

The sound design is also superb. Here’s a very interesting featurette about it.

MICA LEVI – Guerreros [Invada] 23m 40sPut simply, Mica is one of the most brilliant composers in the UK and certainly one of the most unique in the industry. I just love their choices, the element of surprise, the expressive minimalism (those cascading strings in Jackie get me every time). I saw Monos at the London Film Festival because I had to experience Levi’s score in a cinema.

What can I tell you about Alejandro Landes’ film? Well, it’s a bit Lord of the Flies as a young guerrilla group holds hostage someone called Doctora (Julianne Nicholson), under the orders of a rebel faction called The Organisation. We don’t know much more about her or what their motives are.

‘Guerroros’ features the shrill whistle that’s heard whenever The Organisation or its Messenger appears. A sound Levi created by blowing into a glass bottle. Combining it with these sudden electronic jolts and tremors – like spikes of adrenaline – is a genius way to emphasise the volatility of these characters under pressure. The majority of the score is tins and whistles, in fact.

JERSKIN FENDRIX – Lisbon [Waxwork] 25m 10sPoor Things was the first score that Jerskin Fendrix made and the first time that director Yorgos Lanthimos commissioned a dedicated composer. Both were keen to hyperfocus on the story being told and Bella’s raw emotional reactions to primal experiences instead of pursuing classical elegance or mimicking others.

Working only from the script and a 200-page book of art concepts, Fendrix quickly recognised that so much of the film was about life. So woodwind, and more specifically breath, was “a good analogue” for that. Processing organic sounds to conjure a sense of wonder, naivety, fumbling, folly and fear. Mirroring the growth of Emma Stone’s character and her instinct to transgress.

‘Lisbon’ is the delightful sound of Bella on a day out in the Portuguese capital, bubbling and fizzing with new feelings. The city’s radiance is overwhelming. She gorges on pastel de nata, hears fado, watches couples quarrelling…

SIMON FISHER TURNER – Tonata/Autumn Leaf/Sketches of Luxembourg [Mute] 27m 40sTurner worked his way up from doing odd jobs for Derek Jarman (like “making a mean salad dressing”), to being trusted to provide music for his films, starting with the beautifully chiaroscuro-ed Caravaggio in 1986.

The following year came The Last of England, a bitter broadside to Thatcher’s Britain and a lament for a green and pleasant land gone rotten. The social injustice, the state-sponsored violence and homophobia. It’s unflinching in its critique but there is room for fond memories of this place.

In a few interviews, Turner has been quick to reframe his role on these films as a sound recordist and collagist rather than a conventional composer of cues. Collecting field recordings (or ”life recordings” as he’s dubbed them), making noise with whatever or whoever is around, from fallen branches to idol extras. Drafting in other musicians, then assembling sculptures to catalyse different scenes.

Turner had the freedom to be honest in his response to Jarman’s dream sequence of Super-8 films, home movies and original footage. Leaning into the grit, imperfection and discord all around and letting the texture of the visuals guide him rather than a narrative or script.

With so many sprawling, interconnected passages of music featuring in Jarman’s work, it was hard to pick one. But the beginning of side A (Bombers) is its own little movie.

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON – Melancholia [Varèse Sarabande] 34m 40sDenis Villeneuve told Jóhannsson he wanted the music in this drug cartel thriller to sound like it was coming from beneath the scorched earth of the Chihuahua desert. Hence the sub-sonic rumbling of something bearing down.

Or as the composer put it, “like the throbbing heart of a beast running at you”. To simulate this, he used a 65-piece orchestra heavy on the tom-toms, brass and low-end strings. Then he digitally manipulated the recordings so “you don’t know where the orchestra starts and the electronic sound ends”.

This track, which plays as the closing credits roll, serves more as a plaintive requiem for those in harm’s way at the border. ‘Melancholia’ features Skuli Sverrisson on six-string bass, a faint nod to Spanish flamenco guitar. It’s one of the composer’s favourite cues in Sicario.

Villeneuve and his “creative brother” worked on three films together (almost four). “For me, at its deepest core, all Jóhann’s music is about one profound question: why does God not answer any of our phone calls?” he said.

NALA SINEPHRO – Grand Prix [Warp] 39m 00sWho foresaw jazz composer Nala Sinephro scoring a biopic about an MMA fighter? Not me. It’s a winning match-up. Her swirling electro-acoustic movements that beguiled many listeners on Endlessness and Space 1.8 go some way here towards transposing Mark Kerr’s (Dwayne Johnson) isolation as he battles addiction. And the unbridgeable distance between him and his partner Dawn (Emily Blunt), who feels shut out but is really a bit smothering.

‘Grand Prix’ is my favourite score needle drop of the film. Mark’s sadness in that theme park is so palpable. He’s just got clean, they look happier than they had ever been but you can tell their bliss won’t last. His unwillingness to take the ride with her is symbolic. He’s desperate to stay in control while Dawn wants to let go.

I found the character development undercooked in the film and was left wondering about the deeper motivations of people like Dawn and Mark’s friend Coleman (Ryan Bader). Critic Joshua Minsoo Kim described The Smashing Machine as “a hackneyed prestige film with none of the emotional beats”. I get that but Nala’s music is trying to take us there.

One consolation is seeing London players such as Nubya Garcia and Sheila Maurice Grey getting credits on a Hollywood soundtrack.

MARK JENKIN – Enys Pt 3 [Invada] 42m 40sBritish filmmaker Mark Jenkin might be the ultimate auteur of contemporary cinema. He writes, shoots, edits and scores his films. The results are undeniably personal and idiosyncratic expressions. Who else is making eerie Cornish allegories like Bait?

With this year’s Rose of Nevada, he’s shown again how good he is at building unease as a composer. But let’s go for something from Enys Men and the third part of the central theme that gently ripples and drifts into ominous territory.

Jenkin talked to The Film Scorer about its conception in 2023. He began by playing an old Korg synth fed into a droning tape loop before adding elements like rocks and locally sourced scrap metal from Cornwall’s post-industrial landscape. His voice is also in there, cloaked in reverb.

SIMON FISHER TURNER – Blue parts 19-23 (featuring Marden Hill, Jan Latham-Koenig and Miranda Sex Garden) [Mute] 47m 50s

No disrespect to Yves Klein but if you’re going to present just one colour as your visual for an hour, you better make the score compelling. Jarman’s Blue is unlike anything else you will ever experience because the sound is a storyteller.

The writing alone is intricate and deeply intimate. Diaristic observations about living with AIDS. The banality of everyday life in London. The drudgery of waiting rooms. A cascade of pills. A retina destroyed (“blue is darkness made visible”). Reminiscing about lost boys and delphinium days.

Musings on mortality and why blue is the door to infinity. “The universal love in which man bathes – it is the terrestrial paradise,” says Jarman.

Simon Fisher Turner wrote several pieces for this segment of Blue including ‘Marco Polo’ and ‘St Rita’, while also calling on the likes of acapella vocal group Miranda Sex Garden and Jan Latham-Koenig, who plays Karol Szymanowski’s ‘Scheherazade’ on piano. Elsewhere in the film, you can hear Durutti Column’s Vini Reilly and Coil’s John Balance.

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON – Heptapod B ­[Deutsche Grammophon] 57m 55sArrival, another Villeneuve collaboration, struck me as a meditation on humanity’s capacity for empathy and communication. Perhaps that’s why the human voice featured so prominently. Jóhannsson being Jóhannsson, he wanted to use it in a way that had never been done before.

This cue accompanies the montage where linguist Dr Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) are trying to decipher the dialect of the alien lifeforms. Jóhannsson explained to Vulture how he first used a modular synthesiser to create the bass drum. The sounds of mallets hitting different pieces of wood were filtered and distorted to add strange percussion over the rigid tension.

Then the Theater of Voices, conducted by Paul Hillier, was asked to create “a cloud of staccato rhythms, unpredictable and out of time”. The result is like baby language – the sound of a beginner trying to feel their way to basic expression.

PHILIP GLASS – Prophecies [Orange Mountain] 1h 1m 10sKoyaanisqatsi, which means “life out of balance” in the language of the Hopi people, is just as epic and arresting as the day it landed in 1983. Often described as a visual tone poem, Godfrey Reggio’s directorial debut presented the tension between technological progress and the natural world through a relentless sequence of time-lapse, slow-motion and other imagery gathered by cinematographer Ron Fricke.

There is no voiceover. No narrative to lead us. It’s about the experience, says Reggio. The meaning is up to the viewer. But questions are implied by clouds, canyons, oceans and deserts giving way to atomic blasts, falling buildings, mass production and the blinding, ultra-high-speed circuitry of the city.

The film is also well-known for Philip Glass’ score, which is at different points elating, dizzying, mournful and portentous. Arpeggiated chords and woodwind circling in repetition, modes shifting from minor to major, that basso profundo bellowing the title as an admonition.

‘Prophecies’ delivers just that: a Hopi elder reciting lines from ancient texts like "If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster." The notes about Koyaanisqatsi on Glass’ website echo this perspective. “We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive.”

Will there ever be harmony? More than 40 years on, that question feels even more urgent.

Got a film score friend who would like this?

MICA LEVI – Love [Rough Trade] 1h 11m 30sJonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin was Levi’s sensational debut as a film composer. I still remember watching the film in the cinema and thinking, I’ve never heard a movie scored like this. Everything sounded strange and otherworldly, irrespective of the imagery, and not in a cliched way.

That was not the brief to Levi, however. “The idea was to follow Scarlett Johansson‘s character and try to react in real time to what she was experiencing,” they told the Guardian, “and not to pre-empt or reflect on things that had already happened in the film.”

Levi had studied big “music-changing” composers such as Cage and Xenakis at Guildhall but could also draw from strip-club music and euphoric dance to try and provoke big feelings in the audience. (Remember ‘Make It Up’ and ‘I’m Not Dancing’, two bangers produced for Tirzah?)

Certain instruments generated particular themes: cymbals for nature’s undefined forces, tremolo strings ushering alien energy into the scene and drums signalling her hunger on the hunt.

“We were looking at the natural sound of an instrument to try and find something identifiably human in it,” Levi explained, “then slowing things down or changing the pitch of it to make it feel uncomfortable. There was a lot of talk of perverting material. It does sound creepy, but we were going for sexy.”

The early part of the film shows how disinterested in human emotions and lacking in empathy Johansson’s character is. By the time we get to the pitch-bending, microtonal strings of ‘Love’, she is beginning to feel the thrill of attraction. Or, as Svidrigailov1 comments on YouTube, “This is the music of the Self dissolving in intimacy with the Other.”

JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON – Mandy Love Theme [Lakeshore] 1h 16m 30sJóhannsson called director Panos Cosmatos’ first film Beyond the Black Rainbow a masterpiece, and raved about his use of music. So the composer was thrilled to be working with him on Mandy. A doomed love story and heavy metal revenge movie rolled into one, starring Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough.

This was his last score before passing at just 48, developed with Sun O)))) producer Randall Dunn right up until the film’s premiere at Sundance. Later, Dunn and Jóhannsson’s close collaborator Yair Elazar Glotman had to retrieve files from his hard drive to finish the soundtrack release.

Cosmatos wanted to create the feel of a “disintegrated rock opera” and Jóhannsson was all the way in. Droning cues such as “The Children of The New Dawn’ are saying something wicked this way comes, while ‘Forging the Beast’ sounds like Red’s veins popping with vengeance as he grinds his weapon.

But I keep coming back to the combination of synth washes and rippling guitar in the leitmotif ‘Mandy Love Theme’. It’s sorrowful but it says there’s peace in eternal memory.

A few words from Cosmatos on what made Jóhannsson special. “Most film composers work solely to enhance the actions and emotions on screen. Some transcend this and can create a tangible and memorable atmosphere as well. The composer whose work seems to metaphysically flow from and within the images themselves is the rarest breed. Jóhann was such a composer.”

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO – Theme Variation 2 [Virgin] 1h 20m 50sPutting John Williams’ early motif-heavy dominance to one side, The Last Emperor by Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su is one of the most memorable scores of my childhood. Specifically, its grand scope and how it recontextualised the unfamiliar sound of traditional Chinese instruments such as the guzheng and erhu.

Director Bernardo Bertolucci challenged Sakamoto to create music that evoked the China of the 1920s and 1930s without feeling trapped in that period. ‘Theme Variation 2’ doesn’t actually play in its entirety during the film but, in little fragments, evokes the flecked memories of the fallen emperor (John Lone) blowing in a slipstream of passing time.

Bertolucci would change his mind quite often, rejecting many of Sakamoto’s orchestrated cues. Under intense pressure, the composer leaned on a young Hans Zimmer and his Fairlight synthesiser to try and find the right colours to mirror Puyi’s melancholia. The result is one of the most beckoning and enduring pieces from the project.

JOCELYN POOK – Naval Officer [Warner Sunset] 1h 25m 10sMark Kermode rekindled my fascination with Eyes Wide Shut when he named its soundtrack one of his favourites from the 90s on a podcast with Miranda Sawyer. Alongside a creepy and unsettling piano rendition of Ligeti and a blustery number by Chris Isaak, there’s original music composed by Jocelyn Pook. A genre-defying artist who used to be in The Communards and has recorded with Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson among others.

Kubrick enlisted Pook to score scenes after hearing ‘Backwards Priests’ on her album Deluge, which featured Romanian priests reciting orthodox liturgy, but played in reverse. That track became ‘Masked Ball’.

In pieces such as ‘Naval Officer’ and ‘The Dream’, she uses little puffs of elongated strings to heighten the carnal desire and paranoia on screen, then warping the sound to mirror a psychological unravelling. ‘Naval Officer’ is quite low down in the mix in the film, but you can still discern a growing feeling of betrayal in the faint discord of Pook’s music as Alice (Nicole Kidman) recounts her fantasy to husband Bill (Tom Cruise).

ANGELO BADALAMENTI – Haunting & Heartbreaking [Music On Vinyl] 1h 29m 50s“The only time I couldn’t understand [the images I’m scoring to] was when I was reading Lost Highway. There’s a great storyline that’s going on, and all of a sudden this guy in jail transforms into another person. I started scratching my head and saying, ‘Oh boy, here we go again!’ I’d say Lost Highway was the most abstract film David has ever done.”

That’s David Lynch’s long-time collaborator Angelo Badalamenti speaking to Film Score in 2001 about the great director’s enigmatic film noir from 1997. The soundtrack is all over the place – which can be exhilarating – moving from the abrasion of Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails to David Bowie’s melodrama of a title track and a Badalamenti excursion into dub.

But I had to pluck this hallucinogenic cue that comes after Fred Madison (Bill Pullman), detained for the suspected murder of his wife (Patricia Arquette), has a psychotic episode in prison and appears to become young auto mechanic Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty). The sound morphs from This Mortal Coil’s version of ‘Song to the Siren’, through intense winds and wails, into the sound of what Lynch might have called a “psychogenic fugue”.

For the premise of Lost Highway, Lynch was partly inspired by the exonerated OJ Simpson. “How does the mind trick itself,” he wondered, “so that can be put in a place where it no longer has that horrific power and you go on living?”

Badalamenti and Lynch are complete one-offs and deeply missed. Go brighten up your day by watching the director shout out his dear friend. It’s immense.

MARVIN GAYE – Cleo’s Apartment [Tamla Motown] 1h 31m 50sThanks to producer, DJ and now respected film composer David Holmes for listing Trouble Man in a Muzik magazine chart at the end of the 90s. I was tracing Gaye’s artistic path at the time and couldn’t believe he had made a score, even for a Blaxploitation movie. A genre for which Curtis Mayfield had written just months before Trouble Man arrived in 1972.

The film itself is unremarkable. Mr T is called in to resolve a turf war between rival crap games syndicates in South Central LA. What intrigues me is Gaye’s brazen move to follow the conscious songbook What’s Going On with an album of mostly jazz instrumentals, piano “sweetenings” and Moog meanderings (the latter instigated by Stevie Wonder).

According to biographer David Ritz, he was looking to do something expansive (as a composer) and introspective. “Trouble Man was one of only two albums where Gaye wrote every song alone,” says Ritz. “He lost himself in the mood of the movie, a mood corresponding to the dark side of his own soul. Marvin himself was fascinated by the underworld and, from time to time, surrounded himself with real-life gangsters.”

The title track, where Gaye names life's only three certainties, “taxes, death and trouble”, became a major hit. Decades later, diggers would covet “T” Plays It Cool’, with the former Motown session drummer laying down a fingersnapping groove for saxophonist Trevor Lawrence to blow all over. But for me, the best moments are where he withholds his voice or limits it to phantom oohs, aahs and wees. ‘Poor Abbey Walsh’ is gorgeous.

‘Cleo’s Apartment’ is a blues moan for the ages. The depth of longing Gaye summons in little over two minutes, without barely singing a couplet, is remarkable. For a poetic rumination on this track and what it reveals about his life, you must read Harmony Holiday.

“The void he left became his elegy, a requiem of shock and gasp,” she writes, “and ‘Cleo’s Apartment’ becomes a spiritual to help fill that chasm, to be hummed in remembrance of him after he’s gone because it’s easier to recount the story tonally than with neat and alphabet-bound details.”

Check out the expanded edition for alternate versions and additional highlights from more than 300 cues they recorded.

JOHN LURIE – Mystery Train Suite [Milan] 1h 34m 00sAfter scoring Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law (both of which he also acted in), John Lurie was asked to provide a little nocturnal, ghost-town R&B for Mystery Train. A triptych of separate but connected stories pondering the myth of Memphis.

The cast is stacked with characters. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins as a night clerk, Joe Stummer as an out-of-work Brit abroad and Tom Waits as a late-night radio DJ. Lesser-known Masatoshi Nagase and Youki Kudoh are also great as rock’n’roll-obsessed couple Jun and Mitsuko, who are on a musical pilgrimage.

The spectre of Elvis looms large in Mystery Train but we also get to hear Rufus Thomas (“the real King of Memphis”, says Jarmusch), Junior Parker and The Bar Kays ringing out.

For Lurie’s contributions, he called on fellow Lounge Lizard Marc Ribot to bring a little extra guitar twang, as you can hear in this tumbleweed suite. I was curious to read one interview where Lurie described the early Lizards sound as “film noir gone mad”. That’s why he’s well-versed in telling a story with sound. And words too: his memoir The History of Bones is an unroarious and unapologetic ride.

RY COODER – Houston in Two Seconds [Rhino] 1h 36m 10sOn the surface, this Wim Wenders classic is about drifter Travis (Harry Dean Stanton). A near-mute shell of a man, bereft of hope, slowly coming back to civilisation. He tries to reunite with his son Hunter and estranged wife, played by Nastassja Kinski. His quest becomes a tale of redemption. For me, it’s a mythic western about memory and our relationship to the past. The things we hold on to, the painful moments we turn away from or try to reimagine … and why it’s important to let go. That tussle with reality is rendered with such poignancy by writer Sam Shepherd (particularly the second booth scene) and evoked with deep resonance by Ry Cooder, who created one of the great film soundtracks in just three days.

Using a 1930’s Harmony Sovereign acoustic guitar with open tuning, and drawing on Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground’, Cooder set out to make a sound that would blow through gaps like the desert wind and be “the musical equivalent of Harry Dean Stanton's walk, that lonely walk”. A walk that is silent for almost half the movie. So Cooder’s guitar had to imply what was on his mind.

The title track is iconic but this one has my heart because it soundtracks father-son bonding time on a road trip through the eyes of master of light Robby Müller.

NEIL YOUNG – Guitar Solo No 5 [Vapor] 1h 38m 10sJim Jarmusch’s films have held a kind of subtle mystery for me over the past 20-something years. I’ve gladly wandered into the offbeat worlds of Coffee & Cigarettes and Night On Earth with their eclectic casts, quirky jukeboxes for soundtracks and curious digressions from a leisurely contemplation of characters’ predicaments.

Occasionally he’s asked recording artists to score, such as John Lurie (see above) and RZA for Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. But the Holy Grail of collaborations was with Neil Young on Dead Man. A fever dream of a black-and-white western about accountant and reluctant murderer William Blake (Johnny Depp), who gets shot and embarks on a slow passage to the spirit world through a wilderness of oddballs and scoundrels.

The legend goes that Young pitched up at a warehouse in San Francisco and played along to a rough cut of the movie with his guitar Old Black, an organ and piano, responding in real-time to what he saw. Young later added field recordings of him rolling around his ranch in a Lincoln Continental. Far-out, frontier music. Jarmusch went on to make a documentary of Young’s tour with Crazy Horse.

DANIEL LOPATIN – The Bet Hits [Warp] 1h 50m 00sUncut Gems had me reaching for the Valium. As one person commented, it was like “a two-hour panic attack”. Chaos seems to follow Howard (Adam Sandler) around as he tries to wipe off his massive debt by flipping a mystical black opal. What the jeweller and gambling addict is really doing is chasing an impossible high, while he keeps us all on edge.

The foregrounded score of Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) sets the pulse in many scenes. He used the Moog One to explode colours all over the place, making it feel like viewers can almost touch light echoes and aurorae in space.

He and Josh Safdie, co-director with brother Benny, worked closely together on finding a sonic palette for the film, treating each cue as “its own art project”. Tangerine Dream’s Thief score and Jon Brion’s work on Punch Drunk Love were key references, as was Vangelis with his knack for making a synth sound like the celestial union of an orchestra and choir. Akira composer Geinoh Yamashirogumi was another influence. He is all over ‘Windows’.

It’s not all prog-y hypertension or density. Lopatin occasionally channels the cosmic frequencies and ambience of New Age music (we’re talking gemstones after all) as Howard feels a kind of “spiritual optimism” in fleeting moments of delusion.

‘The Bet Hits’ plays after Howard’s multi-leg parlay on Kevin Garnett and the Boston Celtics has paid off. His orgasmic reaction is juxtaposed with the serene sound of someone taking flight. There’s transcendence. He’s got his fix … for now.

EMILE MOSSERI – Paul’s Antiphony [Music on Vinyl] 1h 52m 50sIn Lee Isaac Chung’s family drama Minari, Korean American father Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun) uproots his family from California to 80’s rural Arkansas to start a small farm that he hopes will supply Korean fruit and vegetables to the many immigrants settling in the US.

Is it an act of hubris or a bold attempt to build a future away from the hatchery? The answer lies somewhere in between, Yeun’s sincerity and conviction making us root for Jacob and sympathise with him even when the well runs dry and pride takes hold. You can read my full reflection on the film on GUAP.

For the score, composer Emile Mosseri (The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Kajillionaire) said, “We wanted to find something that’s not hitting the subject of the film on the nose. So it was more about the music connecting to the story emotionally rather than geographically.”

‘Paul’s Antiphony’ is a good example. An ethereal vista of synth and undulating piano combines with Mosseri’s hummed melody as we watch the family tending to their farm and yielding crops. The hard work is beginning to pay off.

JONNY GREENWOOD – Sandalwood II [Nonesuch] 1h 54m 40sThe push-pull between pompous dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his muse/lover Alma (Vicky Krieps) is so compelling in Phantom Thread that I neglected Greenwood’s music on first viewing. It suits the rarefied atmosphere of couture in 50’s London, no doubt. But I chose to focus on the acting, the relationship and every annoying habit they provoked each other with.

Listening to the score without visuals, you get to bathe in its sweeping and swooning beauty as ‘Sandalwood II’ illustrates. There are quieter moments that resonate throughout the film, magnifying the tactility and tension of certain scenes. Seams being plucked and nerves tested. Meanderings on piano that hark back to Debussy or Bach.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson pushed Greenwood to be ever more lush and romantic, which felt unnatural to him. When he does cast off restraint and fully engage the 60-piece orchestra, the score is rapturous. ‘Sandalwood II’ could be Alma’s true theme. The sound of someone liberated by knowing what they want and acting on it in the name of love.

Greenwood has worked on many other Anderson films including There Will Be Blood , The Master and One Battle After Another, the director often cutting to his trusted composer’s music. Long may it continue – in parallel with Radiohead, of course.

KWES – Wave at Boats [Warp] 1h 58m 20sI consider one-time Lewisham resident Kwes a singer-songwriter at the root, because that’s how I first encountered him in 2009 with the track ‘Tissues’. On more recent Warp releases, he’s been experimenting with an ever-widening range of noises, creating these little idiosyncratic universes of sound that are ‘tuff’ but sweet.

‘LGOYH’, last heard on his Rye Lane score a few years ago, showed how his earnest lyricism could still tug on the heartstrings in a very British way. But instrumental snippets like ‘Wave at Boats’ hinted at where he might go next – ambience with a featherlight touch. Latest album Kinds offers nine colour-coded variations on a theme, for all the synesthetes out there.

AIR – Highschool Lover [Aircheology] 2h 1m 55sWhile writing the script for her first film, The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola listened to Air’s Premiers Symptômes and quickly gravitated to their melancholy. She felt they could provide the right atmosphere for her dreamy adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ mystery about shackled girlhood, the male gaze, fatal obsession and lost youth. Years later, the author would praise Coppola for her anachronistic choice, saying “I feel my book” in the music.

The Lisbon sisters of 70’s Grosse Pointe are enigmas, at least to the young boys who are reminiscing about them – projected onto and only known in pieces. In the book, Eugenides writes that, “They knew everything about us though we couldn’t fathom them at all. We knew, finally, that the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.”

Kasia Sopniewska has made a great video essay about girlhood in the wake of The Virgin Suicides and the following observation is what the Versailles duo were able to encapsulate in tracks such as ‘Highschool Lover’. “The film named a mood that many people recognised in themselves: a kind of soft sadness, a sense of being watched, the ache of wanting to be understood but never quite reaching it.”

I also come back to ‘The Word "Hurricane”', which you only hear for a brief moment at the end. Air’s score has more music than the film could hold. It’s substantial enough to be their second album proper after Moon Safari.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

Hello friends,

Who’s on holiday then? August seems like the month to get away. The city feels quieter, which I’m not complaining about. Well, that’s how it appears from my vantage point in a slighty more moist SE London (hallelujah) as petrichor scents the air.

There have been fewer random chats in the park, and fewer dogs for Finchy to antagonise with his big balls and flagrant disregard for personal space.

Meanwhile, I seem incapable of booking a break, instead coming up with umpteen reasons to stay put and on the grind. History is repeating itself as my parents’ frugality and excessive prudence possess me.

What’s really needed is a circuit breaker so I can think beyond my daily routine and surroundings. To have the opportunity to contend with this ‘orphan syndrome’ I am experiencing now that mum, dad and my brother are no longer with me. Is that a thing 🤷🏽‍♂️?

Also, a chance to really think about what's next for a freelance writer when AI becomes the go-to option for prospective clients who would rather take functional copy in a few clicks, at low-to-no cost. How do we raise respect for the written word in a video-first age and when so many of us are either too tired or in a hurry to read something at length, let alone pay for it?

Freelance technology journalist and former Substack employee Jasmine Sun says it’s “one of the best times” to be an independent writer. I wouldn’t go that far, but she has highlighted some key traits that will improve our chances of remaining competitive in a precarious industry.

Two that stand out are the rising value of shared secrets over summaries (think old-school sources and on-the-ground reporting outside data sets), as well as having a unique style or weirdness over polish.

A previous client did approach me about an enticing project with her new employer but I probably won’t be able to commit to their tight schedule. Anyway, nice to be rated and remembered for the way you write … and how you work in a team. That last bit is also important.

People tell me, write a book. Well, I might, once the idea comes to me. Perhaps it will on that remote Greek island I intend to escape to in late September, when the skies turn and everyone else will (probably) be putting away their shorts and flip-flops for another year.

In the meantime, we’ll keep this radio thing going, alongside my mentoring with Arts Emergency, volunteering with the Migration Museum and local manoeuvres with Sister Midnight. Take a look inside Lewisham’s first community-owned music venue. We’re getting there…

Thanks to those of you who got in touch to say how much you enjoyed my on-air reunion with Basement Soul brother Graham Luckurst last month. We will do it again with the full crew and continue the story of our Brighton club night.

In case you missed it, my deep dive into artist and composer Imran Perretta’s coming-of-age movie Ish has also been well received. Please give that a read and tell me what you think. The release date on BFI Player is 7 September.

In next month’s show, Imran will be talking to me about his music-making and how he scored his debut feature. Don’t miss it.

Ok, that’s all folks. On with this show!

✌🏾

Amar

*****

SUN RA – Bluebird Set No 2 Piano Solo [Strut] What better way to ease in than with a Sun Ra solo? Taken from Strut’s expanded reissue of a live recording in Bloomington in 1977, the set reflects the manifold musical bases he and the Arkestra would touch in one night. Anything from the Great American Songbook (‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’) to heavy blasts of swingin’ cosmic mythology (‘Neptune/Voice of Ebah’) and rare original compositions (‘Amen Meni Many Amens’).

With Ra on his own, however, without the Arkestra’s sensory overload, we can appreciate what a fluid and emotive player he could be. This edition “restores previously excised material and preserves more of the natural transitions between pieces”. In other words, you will be transported.

TEODROS MAKONNEN – Libesh Kabashen [Muzikawi] Teodros, aka Teddy Mak, was a key musical figure in 80’s Ethiopia, among the first to explore the possibilities of drum machines and electric organs in a land of exceptional hotel bands.

His father, a chief pilot at Ethiopia Airlines, set him on the way by gifting Teddy his first piano, encouraging him to learn music theory and attend a German school in Addis Ababa. Teddy went on to collaborate with the likes of Dahlak Band, Mulatu Astatke, Aster Aweke and many others as a player, composer or arranger.

A chance encounter at Wabi Shabelle Hotel with a diplomat from Saudi Arabia, who owned a Yamaha double-deck keyboard, led to the one-take recording of Tedros Makonnen and His Organ. A cassette steeped in tradition yet cast in oneiromancy, it seems. Let’s go with the magic carpet ride that is ‘Libesh Kabashen’ (‘Wear your Kaba’).

AJA MONET – Every Media Minute [drink sum wtr] On perhaps the most urgent track of The Colour of Rain, Monet’s second album, the Brooklyn-raised surrealist blues poet laments the rolling 24-hour negative news cycle that has drained people’s capacity for empathy and made love into work.

As if diagnosing the great malaise of these times – a simultaneous collapse of faith and dearth of leadership – she proclaims “We need something, something greater than ourselves,” adding, “There's a whole lot of religion and not enough God.”

Monet’s lyrical poise and clarity of thought welcome the listener into this one big conversation of a record. And with the help of Meshell Ndegeocello and Justin Brown as co-producers, she’s managed to find just the right level of instrumental accompaniment to animate each of these poems.

‘To Sister’ is a good example, with Brandee Younger’s harp and Ganavya’s ripples of voice helping us locate the core sentiment to Monet’s words and amplify her musicality. But many other superb musicians appear elsewhere including Josh Johnson, Ambrose Akinmusire and Georgia Ann Muldrow.

The Colour of Rain is both balm and ballast in the present moment, helping us to come back to ourselves, as Bandcamper Eleonore puts it. By the way, Monet is a great interviewee, generous and wise. Start here or here. And listen to her still-magnificent poem What I've Learned from 2012, filmed at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, where she was the youngest person to win the Grandslam Championship at the age of 19.

YOUR BROTHER’S KEEPER & GARY BARTZ – Solar Flare [Brownswood]Gary Bartz continues to search for new possibilities in sound here. Miles would approve. Some of you might know that Bartz played with Davis in the early 70s on Cellar Door sessions, B*****s Brew Live and Live Evil.

And we’re not a million miles away from that energy on this new project, which is also very destination out but more meditative than Bartz’s spritely NTU Troop stuff, which I devoured in my 20s.

Your Brother‘s Keeper features drummer and producer Jake Long (Maisha), Ali MacSween (piano, synthesizers and modular FX), Axel Kaner-Lidstrom (trumpet), Twm Dylan (double bass), Tim Doyle (percussion) and Chelsea Carmichael (tenor saxophone).

KELELA & AK PAUL – outta time [Warp] So many highpoints to replay on New Avatar as Kelela gets in her “white bag”, as she hilariously put it. That’s shorthand for guitars, metal-ic textures, a nod to Linkin Park and the like. This is no cosplay though. She is a beyond-the-binary alt Black girl and who started out in an indie-rock band.

And Kelela loves to test sonic boundaries, unwilling to experiment in a new style of music exclusively at the expense of losing other influences. So we get the Cut 4 Me-ish club track ‘point blank’ on the same album as Kerrang catnip ‘linknb’.

But the best song on the album is probably the sensual creeper ‘outta time’ – written more than a decade ago – with a plaintive AK Paul sliding into the mix to lay it all on the line. It’s one of my favourite vocal performances of the year and the guy’s barely trying.

As for Kelela, she can do anything. I’ll be paying homage in person at Brixton’s O2 Academy this November.

NICK HAKIM – Barii [Earseed] Intimacy is a hallmark of Nick Hakim’s songwriting (think ‘Needy Bees’ or ‘QADIR’). But he’s taken it to another level on his latest album I Can See, even finding a new register to convey the nuanced feelings in these lyrics.

It’s a proper headphones record, built on accumulated layers of sound and sustained emotion. One to start your morning with and gently rise to. ‘Barii’ is the song that’s stayed with me after multiple plays, with its sonorous starbursts and sonic floaters orbiting that gorgeous melody. It features Abe Rounds (Meshell Ndegeocello) on percussion and June McDoom on backing vocals (look out for her next record in October).

DAWUNA – Grabba Boy Problem [True Panther]It’s a hat-trick of appearances on Moonbeam Levels for Baltimore-based Dawuna after Glass Lit Dream (2021) and Naya (2024). Ian makes lo-fi, experimental r&b that feels so out of the box and spontaneous, like demos of one-take studio experiments laid down after all the obligatory stuff has been recorded.

He describes African Family Laptop Musick as a concept piece about his family life at the time (“compositionally simple but necessarily abstracted”), but a traumatic head injury suffered afterwards has prevented him from being able to remember much else. Let your own mind fill in the blanks as you bop and sway to hum-along riddims such as ‘Grabba Boy Problem’.

SPARKLEMAMI – Fajas [Verve] Texas-raised, Chicago-based and of Mexican and Indian heritage, multidisciplinary artist Ariella Granados is making music from multiple perspectives and with open ears. Across her debut album, one of this year’s most endearing, I hear a strong sense of 70’s Brazil – the sensuality and groove (Azymuth on ‘Grounded’) as well as the percussive fusion (Flora Purim on ‘Penso En Voce’). But then we also get a bolero-like love letter to her mother that reminds me of Kali Uchis (‘Quisiera’) and a radio-like intro with chords loosely inspired by the Bee Gees, though I’m hearing Marcos Valle.

Recorded to tape with analogue equipment, In This Body is all about crackly warmth, continuity and physical connection. There is also a deeper purpose to this record for the artist, as it’s a way to access what she calls her confessional subconscious.

“This album served as a vehicle of healing my relationship to my voice, my body, and is rooted in my love to myself and my community,” Sparklemami wrote back in April. “I confronted a lot of unresolved childhood grief and have learned so much along the way. Making this album brought me back to my voice and understanding of myself…”

THREETWENTY – Could It Be Love [New Century Sound]Husband and wife duo Ivana (formerly of VanJess) and Filip know how to smooth us out with their blend of amorous and intricate neo-soul harmonies and 90’s knock. I’m hearing Groove Theory, late-stage Tribe, and all that good stuff.

‘Could It Be Love’ is one to bounce to, in celebration of a life partner maybe, but also because their second album separate from the noise “side b” drops on 21 August. Just look at how they vibe to a track. You know they know how to tap into those feel-good frequencies. Or “downloads” as Ivana calls them, received from above in service to something greater than themselves (FYI their name is a reference to Ephesians 3:20 and the day they met).

AISHA – Can You Feel It [Ariwa/Test Pressing] The First Lady of Dub actually recorded multiple versions of this tune with Neil Fraser, better known as Mad Professor (who I discovered through his work with Massive Attack). The digidub reconstruction from 1990 is much-loved but the original UK street soul cut – the first thing they worked on together in 1984 at Ariwa’s Gautrey Road studio in Peckham – is the one this summer. Both feature session don Drumtan Ward on drums, by the way.

Aisha went on to work with Fraser on four albums and several more singles. You can get this on a forthcoming Ariwa collection that Test Pressing has carefully curated. Worth it for ‘Can You Feel It’ and Jah Shaka collaboration ‘Only One God’ alone.

So glad to see a truckload of Ariwa releases circulating again, like Black Steel’s Jungle Warrior and all the Kofi albums. One of the great UK labels and one of the most successful black-owned businesses.

SVITLANA NAINIO / PHANTOM – ManySpace [Stroom]What a good month for obscure compilations offering a portal to a particular cultural moment and scene. Aftermath and Transitions is actually the second batch of releases resulting from the connection between Cologne-based visual artist, musician and producer Guido Erfen and affiliates of the Novaya Scena rock club in Kharkiv. A place that put on bands inspired by punk, Dadaism, the avant garde and even medieval melodies, we’re told in the liner notes.

The first collection was released in 1993, selected from tapes handed to Erfen and whatever caught his ear when he went to Ukraine. A visit to Cologne by classically trained pianist Svitlana Nianio (nee Ochrimenko) and guitarist, visual artist and spokesperson Yewgeny ‘Yenia’ Taran catalysed this follow-up, which features four eerie and elusive collaborations with Erfen’s SHM colleague Michael Springer (recording “natural electronic music” under the name of his studio Phanton).

It was at Phanton that vocalist and keyboardist Soloveyka met Wolfram Burgtorf, forming Solar who contribute three tracks. Each evokes trip-hop at its most out-there and hypnotic. And don’t sleep on Taran’s original version of ‘Death And The Batchelor’, which comes off as the theme for an exotic murder mystery series.

PINEAPPLE 4.9 – Yoruni [Miss You] DJ and producer Yuzo Iwata has compiled a very dubby collection of no wave tracks, made between 1980 and 1985 by members and affiliates of the Tokyo Rockers scene. Japanese New Wave On Dub is available on vinyl only, for the hardcore, but that does mean you can pore over some nice photography and context around the project. It feels even more like an artefact as it spins. Fans of The Slits, New Age Steppers and ESG will really appreciate this one.

EAR – F [A24 Music]The machinery in hotly touted album Rumspringa hums such charming melodies under the introverted lyrics of fine artists Yaelle Arvan and Jonah Paz. Ear sounds like twee indie-pop produced by Plaid or Autechre. Yes, A Postal Service for Warp, and I’m into it.

As they told Crack earlier in the year, the duo has very different musical persuasions – Avtan is more hardcore and gabber, while Jonah leans towards folk and contemporary classical. So they had to invent their own “shared sensibility”. And the elusive, schizophrenic nature of this record can be explained by their constant need to find the right form for their feelings whenever they make music.

ACTRESS – Overchord [Ninja Tune]Every release from Darren Cunningham is a trip and Radical Frame (due on 18 September) will be no different. Put simply, he is one of the most interesting – and therefore exciting – composers of electronic music working today.

As the cultural theorist and poet Fred Moten intimates on the release page, we’re talking about one of the modern architects of a black avant garde right here. It still makes my head fizz to think that ‘Rap’, ‘Baby U Lar’, ‘Marble Plexus’, ‘Hubble’ and ‘Its me (g 8)’, were all made (from deep within) by the same artist.

His best work sounds like he’s constructing and deconstructing the track at the same time, ringing maximum intensity from the operation and luring the listener out of their comfort zone. And when he collaborates with the likes of London Contemporary Orchestra or pioneer Suzanne Ciani, Actress brings all of himself to the venture, with very little compromise.

‘Overchord’ has a serene drift to it, four to the floor, but the strains of strings and ripples of sound keep you on edge.

ALEX NUT – Bright (ReFreQ Mix) [Eglo]It seems like every month there’s something new from Mr Nut to play out. The DJ and Eglo Records runner is coming through big time as a producer and The Heat EP is confirmation of his natural feel for groove and warmth in the spaces between jazz, house and broken beat.

Frequent collaborators Steve Spacek and Sam Crowe feature, as does Allysha Joy on lead vocals on ‘The Heat’, but the ReFreQ mix of ‘Bright’ takes me a little further out. That’s where I need to be.

IBRAHIM ALFA JR – Ikoyi Heat [Tsaigumi]

IBRAHIM ALFA – Drifting [Workshop 22]

IBRAHIM ALFA JR – CWNG [Mille Plateaux]

IBRAHIM ALFA JR – Inwards Reverse [FO]

To try and summarise Ibrahim Alfa Jr’s experiences in and out of the music industry would be a fool’s errand. But here is a teaser trailer in verbal jump cuts… From young fatherhood on the South Coast, prolific music-making and DJ’ing as he tried to hold down a factory job, to misadventures in record labels, constant money worries, a stint in prison and multiple heart attacks, this man is a survivor who deserves to be celebrated for his long-applied talent.

Around 2022, in a few years alone, he produced more than 500 tracks – idiosyncratic experiments in techno, ambient, breakbeat and bass sonics. But across his overwhelming catalogue, fans of Black Dog, Jeff Mills and Drexciya, as well as Michael J Blood and the aforementioned Actress, will have innumerable opportunities to bug out.

There’s more to be said and shared in time. For now, read Joe Muggs’ candid interview from 2014 and then wander through the catalogue, starting with unofficial debut album Hidden by the Leaves. Infinite Black Records 1, due in October, sounds compelling throughout.

WILLIAM ORBIT – Last Lagoon [IRS]

TORCH SONG – Shine On Me (with Laurie Mayer) [N-GRAM]

MADONNA – Drowned World / Substitute for Love (William Orbit’s A Reverie Mix)

MADONNA – Justify My Love (William Orbit Remix) [Sire]

WILLIAM ORBIT – Into the Paradise (featuring Baby B) [Virgin]

PRINCE – The Future (Remix by Mark Moore and William Orbit) [Warner]

TORCH SONG – Prepare to Energise [IRS]

My introduction to William Orbit was on the first volume of Café Del Mar, a seminal compilation series put together by the downtempo master Jose Padilla. The track was ‘Strings of Light’, credited to Strange Cargo. Even to a novice listener, the hallmarks of Orbit’s production were apparent: a sense of space, reverie, satisfying bottom end and surprises going to and fro in the mix.

At the time, I had no idea the East London-born musician was behind the chart-topping ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ as Bassomatic, but there he is on TOTP in 1990, stylin’ behind the keyboards. And again, three years later, nonchalantly tapping on the djembe as he performs ‘Water From A Vine Leaf’ with Beth Orton at the Love Week End.

Obviously, his integral work with Blur on 13 and Madonna’s Ray of Light – transitional, departure records for both parties – pushed him much closer towards the spotlight. Not forgetting co-writing and producing a pop classic with All Saints, other cherished collaborations with Orton and his zeitgeisty reinterpretation of Adagio for Strings.

However, only those closest to him knew how much of a genius he was. Like Apiento, who used to work with Orbit at Guerrilla Records and go record shopping for him. “Watching William in the studio felt like seeing someone exactly where they should be,” he wrote in a recent tribute for Test Pressing.

“He still had a tape machine and then would have everything running through the desk so he would have the tracks down and just be throwing delays and reverbs and just bringing the whole thing to life in a joyful way.”

The pair caught up for a chat in 2022. Orbit’s fastidious approach to writing, mixing and engineering came through strongest when reminiscing about Strange Cargo. “When I started, I think some of the things I did were a bit wonky until that Strange Cargo release where I found my feet and I think it was because I trusted that use of almost the atmospheric.

“And I would allow myself to become totally obsessed with sound… To the point where every bar had to hold my attention and make me think, I could listen to this forever and ever. It’s an obsession. I mean, I’m just very happy in the world of sound. It’s just colours to me.”

One of Orbit’s deep cuts that wowed me was his remix of Prince’s ‘The Future’ from the Purple One’s Batman soundtrack, created with Mark Moore. “Well that was William letting loose, unchained and doing even more of his thing,” the S Express producer posted on Instagram, calling Orbit an enigmatic space cadet. “It’s a darker mix and a lot of people say it was the first progressive house track. To this day I have people coming up and saying they based their whole sound on that remix.”

Pete Tong, who worked on the soundtrack for The Beach, which featured ‘Pure Shores’, pinpointed what made Orbit special in terms of his musical sensibility. “William was different, an outlier … who managed to fuse the worlds of electronic, classical, jazz and pop effortlessly. He created unique soundscapes and special feelings. Music that moves you. The very definition of what music should do.”

I’ve picked out a few highlights tucked away in his heaving discography. But there will be many more deep dives ahead. PS Did you know he composed the opening score for macho ice hockey movie Youngblood, starring Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze? The man’s been iconic since ’86 🕊️OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

RODNEY FRANKLIN – Endless Flight [CBS]The late pianist, composer and producer had a monster club hit in 1980 with instrumental ‘The Groove’, which kickstarted its own “freeze” dance craze in the UK. He was just 20 years old. Inspired by the likes of Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson, Franklin had both the chops and the modernist sensibility to make tracks that could move body and mind – 70’s Lonnie Listen Smith meets 80’s George Duke.

There is no greater testament than ‘Endless Flight’ – written with Phyllis St James – which was like course material for the international nu-jazz to bruk community including Kyoto Jazz Massive and Daz-I-Kue and fellow keys virtuoso Kaidi Tatham (“You know he was one of our heroes”). Whatever they fed on, so did I. Listening to this masterpiece is like having a spiritual awakening every time. Music with a higher purpose.

Y-TRIBE – Baby (You Bring Me Up) [Northwest10]I must shout out author jesse bernard, who has written a very perceptive and intimate history of Black British music called Escaping Babylon. A (successful) attempt to fold lived experience into an analysis of the ecosystem, roots and shoots. Soundsystem, reggae, dancehall, soul, jungle, drum n’ bass, drill, grime, UK hip-hop, UK rap, 2-step, house, afroswing and so much more.

His scope is ambitious but Jesse is a charismatic and nimble guide, evoking eras (through the fashion, TV shows, radio stations, technology and key personalities of the time), making connections and challenging preconceptions along the way.

I like the book’s format, akin to a mixtape with poetry and short stories for interludes, but the occasionally abrupt fader-like cutting between ‘skits’ might disappoint a few readers seeking deeper discussion.

The commentary around Black Britain’s contribution to British culture and the social value of this music is particularly interesting. “And perhaps what’s even more sobering about being Black British is how fragile and intangible it actually is as a concept,” he writes.

“Black British identity is the very thing that has kept many of us going for so long, especially with the tireless work that many of us have done to ensure life has got better – but Babylon is pervasive, engulfing and suffocating. And sometimes, treading water and finding those moments where joy emerges, such as through dance and communing, is how we can best seek an escape.”

The playlist is bangin’ and, like me, you may burn hours on YouTube bouncing from link to link and scrolling through comments. Bernard’s reignited my love for Lynden David Hall, put me onto a Wretch 32 deep cut and revived forgotten classics like this end-of-night garage anthem by Y-Tribe.

Writing Escaping Babylon has left him with far more questions than answers, so we can look forward to more reasoning on the page.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

‘Not everything that counts can be counted.

Not everything that can be counted counts.’

I can’t remember when I first heard this saying, and I don’t know who to attribute it to, but … time to live by this adage. Focusing on the personal significance of an experience over follower counts, conversions or whatever KPI we’re told to fixate on nowadays, is not only comforting … it’s necessary.

One might draw a parallel with the wellness world here and the modern scourge of self-optimisation. Always looking ahead and striving to perform better can promote harsh self-judgment and erode joy. With this in mind, instead of belittling a rite of passage for me as a music writer and selector, why not celebrate it?

Between 2006 and 2008, I co-ran a club session in my home town, Brighton, with Graham Luckhurst (Jazz Rooms All-stars, Tru Thoughts, Mr Bongo) and Simon ‘Midtempo’ See. We set out to create a night that could slip and slide like a Balance or Co-Op at Plastic People in East London. From Joyce, John Klemmer and Johnny Hammond to Madlib, Theo Parrish and IG Culture, via Leroy Burgess and Patrick Adams.

Basement Soul became an almost weekly soundsystem social and underground throwdown at the Jazz Place on Ship St. There, extended family could pass through and air their latest discoveries, ‘headz’ could find community around their slightly offbeat or muso tastes, and tipsy revellers were welcome to stumble down the stairs for a late-night boogie.

Looking back, the whole endeavour was a holistic musical education that stretched my understanding of the dance and forged long-lasting friendships. How we would trace the lineage from a Herbie Hancock production to a Likwid Bizkit dubplate in the dark, or effervesce as Joyce Sims’ ‘Come into My Life’ – a big radio track from my childhood – got revived and reloaded.

Occasionally, we would invite guests such as my old Straight No Chaser brudda Max Cole, Ok-Ma, Domu and Ryan Hunn (who later recorded for Ninja Tune and Young Turks as Ilum Sphere). For our first birthday party at the Komedia, a very young Andreya Triana came down from Leeds with her loop pedal station to support certified UK soul don Omar and his band.

There were road trips to Bristol and the Netherlands. Graham and I toured Estonia and Japan. Jeannie Hopper invited us onto her Clocktower Radio show DJ Culture in NYC. A compilation followed featuring exclusives from Kid Sublime, Soulphiction, Jneiro Jarel’s Shape of Broad Minds and Aroop Roy. We did things!

But as anyone who has run a local club night will tell you, it can be a grind. Slow nights, quiet nights, too many late nights taking their toll… As new roads open up, professionally and personally, a crew either mutates or disbands. The music remained our glue, even after we dispersed around London and beyond, but more time was spent attending other people’s gigs than putting on our own.

After reading about the fantastic work De School has done to create an archive of past sets, browsing club-related memories on the Museum of Youth Culture’s Instagram and listening to oral histories of sessions such as Charlie Dark’s Blacktronica, it felt right to document our own pivotal adventures in nightlife. So I invited Graham to talk through his memories and go back to back.

You will learn more about our motivations for starting the night, hear stories about a few regulars and appreciate how we used to build the vibe from doors opening to peak-time energy.

An extended family formed around Graham, who was the nucleus, including blood brother (Phat) Kev, Matt Neale and art director Pete Hughes. I would like to open up the floor to several of them and get their perspective on the night, so expect a part two very soon.

What would you like to know about the night or this era? Who were you into back then?

We didn’t have time to play any hip-hop, which was a crucial component in the Basement Soul sound. Something to rectify. And there will be lots more nominations for contemporary artists who would fit right in, were Basement Soul to make a comeback 😲 Let’s start with Kelela, GENA, Sessa, Nourished By Time, John Glacier, Michael J Blood and Marvin Jupiter.

Enjoy the show and I hope this heady act of remembrance inspires you to revisit (what you thought was) a footnote in your own life.

Stay close,

Amar

*****

KIDKANEVIL – Good Morning, What’s New? (ft Andreya Triana) [Unique Uncut]

STEVE SPACEK – Dollar [Sound in Colour] 3m 20s

SUN PALACE – Rude Movements [BBE] 6m 45s

THE REBIRTH – This Journey In (Instrumental) [Kajmere Sound] 12m 10s

SOLANGE – Binz [Columbia/Saint] 20m 30s

TOM BROWNE – Thighs High (Grip Your Hips And Move [Arista] 22m 50s

TEENA MARIE – You Make Love To Me Like Springtime [Gordy] 27m 20s

MARTA ACUNA – Dance, Dance, Dance [P&P] 31m 15s

SEAWIND – It’s Not Free [Underdog Edits] 40m 00s

RAINBOW BROWN – Let’s Go Another Round (Tom Moulton Extended Edit) [PAP] 45m 45s

CORINNA JOSEPH – Live Your Life With Me [Atlantic Jaxx] 52m 42s

VIKTER DUPLAIX – Manhood [Groove Attack] 58m 20s

BOPSTAR – Chiaroscuro (ft Zara McFarlane) [Unique Uncut] 1h 03m 00s

AFRONAUGHT – Transcend Me (ft Melissa Browne) [Apollo] 1h 16m 40s

BUGZ IN THE ATTIC – Once Twice [V2] 1h 22m 10s

JAZZTRONIK – Samurai [Pantone] 1h 26m 30s

ROMANTHONY – Bring U Up (Original Mix) [Glasgow Underground] 1h 31m 10s

JAMES BROWN – I’m Satisfied [Polydor] 1h 35 25s

LINKWOOD – What’s Up With The Underground? [Firecracker] 1h 41m 05s

PEPE BRADDOCK – Deep Burnt [Kif] 1h 44m 35s

PEVEN EVERETT – Put Your Back In It [Unified] 1h 54m 10s

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

Hello sunshine!

Agh, this London furnace is all-consuming. Is the world still burning where you are? Walking feels like a major achievement at the moment, never mind scouring the world day and night for music to write about and play to you.

My eyeballs are stuck to my lids (out to the blepharitis crew), my body is turning a cold shower warm in seconds and food just don’t hit like it used to. A man cannot live on salads and watermelon alone. But my appreciation for linen and coconut water has reached new heights 💦

Last Friday, I got suited and booted for my best friend’s wedding. That was a test, and I’m not just talking about the speech (which went well). Imagine wearing a coat in this madness, aka being a doggy. Finchy has just thrown up and is panting by my feet as I type this. Solidarity with pooches, plants, kitchen staff and all living things under stress.

According to the UK’s Met Office, between 2015 and 2024 the number of days exceeding 30°C in the UK more than trebled compared with the 1961-1990 average. And we ain’t seen nothing yet. Look at this prediction for 2056.

The forecast across the continent is also blazing orange. “The European Environment Agency says the 27-country bloc and its governments aren’t protecting their people from extreme temperatures,” Politico reports, “assessing the threat of heat stress for the general population as critical in this decade, and ‘catastrophic’ from mid-century onward.”

We urgently need a revolution in myriad facets of industry, from manufacturing and energy production to transport, construction and urban planning. Enough talk. The fact that no more than 6% of UK homes are currently reaping watts from this scorching summer (compared to roughly 25% in the Netherlands and 22% in Belgium) makes the situation an even bigger joke.

Perhaps most of the other 94%, like me, are put off by the £5,500-£8,000 upfront cost for a standard 4kW solar PV rooftop system and the 6 to 10 years it will take to pay for itself (though assistance is available for low-income households, among others).

Weaning off fossil fuels and reducing emissions are only part of the solution. How about building and adapting homes so bedrooms are more bearable at night. Providing more shady streets lined with trees to diffuse the heat and courtyards to take shelter. Or being more merciful to public transport passengers. In London, only 40% of underground trains are air-conditioned, though you would barely notice them.

How have you been adapting and surviving? Hacks and tips appreciated.

Ok, that’s enough about the weather and ecological peril. As you can see below, there is a ridiculous amount to share, more than I could squeeze into a wobbly live session at the studio. Dive in and hit me back with your favourite moments.

A couple of gifts:

* I’m always trying to stretch the definition of “writer” and expand my practice. So I wrote a poem on the theme of exile, published to coincide with Refugee Week. Can you spare a few minutes to read it and tell me what you think, please?

* You may remember that I am a voluntary director at Sister Midnight, Lewisham’s first community-owned music venue, which opens later this year. For a new radio series called Brick by Brick, I sat down with founder Lenny Watson to join the dots between early days in a Deptford record shop, an unsuccessful campaign to buy a local pub, the many challenges in renovating an old working man’s club and why it’s taking so long. Listen here.

Stay cool but close…

Amar

*****

MARK JENKIN – Kneebone Barton [Invada]British filmmaker Mark Jenkin has garnered much praise for Cornish allegories Bait and Enys Men, but did you know he also loves messing around with tape loops? For his latest 16mm film Rose of Nevada, we again find him building unease with ease as a composer, in addition to his other duties as writer, director, cinematographer and editor. Isn’t that a bit much, you ask? Well, one man’s control freak is another’s auteur.

Jenkin knows exactly what we should be hearing from scene to scene as George MacKay and Callum Turner realise they have joined a fishing vessel that’s been lost for three decades and transported them to 1993.

His score gently ripples and drifts in ominous tones and plangent yet distant strings, perfectly conveying the disorientation of both men and a hint of the supernatural about their predicament. Quick fact: Kermode said the BFI put this weird little mystery in more than 100 cinemas nationwide.

DEITADO NA BARRA (ROUGH) (Bonus Track) [Flee] 4m 15s

Candomble is a foundational religion and spiritual belief system of Afro-Brazilian culture involving the worship of divinities known as orixás through music, dance, rituals and offerings.

Drums and chants are used to induce a trance-like state, allowing practitioners to ”channel the invisible” as master percussionist Airto once said. Oshun/Oxum was one of the first I encountered through Osunlade (see below), who is an ordained priest of the Yoruba religion Ifá. Oshun is the orixá of beauty, love and fertility.

Candomble originates from the African ancestors brought to Brazil by Portuguese colonialists who forbade them from practicing their own beliefs. So they had to preserve these spirits under Catholic names. There were violent state crackdowns during the rule of President Vargas and until 1977 it was illegal to perform drum rituals in the streets of Bahia.

This rhythm is taken from a project called Candomble: Sacred Rhythms of Brazil.

ZENA – Temesgen [Brownswood] 8m 45s

I caught Yohan Kebede (keys, synths) of Kokoroko and Menelik Claffey (bass) at Cross the Tracks festival in May and was quickly intoxicated by their jaunty take on ethio-jazz. It’s as if Badbadnotgood and Shuggie Otis went to bandcamp in Addis Ababa with masters Hailu Mergia and Mulatu Astatke.

Zena is about respecting their musical heritage – the “tezeta” of it all – while projecting traditional sounds into the present and adding a new dimension. Let’s go with the title track from their last EP, simply because I love the reason it’s called ‘Temesgen’. A word that means “Thank God” in Amharic. I’ve never heard my mother receive good news without saying it aloud,” says Yohan. Join them in the dance asap and don’t be afraid to get your “eskita” on.

HI-TEK – Get Ta Steppin’ (featuring Mos Def and Vinia Mojica) [Coalmine] 13m 30s

Hi-Teknology should be in more conversations about the best hip-hop albums of the 2000s. A jewel from the Rawkus era when independent hip-hop was in the ascendancy, putting conscious lyricism over deft beats. It’s recently been repressed with all the trimmings on its 25th anniversary.

The Cincinnati producer first caught the ear with ‘Fortified Live’ and all-time great Black Star, before working on Talib Kweli’s solo project. On his debut solo offering, he gets to flex in all types of ways. ‘Get Ta Steppin’ is the kind of transcendent vibration that stops you in your tracks, calms the central nervous system and makes you kiss the sky. I’ve always appreciated Mos/Yasiin’s singing tone but this song would be a shadow of itself without the graceful tones of Vinia Mojica.

JACKIE MITTOO – Sky King Jack [17 North Parade] 18m 00s

How did Jackie Mittoo’s In Cold Blood come into my life? Who knows. My memory is so atomised these days, I find myself telling tales and making up stories to plug the gap. The important thing to know is that is this a heavy heavy set he cut alongside the Aggrovators – Sly & Robbie on riddim, Tommy McCook and Bobby Ellis on horns, Winston Wright on organ – with Bunny Lee producing.

Not only that, King Tubby is engineer so you know these vibrations will zing. ‘Sky King Jack’ shakes and slinks along in ghostly fashion under Jackie’s mystical runs, begging for a reload. The remastered vinyl has decent liner notes and archival images to pour over.

SONNY ROLLINS – The Cutting Edge [Milestone] 22m 05s

Despite having made a stack of albums since the 50s, many of them revered such as The Bridge and Tenor Madness (with Trane), saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins remained an ineffable enigma to me as a player. I knew him more for his rigour and dutifulness to the music that had him practicing days upon end on the Williamsburg Bridge, than for a signature sound or style.

He remained, as Peter Keepnews put it in his NYT obituary, “ultimately unclassifiable”. Sonny could bop with the best of them, full-bodied and agile an improviser as you could find, but I prefer his controversial 70’s period when he responded to the times by opening up to guitars and breakbeats.

This is the title cut from his 1974 live recording at Montreux Jazz Festival, featuring Mtume on percussion and Stanley Cowell on piano. For a spiritual séance with the man on death and other matters, read this incredible interview.

GENIUS – Bermilyia Avenue [BBE] 28m 40s

My top selection from a recent collection of lost and hidden Argentinian grooves called Danza Secreta. So many candidates on here, trust me. Props to Buenos Aires selectors Ric Piccolo and Ariel Harari. The overarching is funk, soul and cosmic disco as resistance music.

Some of you will know that the country was in the grip of a far-right, authoritarian dictatorship from the 70s into the early 80s, known as the Dirty War. The people’s spirit of rebellion manifested also as musical experimentation and a quest for new sounds and styles.

HARRIET TUBMAN – The Terror End of Beauty [Sunnyside] 32m 44s

HARRIET TUBMAN AND GEORGIA ANN MULDROW – We You Rise [Pi] 39m 05s

Listening to prolific music medium Georgia Ann Muldrow raving about Harriet Tubman on The Questlove Show compelled me to revisit their recent joint album. While a jazz major in NYC, she discovered guitarist Brandon Ross (Henry Threadgill’s Make A Move), bassist Melvin Gibbs (Black Rock Coalition, Defunkt) and “liminal thrash monster” drummer JT Lewis playing in Galapagos Arts Space, aka the juke joint of her dreams.

Around two decades later, a fateful collaboration at Detroit Jazz Festival was the catalyst for Electrical Field of Love. Though Georgia’s studio output might suggest otherwise, both parties travel the spaceways between composed and improvised music, channelling spirits and feeling out unusual textures.

The trio generates a compulsive intensity that melds Get Up With It-era Miles, doom metal and Meshell Ndegeocello in dub, as ‘The Terror End of Beauty’ (Gibbs’ tribute to Sonny Sharrock) and ‘We You Rise’ testify. Definitely one to check live. Perhaps this is the Georgia we’ll get at The Pitchfork Festival in London this November. Noname and Cleo Reed are also on that bill.

LORAINE JAMES – The Book of Self-Doubt [Hyperdub] 45m 00s

Whether it’s under her own name or as Whatever the Weather, Loraine knows how to reel in the listener with her intricate, ruminative take on electronic music. Latest album Detached From the Rest of You has her opening up even more, slipping into “IDM Popstar” mode and using her voice to work through angst, insecurity and a few other issues.

I love the way melody and rhythm are constructed to flicker on tracks like this. The collaborations with Miho Hatori and Tirzah really complement the mood of this set as well.

NÍDIA & VALENTINA MAGALETTI – Ta A Bater Ya (Cosmic Analog Ensemble Version) [Latency] 47m 55s

We live for a version on Moonbeam Levels and this radical reimagining of the album Estrada is stacked with a plethora of ginormous rhythms. I missed the collaboration between the producer and drummer when it came out in 2024. But it doesn’t matter. I wager the source material would be hard to detect even if I had.

Take the title track, for instance. Could you get two more different interpretations than Sherelle’s ferocious jungle and the chuggy tropical bounce of Yu Su? I’m feeling Charif Megarbane and the Cosmic Analog Ensemble’s squelchy take on ‘Ta A Bater Ya’.

WESSELTOFT SCHWARZ – Where is the Edge? [Jazzland Recordings] 50m 30s

A pleasant discovery on some newsletter of past releases, maybe Rush Hour. I wasn’t aware that pianist and composer Bugge Wesselftoft and producer Henrik Schwarz had made a whole album together in 2011. Considering some of their past releases, it’s evident they were in close orbit and moving towards one another. There is a shared tension, which is how I would describe their collaboration Duo. ‘Where is the Edge?’ is a spontaneous club jam where the musicians trip the line between improvisation and live electronic production.

ALEX NUT PRESENTS SUM OF ITS PARTS – The Message (Boddhi Satva’s Ancestral Soul Dub Mix) [Eglo] 54m 05s

Another month, another very discerning couple of productions from Eglo main man and DJ supreme, Alex Nut. No quickfire sketches here though. Both are, in fact, a labour of love, “the culmination of years of crafting, shaping and chipping away at some very special recording sessions with some very talented musical friends,” he says.

‘Hello High’ breezes through like one of those late-night live four-four jams from Moodymann, while ‘The Message’ winds through a dense thicket of spiritual jazz frequencies and carries us to a higher state of consciousness. Players include Sam Crowe on keys, Junior Ali-Balogun on percussion and Duane Atherley on bass. I’m feeling Boddhi Satva’s dub right now with its entrancing percussion.

CHARLIE DARK – Foundation & History [Gala] 1h 00m 10s

South London’s annual dance music gathering Gala is one of the real success stories of recent years on festival circuit. Hard to believe it’s already been ten years. This living document brings together close friends and affiliates ranging from Chaos in the CBD, Joe Armon-Jones & Maxwell Owin to Dreamcastmoe and Marcellus Pitman.

The one that gave me chills though has no music. It’s “old-school SE15” community builder and music archivist Charlie Dark MBE in spoken word mode, reminiscing about Shaka playin’ heavyyy, a sound with no name shakin’ Lazerdome, SE school reunions and rivalries in the dance…

Charlie is such a charismatic storyteller – check his sessions at 180 Studios – and brings his past to life in such vivid detail. The message is clear: know your history but also plug into the now as more gets made. Fingers crossed we see this man back on stage. I missed his Have Box, Will Travel one-man play years ago. He can hold a theatre and then some.

IG CULTURE – Talkin’ Bout Mine [Kindred Spirits] 1h 2m 50s

Alex is also a seasoned broadcaster and did a really enjoyable show with IG Culture a while back. It was about time someone gave him his proper dues as a pioneer and conduit for some of the best underground Black British Music of the past 30 years.

From MC duties on Young Disciples Road to Freedom and Roots Manuva’s Brand New Second Hand, to hip-hop production for Dodge City, bruk experiments as New Sector Movements and being a driving force in the Co-Op movement, IG has consistently been on some other sh*t.

This is an old, hard-to-find tune that was a bit of a Plastic People favourite, built for flexin’ in the darkness. IG’s still at large. Check his recent remix for Kokoroko.

GRAMM – legends/nugroove (TM) [Fairtiche] 1h 7m 45s

Jan Jelinek’s Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records was a masterclass in brooding, late-night minimal house and ambience. After-dark experiments in “hypnotic repetition”. Jazz not jazz. I thought that was his debut album. But no, two years earlier in 1999, Source released Personal Rock under the name GRAMM, a more enigmatic cousin that rattles and hums, flutters and breathes down our ear canals.

Jan conceived it for “home listening” but there’s an undeniable dancefloor in the mind about this unique record. For all the geeks out there, this video on how to sound design like the man is very good.

TEENA MARIE – CASSANOVA BROWN (Yoruba Soul Mix) 1h 13m 55s

Taken from volume 23 of Osunlade’s cheeky remix series, it’s time for Lady T to get the Yoruba Soul treatment. An afro four-four flip of the ballad ‘Cassanova Brown’, which you can find on her 1983 album Robbery. Teena is one of my favourite artists of all time.

The voice alone sends me. It all began with ‘Portuguese Love’. Let me tell you about it. But we must recognise her arrangement and productions skills as well. That’s you killer grooves like this still hit so hard. Craving a feature-length documentary (mini one here). Who’s up for it?

HANNA – Beyond Infinity [Casa Voyager] 1h 20m 00s

I have been a huge fan of the elusive Warren Harris since Theo Parrish included him on a special mixtape he made for us at Straight No Chaser in the 2000s. As Hanna, he’s cultivated this unique pocket of body-and-mind music, where tracks burst out of the speakers with warm basslines, deep chords and shimmering keys, gradually taking you over. Check the Bella EP, Time Hotel and album Exquisite Style for starters. Casa Voyager got their hands on some hard-to-find releases from the early days. Take advantage.

*ELECTRIFYING MOJO – Turn the Page interlude (excerpt from The Mental Machine published in 1995-96 by J Stone Press) 1h 26m 10sDuring the 80s and 90s, Electrifying Mojo was a crucial conduit to music ranging from Parliament Funkadelic and Sly Stone to Prince, Kraftwerk, Devo, Depeche Mode, Cybrotron and what came to be known as techno. The WGPR and WJLB radio DJ would beam this extraordinary galaxy of sounds into homes with such theatre and ceremony that he had the tapers poised night after night hanging on his every word. His scale of influence is almost immeasurable. Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, Moodyman… they all give it up to him.

Professing to be no more than “a figment of the imagination” and “a face in the crowd”, presiding over something akin to a secret society (The Midnight Funk Association), Mojo soon became the no-format radio DJ on people’s lips from Cincinnati to Ontario and beyond.

But did you know published a collection of writing in the Mid-90s? It’s called The Mental Machine, a “book-opera” of poems, prose and social commentary for African Americans of the Metro Detroit area in particular. Copies are floating around but the audiobook is the full experience.

He laments the crime, violence and prejudice that pervades society and muses on big topics such as happiness and death. He then tries to answer the question “what now?”, instilling self-belief and preaching self-actualisation.

It felt right to bring in his prophetic voice at this juncture with an excerpt called Turn the Page. Another great bit is where he talks about how the mind will not survive unless we dream. “Dreams are the wings of the mind.”

Why now? Well, Mojo is celebrated among several other local legends and grassroots community builders in a podcast series about the D called Living for the City, hosted by poetic and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib. Highly recommended. Here’s why.

ABSTRACT THOUGHT – Bermuda Triangle [Clone Aqualung Series] 1h 28m 35s

Here’s Drexciya by another name, providing more techno “music beamed through dimensional waves by abstract thought”. Labelled as Storm #4, it was first released on Kombination Research in 2003, resurfacing a few months ago and floating into my periphery.

I would happily take a ride on any of these tunes, but warning – some are more bumpy than others. Let’s just start with number one, ‘Bermuda Triangle’, to which James Stinson and Gerald Donald wanted you to complete the following: “What if the triangle pivoted over the island of Jamaica, what would become of the population?” Read on at Drexciya Research Lab.

SHEEFY MCFLY – You’re Mine (featuring Bethlove) [Cape St Francis] 1h 34m 55s

We’re at the upper limit of my bpm range here but Detroit mover and shaker Sheefy McFly’s EP Baddies Only is so fun I had to include something from it. Conceived as a love letter to the women of the city’s underground, this is full-on ghettotechtopia. The Amp Fiddler collaborator and AUX88 remixer pounding us with the boom-clap and calling in vocalists such as Bethlove (whose original Sheefy flipped into an underground hit), DJ Mobetta and Lola Damone.

If you’re into gettin’ “turnt” and behaving badly, this is the release for you. Sheefy is also a visual artist. That’s his mural Detroit Never Left on the sleeve.

MARVIN JUPITER – Keep to Myself 1h 38m 20s

No time to rest on laurels after causing a stir with those bruk-y remixes of D’Angelo and Don-E. The NW London producer has dropped two bombs this month – very much the standard bearer for a new generation who like their soul tuff but sweet for the dance.

I can hear multiple phases of Black British Music in the mix, particularly broken legends such as Neon Phusion and Bugz who placed equal importance on the song and the sonics. Out to the players making it lively: Dino Econimides on guitar, Joseph Oti-Akenteng on trumpet and Marvin on Rhodes & Juno 106.

You can check some of Marvin’s DNA on a recent NTS show, covering for Bradley Zero on Rhythm Section.

THE HUMAN EGG – Love Like This [Mucho Gusto] 1h 42m 30s

DJ Spinna introduced Gilles Peterson ‘Love Like This’ a while back so when the Brooklyn native came on GP’s radio show to talk about his transition from early Jigmastas hip-hop days to success in the house and electronic dance worlds, he pulled out the space disco cut. The whole album is a trip, conceived in 1978 by Jean-Pierre Massiera and Bernard Torelli, and coming over like the score to a jazz-funk-rockopera.

PJ CITY – Straight Forward (Non-Stop) (DJ Nature Re-Edit) [Mr Bongo] 1h 46m 30s

A standout from the very stacked eighth volume of Mr Bongo Record Club compilation series. Milo (aka DJ Nature) knows how to move the floor, particularly with the bottom end. You might be familiar with his chugging house productions but give credit to his edits too, like ‘Billy C’.

This one, originally released in 1986 on Chicago’s Rise Records, lives up to its title. Nature extends the sizzling disco groove to incite all the shufflers and shimmiers to show out. Also, check Kenny Dope’s edit of The Sylvers (RIP Foster), Tappa Zukie’s ‘Visions of Love’ and that London summer-ready reggae mix of Take Three.

CHUCK BYNUM – You Worked A Miracle [The Sound Council] 1h 52m 05s

I’ve been a fan of BRICK since day dot, particularly the photography. I had no idea they had branched out into excavating and releasing music. ‘You Worked A Miracle’ sounded like the realisation or culmination of something profound for its creator, Chuck Bynum. It’s one of those songs that imparts wisdom, speaks perseverance and hard-earned personal triumph.

The hazy video, featuring Bynum alone and in thrall to the music, was filmed in 1990 during an Arts-in-Correction programme. It’s a perfect encapsulation of what it feels like to lose yourself in this track. One play later, I sprinted off in hot pursuit of his story.

And what a story. How a gifted artist went from playing with the likes of Marvin Gaye and DJ Rogers to serving a life sentence in California State Penitentiary for possession of cocaine.

This wonderful oral history by Sam Butler surveys the long road to this release. What it took for Chuck to make this music, how it brought a family together and the collectors who kept the faith.

GENESIS OWUSU – Most Normal American Voter [Ourness] 2h 1m 30s

There’s a riot going on, a “stampede” you might say, and Genesis is at the forefront. Previous album Smiling with No Teeth was a favourite of mine in 2021. I was instantly drawn to its rebellious and subversive spirit, and the plethora of styles deployed in service to it. Redstar Wu & The Worldwide Scourge manages to feel more cohesive and yet even more effusive and volatile.

He’s lamenting the state of the world again, railing against all the “blue-check mania” (‘PIRATE RADIO’) and calling out so-called leaders who flex over nothing (‘BIG DOG’). Catharsis might be around the corner though. In more reflective moments, there’s nostalgia for simpler times when “we ain’t have much but we made it something” (‘4LIFE’).

Now here comes the rage again. Kanye supporters, incels, death cult zombies, the Musk, the King… They can all get it. So what now? Nothing else for it but reject numbness and keep climbing “with Sisyphean boulders” (‘ONE4ALL’). Why? For the love. “Joy as an act of resistance, even when the party’s over (‘RUNNIN OUTTA TIME).” I think ‘Hellstar’ is my favourite song but we ain’t goin’ out like that. It’s time for some ‘Most Normal American Voter’ energy’.

+++++

OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS

KNATS – Never Gonna Be A Boxer [Gearbox]

Sandwiched between Arlo Parks and Shania Twain on Later with Jools Holland, I discovered Geordie jazz outfit Knats the other night playing this one. Their attitude and energy were undeniable – punchy, shapeshifting and unapologetically from the north (thank gawd).

Young Stan Woodward is a sharp frontman, prodding and cajoling with bass in hand, while childhood friend and co-arranger King David Ike-Elechi switches up the rhythm with ease. You’ve also got Sandro Shar on keys and George Johnson standing tall on tenor sax.

Second album A Great Day in Newcastle is out on Gearbox, produced by Geordie Greep, which makes proper sense. The addition of Cooper Robson’s commentary really works, adding both everyday Tyneside grit and wit (check opener ‘7 Bridges to Burn’).

Knats are touring the UK throughout the rest of the year, stopping by The Exchange in Bristol, MOTH Club in London and Future Yard in Birkenhead among other places. Get involved.

SONS OF JUMIRA – Jaliyah’s Lament (live at NOIIS) [Super-Sonic Jazz]

Fans of Alice Coltrane’s A Monastic Trio will reach a comparable bliss with Sons of Jumira. Here, the Dutch trio of Julian Tjon Sack Kie (double bass), Mill Voyance (drums, percussion) and Ranie Ribeiro (harp) channel Jaliyah, a West African Mandinka storytelling practice of the Jali (griot). There is such a serene balance between the players on this live recording at NOIIS in Switzerland.

THE VISITORS – Fables of Africa [Craft]

Out of print since its original release on the legendary Muse Records in 1975, this project by spiritual saxophone brothers Earl (tenor) and Carl Grubbs (alto) is life-affirming music. To be expected when you’ve been mentored by deep ones Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane.

The quintet features the lyrical Joe Bonner (‘You Gotta Have Freedom’) on piano, Victor Lewis on drums and John Lee on bass. Cut from the original tapes on 180g vinyl, Motherland will have you enraptured by its melodic richness, free spirit and upwards motion.

BOARDS OF CANADA – Prophecy at 1420MHz [Warp]

To come back after 13 years with an album so replete with curious tones and textures is quite a statement of continued intent from one of electronic music’s most revered acts. I make no lofty claims about where it stands in their catalogue but I’m surprised by how polarised the reception has been among critics.

Nothing comes close to the feeling of hearing ‘Roygbiv’ off Music Has The Right To Children for the first time, but it’s not “hold music’ or “dreary” as one writer groaned. It would benefit from fewer cliched sound samples as on ‘Naraka’, certainly, but the depth of atmosphere and melodic richness win out.

DUMAMA – Eating The Other [Soundway]

I have been through Towards an Expanse several times trying to select a track but it feels disrespectful to only choose one when clearly the album was conceived to be travelled in one go.

Six years on from Kechou collaboration buffering juju, Eastern Cape’s Gugu Duma ponders how we preserve ritual, memory and ancestry across an ever-shifting album that seems to simultaneously pull us back to the past and way into the future. From Xhosa oral tradition and uhadi playing to sonic speculations on circular time, activated by key collaborator Nandi Ndlovu’s sound experiments.

‘Eating The Other’ is one of the more abrasive moments. Inspired by bell hooks, the song reflects on a society that “remains ill despite having the resources to heal”. Post-punk energy, underpinned by a chant the artist’s grandmother sang over the phone before she passed.

Duma isn’t just a purveyor of “nomadic future folk”. She is also a researcher and facilitator. Her 2020 contribution to the Embodied Arts Festival asked a simple yet intriguing question: “How many lives live in our bodies?” Towards An Expanse feels like a continuation of that – an electro-acoustic meditation on “autonomy, agency and liberating the violence of colonial archival practice”, in her words. It’s a tremendous achievement on every level.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

Hello pod people,

How’s it all going? Summer is almost here in the UK, as is another political circus and a World Cup. What a time.

So … I’ve been thinking about the hip-hop instrumental and 2000s’ beat culture, in particular. The spark being Flying Lotus first album 1983, which was released exactly two decades ago. That’s mad. I remember picking up the record on my first trip to NYC and thinking music would never be the same. The way I heard hip-hop would never be the same.

It’s also been 20 years since Jay Dee/J Dilla passed away, just three days after the release of his momentous mixtape Donuts.

This is more than a coincidence. For one thing, Lotus was interning at record Label Stones Throw around the time of Dilla’s final days and recalls dropping off a cheque at his house. Though saddened by how frail this 32-year-old legend had become, seeing all his gear lit up and Dilla still so committed to creation galvanised the young artist to get to work.

I was a rookie reviews editor and writer at Straight No Chaser in the 2000s, a starchart for “interplanetary sounds, ancient to future”. It was my job to seek connections between generations and genres. It was clear that Lotus and his contemporaries, both in LA and elsewhere, were part of a lineage. The torch was being passed. Leaving Records’ Matthewdavid said as much in All Ears, Gus Sutherland’s documentary about the LA scene in 2013.

“When [Donuts] came out, it was like a hit in the face. A call to action. We will not let this sound die.”

In truth, Dilla had been going ‘out there’ for several years prior – embracing synths, techno, the wildest samples and odd time signatures (check Dan Charnas’ book on how he reinvented rhythm). Thinking back to Slum Village, the ’97 mix of ‘Players’ hit different, as did the raw dynamics of ‘Raise it Up’, which I used to skip on Fantastic vol 2 in my neo/smooth era!

His debut studio album Welcome 2 Detroit in 2001 featured the Kraftwerkian ‘Big Booty Express’. Later came Ruff Draft and the new wave-y ‘Nothing Like This’.

Common’s Electric Circus bewildered many of us when it dropped in 2002. Dilla was an executive producer on that, programming and playing on several tracks. Today, it’s widely acknowledged as what it always was: an epochal vision of what hip-hop can be. Chaotic yet liberating.

This music was eons away from his work with the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and The Pharcyde, and Soulquarian collaborations with Erykah Badu and Bilal. Today, you can hear traces in releases on Lotus’ label Brainfeeder, Leaving Records, LuckyMe, Ghostly and many others.

Sa-Ra deserve recognition for their experimentation, crashlanding with ‘Glorious’ and freaking the beat as early as 2004 with remixes like this for DJ Mitsu. Another pioneer is Dabrye, whose ‘Game Over’ had Dilla guesting on the mic and sounded like an enormous stargate smashing open.

At their best, productions from this era were more than wonky wormholes or glitchy portals. More than sub-busting, circuit-melting departures from the sparse boom-clap, boom-bap of the 90s.

Though it was thrilling to get blasted by these retro-future sonics in the club, the music that stayed with me had a more elusive quality to it, resonating far beyond the nostalgia of 8-bit frequencies that hooked a whole generation of avid gamers. It had nuance, intricacy and texture. It built a world to inhabit, conjured tension and release. Far more compelling than today’s immensely popular ‘lofi beats’, or “Starbuck music” as Lotus likes to call it.

In a recent interview with Hearing Things’ Dylan Greene, he described the boundlessness of the LA scene back then. “It felt like we had so much potential to the way we were turning beats away from just rappers and crafting a producer world. I was curious to see how far we could take it.”

“Dilla really opened up the possibilities of what could be done with samples,” he adds. “For so long, people were so fixated on getting a two or four-bar loop out of a sample, where he’d get little pieces of a thing and make it sound like it was a four-bar loop.”

Dilla set the trajectory and gave the next generation of producers confidence to take centre stage, to be the headliner. Soon, beat culture would become “part of the fabric of pop culture” according to historian and author Laurent Fintoni.

Did you know that Paul White produced for a young Charli XCX? Or that Bullion wrote one of my favourite songs of recent years with Carly Rae Jepsen?

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to go back – back to the future. So here is a beat tape time capsule of some of my favourite MC-free transmissions from around 2006 to 2010. The rules are simple. No MCs. No guest vocalists. No interruptions.

It’s compiled in the spirit of latter-day Dilla and where he was taking hip-hop: deep into the realms of electronic music. Though if you ask Dabrye, that’s where it’s been since the beginning.

This sound convergence reached its zenith, arguably, in an East London car park during two consecutive summers. Look at those bills.

By 2009, you had the likes of Lotus and Pursuit Grooves releasing on Pinch’s Bristol label Tectonic. United in bass.

Ok, it’s your turn. Please reach me [at]amarofpatel on IG or in the Substack comments with memories, favourites, thoughts… I’d love to know whose influence you see where in modern music.

Look out for part two, where I’ll be in conversation with one of the artists I featured.

Otherwise catch me for the usual runnings on Sister Midnight FM, 26 May and 23 June from 2-4pm GMT.

Stay cool. Stay close.

And turn it up!

A

*****

FLYING LOTUS – Fall in Love (c2006)

FLYING LOTUS – 1983 [Brainfeeder] (2006) 3m 20s(FYI, FlyLo’s Dilla’s Still Here mix on Dublab in 2006)

DIMLITE – In Groups To The Hydrandd (Album Edit) [Sonar Kollektiv] (2005) 7m 30s

2TALL – Distant Shadows [The Content Label] (2008) 11m 50s

HUDSON MOHAWKE – Fuse [Warp] (2009) 15m 30s(Hudson’s Heeters vol 1 also very influential in the heyday of Myspace)

MIKE SLOTT – Snow Birds (2009) [Lucky Me] (2009) 18m 25s

BULLION – Are You The One? [One-Handed Music] (2009) 21m 30s

PAUL WHITE – unreleased beat (c2007) 24m 10s

AMMONCONTACT – Infinity of Rhythm (Instrumental) [Ninja Tune] (2004) 26m 30s

TAKE – In Every Way You Can [Poo-Bah] (2006) 30m 30s

RAS G & THE AFRIKAN SPACE PROGRAM – El Saturn Day [Poobah] (2010) 33m 15s

RAS G – Power of Thought [Poobah] (2005) 36m 00s

KNXWLEDGE – Dryice (2011) 38m 05s

MUHSINAH – Gogh [Rock Slinger Incorporated] (2009) 40m 10s(Tip: the full vocal version is one of my favourite songs of the era.)

FLYAMSAM – The Offbeat [Ghostly International] (2009) 40m 40s

DORIAN CONCEPT – Define Soft [Earstroke] (2006) 44m 00s

DAK – Frthbnghtsthtnvrhppnd [Leaving Records] (2009) 47m 30s

DABRYE – That’s What’s Up (instrumental) [Ghostly International] (2006) 49m 50s

HARMONIC 313 – Köln [Warp] (2008) 53m 40s

AZYMUTH – Melô Dos Dois Bicudos (Harmonic 313 remix) [Far Out] (2007) 57m 15s

PURSUIT GROOVES – Healing Secrets (2006) 1h 01m 15s

PAUL WHITE – Marshen Signals [One-Handed Music] (2010) 1h 04 50s

WAAJEED – Tetris (2009) 1h 06m 35s

MNDSGN – Trance Dance (featuring Devonwho) [Klipmode] (2009) 1h 09m 55s

THE BIG PAYBACK (BYRON THE AQUARIUS & ONRA) – Cosmic Travelling [Rush Hour] (2007) 1h 12m 10sFull project / Backstory

KID SUBLIME – I’m Back [Rush Hour] (2007) 1h 17m 10s

GEORGIA ANN MULDROW – Frames (instrumental) [Stones Throw] (2006) 1h 20m 45s(My interview with GAM for Straight No Chaser in 2006. Possibly her first cover feature.)

GEORGIA ANN MULDROW – Pad Control [Mello Music Group] (2010) 1h 22m 35s

DR WHO DAT? – Deep Blaque [Viberian Experience] (2006) 1h 24m 05s

SA-RA CREATIVE PARTNERS – Timeless Continuum [Plug Research] (2006) 1h 29m 30s

SHAPE OF BROAD MINDS – Viberian Sun [Lex] (2007) 1h 31m 40s

FLYING LOTUS – Satelllliiiiiiiiteee [Warp) (2010) 1h 33m 40s

FLYING LOTUS – Glendale Galleria [Tectonic] (2009) 1h 37m 20s

BLACKPOCKET – STA Simonez [Exit] (2007) 1h 40m 10s

BEAT SPACEK – Alone in Da Sun [Ninja Tune] (2007) 1h 42 05s

BARON ZEN – Burn Rubber (Dam Funk remix instrumental) [Stones Throw] (2007) 1h 47m 50s

TOKIMONSTA – Lucid Waking [Young Art] (2010) 1h 52m 30s

BULLION – Crazy Over You [One-Handed Music] (2010) 1h 55m 40s

MR DIBIASE – Keep On Runnin [Fat City] (2010) 1h 58m 20s

OHBLIV – Send it On Down [Thrash Flow] (2009) 2h 00m 45s

DANNY BREAKS – inginging [Droppin’ Science] (2014) 2h 4m 00s

^Go deeper^

* A Beat Happening with Laurent Fintoni and Kutmah (whose Sacred Geometry was a landmark mix in 2009)

* Bedroom Beats & B-Sides: Instrumental Hip-hop and Electronic Music at the Turn of the Century by Laurent Fintoni

* How Flying Lotus Redefined What Instrumental Hip-Hop Could Sound Like

* All Ears, a documentary by Gus Sutherland (dakim clip here)

* Dublab’s Secondhand Sureshots featuring Ras G, Daedalus and Nobody

* Beat Culture & the SP-404 (Roland short)

* Mass Appeal: Rhythm Roulette (start with Paul White and Dibiase)

* Questlove Show with Georgia Ann Muldrow

* BTS Radio archive (shout out to Andrew Meza)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

Hello,

How are you feeling? As I write this little covering note, Lewisham is bathing in sunshine and the plants are about to bloom. My dog can roam in the park without his snood and I don’t have to whine (as much) about the daily clean-up, particularly those ears that swipe up all the street gunk like extra-large flannels. Finchy is a loveable rogue but he is work.

The tracksuit bottoms are about to come off – by popular demand – and the light is beginning to charge my cells. You see, this is why the changing seasons are so important. I haven’t managed to submit to the quirks of each one but I do get a buzz from seeing the back of winter! All this is to say that hope is in the air, which is a distant memory to any Tottenham fan.

The plan is to channel some of this extra energy into more spontaneous and frequent writing on here, especially given the dearth of freelance opportunities. In case you missed it, this reflection on Chadwick Boseman’s play Deep Azure was a decent warm-up. As was this trip to The Weight of Being, an exhibition that explores how mental health shapes creative expression. The painter and teacher John Wilson McCracken caught my attention.

I have another story lined up about my local area, gentrification and the importance of holding on to the best of a place.

To the music… Twice in one month? Confusing, I know. This is what happens when you are scheduled to broadcast every fourth Tuesday. What can I say? Take advantage. It’s a double-shot of a show.

I am still defiant in my commitment to making life online a little more genuine and convivial, so please write back with your favourite moments, or to share whatever good news has come your way.

Back at the end of April with a guest 🤞🏾

Want to come on? Message me. I’m very keen to speak to SE London dwellers. The artists, activists, writers, community builders and late bloomers. If you like talking about music, even better.

Stay close…

Amar

*****

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO – Papillon [Universal Music Jazz France]Having completed the last show featuring the tribute to the late great engineer Bob Power, I dug into more of his work and realised that not only had he helped make Peace Beyond Passion with Meshell Ndegeocello, he was also in the studio for jazz excursion The Spirit Music Jamia: The Dance of the Infidel in 2005. ‘Papillon’ features Kenny Garrett on soprano sax and Federico González Peña on keyboards. Spellbinding.

GREGORY UHLMANN – Imprint [International Anthem] 11m 40sAnother month, another selection from Chicago’s International Anthem records, stewards of contemporary, forward-thinking jazz music. You may have encountered Gregory Uhlmann before as co-leader of the fiery SML, who have featured on Moonbeam Levels. Or in a trio with saxophonist Josh Johnson and bassist Sam Wilkes. His solo debut Extra Stars is full of harmonically rich and meditative compositions like ‘Imprint’, with Uhlmann trying to coax unusual sounds from stringed and other instruments. Alabaster Deplume and Anna Butterss are among the guests dropping in.

BY.ALEXANDER – Bloom in Paris (featuring Charles Bukowski) [Blue Note] 14m 25sThe music of By.Alexander, aka Alex Da Kid, passed me by for a minute. Perhaps it was the fashion dimension to the project. But then I started reading all the comments from fans on IG. All that appreciation got me curious, so I paid closer attention. He has a very particular conception of jazz that he’s not afraid to disrupt or agitate through sonic experimentation. Compositions like ‘Bloom in Paris’ (featuring infamous poet Charles Bukowski) access some netherland in the mind. Well, they do for me. The expanded edition of Memories For Sale… is coming in April and his choice of guests says a lot about how wide open he is musically – Theo Coker, Rapsody and JD Reid.

MIKIO MASUDA – Moon Stone [Nippin Columbia Japan] 19m 15sFor his second Nippon Columbia compilation, Tokyo archivist and artist Kunimond Takiguchi turns his attention to jazz funk. Expect to hear the full spectrum, from orchestral and baroque movements to the nighttime frisson of city pop and fusion for the fleet-footed. Names such as Eri Ohno and Jiro Inagaki will be familiar to all you diggers out there. The stargazer in me can’t look past Mikio Masuda’s ‘Moon Stone’, which recalls Lonnie Liston Smith at his most seductive. Out to Portal records for putting me on to lots of Japanese gold via Instagram. Follow them for more like this.

MYSTIC JUNGLE – The Memory (featuring Roxana) [Stix] 24m 00sOff volume six of Disco Reggae, this is Periodica Records founder Mystic Jungle with Roxana doing a cover of Roy Ayers Ubiquity’s classic groove ‘The Memory’ (source LP Vibrations is tremendous, featuring genius Edwin Birdsong and bassist William Allen). I actually wanted to play a new track called ‘Mountain River’ but you’ll have to wait until May for that one to emerge on 7” from a very remote corner of Napoli.

KJADE – Virginia is for the Lovers 28m 20sI always fall for a lackadaisical flow over a thick bass groove, the artist rappin’ about how she “died three times and came back just to write this”. KJade first popped into my world through Spotify’s begrudgingly useful Discover Weekly – ‘Sankofa’ off debut album The Sound That Trees Make. On Everything I Love, she’s in a bit more of a hurry to unload feelings and indulge desires, bluntly stating on ’Virginia is for the Lovers’, “I need you to be all over me”. Oh, FYI KJade wants you to play her music in your local café. “OMG, I love it when people tell me that,” she tweeted last month. You know what to do.

ANNE CLARK – Poem for a Nuclear Romance [Dark Entries] 31m 40sImpending doom never felt so good. Anne Clark was a punk and poet who hooked up with Psychic TV affiliate David Harrow to make two albums: Changing Places in 1983 and Joined Up Writing the following year. From the latter, various versions of ‘Our Darkness’ comprise the bulk of this reissue, and you could imagine the early house and techno pioneers across the pond flipping out over the machine pulse and wanting some of that arpeggiated intensity in their tracks. But ‘Poem for a Nuclear Romance’ speaks to my plaintive heart in this moment.

TIOMBÉ LOCKHART – Strange Things [Mothertongue] 36m 20sLA-based Tiombé has been a name to check for since I discovered her on the PPP album back in the early 2000s and this rare song produced by Bilal, which you can find on her unofficial debut album, The Aquarius Years. She always glides and tip-toes gracefully over heavy beats and this dub rhythm, courtesy of frequent collaborator Georgia Ann Muldrow, is no exception. Coming Forth By Day came out last year and deserves wider attention.

VIRGO – The Art Roots [Mukatsuku] 40m 00sNick Weston from Mukatsuku Records has collected four classic ambient techno tracks from Form@ records on one 12” for your pleasure. I adore music like this at the moment. It calms my mind and helps me to find a flow state. Virgo is the alias of Yasutaka Sato, who adopted the moniker from 1996 to 2004 before shelving it for 20 years. With its icicle melody and robotic oscillations, ‘The Art Roots’ creates a strange yet addictive sensation. For more ambient experimental business out of Japan, listen to this NTS Special on Japan’s CD-era electronic underground.

SHY ONE – Nort Wess [Touching Bass] 44m 15sShy’s new album is rightly getting lots of attention for its adept fusion of great Black British music from the past few decades, from soundsystem and street soul to grimey, UK funky and broken. I still remember getting very excited about early tunes such as ‘Waterfalls’ but if you look on Bandcamp, you’ll find unreleased material from as far back as 2010 (see below). It’s not easy to make a project feel this cohesive, particularly with such a wide array of guests dropping in (George Riley, Steve Spacek, James Massiah). But Mali is just that. Bass, Mids, Tops co-author Joe Muggs traced the roots of this record really well in his piece about lineages of sound.

SHY ONE – Cardiophobia 47m 40sA precocious offering from a collection of previously unreleased beats and bleeps made between 2010 and 2011.

2562 – Stranger Than Paradise [Tectonic] 51m 25sDave Huismans (aka 2562) was one of the names I would check for regularly at the dawn of what became known as bass music around 2006-7. His releases on Tectonic quietly helped to inform the sonic architecture of this nebulous and ephemeral sound, a mutation of dubstep and techno among other influences. This scurrying monster is on an EP of previously unreleased music from that period, which Dave discovered on an old studio PC.

SECOND STOREY – Viper Returns [Frustrated Funk] 56m 30sOff the Descend to Ascend 12 by Berlin-based UK producer Alec Storey, this is reminiscent of that golden period of Hessle Audio releases in the early 2010s. Made to fry bassbins.

JULION DE’ANGELO – NOWnormal [Mother Tongue] 1h 01m 00sJulion’s been steadily building a rep for punchy and raw productions like ‘NOWnormal’ from his debut EP, as well as dynamite edits like this. There aren’t enough percussive trax out there these days, or afro dubs in the vein of classic MAW. The kind that DJs could use to work the crowd over with, before reeling us in with an irresistible vocal.

KEVAN ADRIAN – Give It Up (Grusane Dub) [Rush Hour] 1h 08m 10sThere’s a great story behind this joyous floorfiller, made by Nigerian-born Kevan Frost while working as a session man in 90’s London. In place of pay, he would be given free time to record and the self-taught musician knocked out ‘Give It Up’ in just two days using C-Lab on his old Atari, the Akai S-1000 sampler and a few instruments. Decades later, a friend of Chicago DJ Mark Grusane found a copy in the Africa Record Centre in Brooklyn and handed it to him. Mark recognised its magic and added his touch on two road-tested versions.

THOSE GUYS – Tonite (Coloured Girls Mix) [MCA] 1h 13m 20sFinally, this classic Basement Boys production from 1991 is getting a reissue. You won’t find many more boomin’ house records that play with time as boldly. ‘Tonite’ is so well constructed, from girls’ chitchat about givin’ it up in a Buick and doin’ it in the dark, to the intoxicating piano-led middle section – lights down low, sweat drippin’ off the walls of Shelter or Zanzibar – into that sensual drop-down where everyone can feel just a little bit sexier.

K-HAND – On a Journey [Acacia] 1h 22m 05sOut to my old Straight No Chaser colleague Andy Thomas for puttin’ plenty respect on the names of Detroit’s house/techno queens in his Bandcamp article. Among them, Kelli Hand was someone I’ve looked up to for many years for her staunch independence (Acacia was her label, started in 1990) and work ethic. Gone too soon. It felt right to put a little K-Hand in the air so let’s go straight to my favourite from her debut album. Jungle pressure by way of Innerzone Orchestra. As deep and heavy as anything ever released “from a well-known place” as Kelli put it, regardless of gender. Don’t ignore The Art of Music, though, particularly ‘Messenger’ and ‘2 Low Key (12-inch mix)’ off Fantasy. Mixmag gave us their top 20 a while back, which collates her signature swing and how she could move your body in all types of ways.

XYLITOL – Falling [Planet Mu] 1h 26m 10sTaken from Catherine Backhouse’s second album on Planet Mu as Xylitol, ‘Falling’ brings the propulsive force of jungle together with the Kosmische drift and Mitteleuropean melancholy of influences such as minimal synth composer Miaux. It was the Sarajevo-born Belgian musician’s directness and lightness of touch that Backhouse felt a deep kinship with on this project. A paradox she sought to emulate on Blumenfantasie. Mission accomplished.

URBAN JUNGLE – Back in the Days (Sexy Ladys Mix) [Jungle Mania] 1h 32m 05sI was having a jungle Sunday, as you do, and this one bubbled up to the surface. Originally made as a dubplate for the ravers in 1994 by a young Mark Ryder, using a vocal sample from Lil Louis’ ‘The Luv U Wanted’, this is the definition of a roller.

FREEDOM – Can’t You See [Miles Away] 1h 38m 35sUplifting soul boogie bangers like ‘Can’t You See’ are truly priceless. Made by a group who met at Jackson State University in 1975, their 1977 debut single has a killer arrangement and may have been inspired by The Emotions. They would go on to wow crowds across the American South and record four albums on Malaco records.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

KWES – Orange Blue [Warp]I consider one-time Lewisham resident Kwes a singer-songwriter at the root, because that’s how I first met him in 2009 with the track ‘Tissues’. On more recent Warp releases he’s been experimenting with an ever-widening palette of noises, creating these little idiosyncratic universes of sound, tuff but sweet. ‘LGOYH’, last heard on his Rye Lane Soundtrack a few years ago, showed his earnest lyricism could still tug on the heartstrings in a very British way. But instrumental snippets like ‘Wave at Boats’ hinted at where he might go next – ambience with a featherlight touch. Latest album Kinds offers nine colour-coded variations on a theme, for all the synesthesiasts out there.

DUVAL TIMOTHY & CJ MIRRA – Passing On [Carrying Colour] 4m 50sThe kind of score that has you rushing to the cinema for full audio-visual immersion, this is Duval Timothy and CJ Mirra with ‘Passing On’ from Akinola Davis Jr’s debut feature film My Father’s Shadow, which was written by his brother Wale. I’ve yet to watch it but it’ll happen. Always interested in complex father-son stories. Aren’t they always? Set over a single day in Lagos during the 1993 Nigerian election crisis, Akin’s debut follows an estranged father guiding his two young sons across the city as political unrest threatens their journey home.

SULAH JORDAN – Leaves in the Trees [Test Pressing Arts] 11m 00sHappy to see that Oakland artist Sulah Jordan’s EP Lady Bug from 2023 is getting the vinyl treatment on Test Pressing’s offshoot label Test Pressing Arts. I included ‘Musee Melancolique’ in a previous edition of Moonbeam Levels after being seduced by the iridescent beauty of that debut, which transported me to some cove shaded by tropical leaves. So why not this track next?

FABIANO DO NASCIMENTO & VITTOR SANTOS ORQUESTRA – Trenzinho Imaginário [Far Out] 15m 05sVILA is the very classy collaboration between guitarist Fabiano Do Nascimento and trombonist/arranger Vittor Santos, who leads a 16-piece orchestra here to breathtaking heights. It’s inspired by the former’s upbringing in a Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood called Catete and exudes a beguiling mix of grandeur and homeliness. The swirling strings of melody, to me, represent the best of big band Brazil.

TILAYE GEBRE & THE DAHLAK BAND – Tizita [Muzikawi/Mr Bongo] 18m 00sThe product of one-take live sessions that Tilaye would conduct with his band at the Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa in the 70s, ‘Tizita’ is the saxophonist, composer and arranger at his most winsome and romantic. The lo-fi haziness of the recording lends a little eeriness to proceedings. Check the extensive liner notes for more about his path in music.

BRENT FAIYAZ – Butterflies [ISO Supremacy/UnitedMasters] 27m 35sBrent is one of those artists from the post-MySpace era that I would discover almost daily on blogs and YouTube. I think it was the Black Child EP that hipped me to his use of heavy atmospherics in the pleasure centre of R&B and rap. He’s now ascended to the realm of pop superstar (man’s got more than five million IG followers), making tracks such as ‘Pure Fantasy’, which, as one commenter wrote, has him “fully in his MJ bag”. Others are in disbelief that the same guy who wrote ‘Wish You Well’ is now falling in love with superwomen on ‘Butterflies’, which I had to include for that audacious intro alone. There’s a whole team that produced this track, but the project is executive produced by Mr Instant Vintage, Raphael Saadiq.

CHARLOTTE DAY WILSON – Selfish [XL] 31m 30sLet’s stay in song mode with something from Patchwork, the latest self-produced album from Charlotte Day Wilson, who just has this undeniable gift for aching melodies. All it took was one guest spot on a BADBADNOTGOOD record in 2016 to know she’s a ride-or-die artist. An old soul with an alluring tone. Remember, she made Van and Earn catch feelings again in Atlanta. Tempos shift across this project but the writing is rock-solid, from the refined slow jam ‘If Only’ to the doo-doodoo two-step that propels ‘Selfish’ and then evaporates.

GENA – Douwannabwithastar [Lex] 35m 10sThe Pleasure is Yours, the full-length remote collab between Liv.e and Karriem Riggins, is out now. As satisfying and uplifting a collection of boomin’ ditties as you will hear this year. There are styles for miles, so it’s almost impossible to pin down. All I will add is that it’s soul-deep top to bottom and sounds like Karriem’s workin’ the kit right next to you. God Energy, Naturally Amazing, uh huh. Fun fact: the project name is inspired by Tisha Campbell’s character in the TV show Martin. “Specifically how Martin Lawrence would say Gina [Payne’s] name”, Liv.e told Hearing Things. “That’s how these songs make me feel.”

** Tribute to Bob Power **

A TRIBE CALLED QUEST – Rhythm (Devoted to the Art of Moving Butts instrumental) [Not on Label] 38m 00sWe recently lost one of the great mixing engineers of the past 30 years plus. You may not know the name but you will definitely have savoured Bob Power’s work if you were raised on a similar diet to me. First up, A Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. On the back of the former, he’s given the nickname “LOCKED”. No doubt, a nod to his powers of precision, focus and the ability to get sh*t with finesse.

Then there was De La Soul’s Bulhoone Mindstate and De La Soul is Dead, The Roots’ Illadelph Half Life and Things Fall Apart, Baduizm, Brown Sugar, Dee-lite, Meshell Ndegeocello’s Comfort Woman and Peace Beyond Passion, Common’s Like Water For Chocolate, Ozomatli’s Embrace The Chaos, India Arie’s Acoustic Soul…

His mastery of dynamic range, pitch, timbre, clarity and frequency balance ensured the artist’s sonic vision was coming through just as clearly as their musical one. And he also knew when to get out of the way. Let’s hear from man himself and then run through a few underappreciated moments of his greatness. Plug in your best phones or speakers and listen closely.

For more on Bob, check this interview where he gives a very telling anecdote about recording Chaka Khan. Chip Fu, who worked with Bob on Fu-schnickens’s first Jive album, breaks down what made him so good in the studio here.

A TRIBE CALLED QUEST – The Chase Pt 2 [Jive] 42m 40s“Bob Power, you there? Adjust the bass and treble, make my s**t sound clear!”

A TRIBE CALLED QUEST – Same Ol’ Thing [Jive] 46m 01s

THE ROOTS – Distortion to Static [Geffen] 50m 05s“Redder than pork, comin’ to New York to mix, It’s Bob Power with the snares and kicks to fix.”

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO – Andromedia & The Milky Way [Maverick] 53m 58s

** tribute ends **

BRIAN AUGER’S OBLIVION EXPRESS – Total Eclipse [Strut] 75m 55sIt’s been a while since I’ve listened to anything Brian Auger-related. In my early loop-digging days I would stumble on some of his 60’s releases with Julie Driscoll and Trinity. In the next decade, the British organist and composer strode confidently into the age of jazz rock, forming the Oblivion Express. Strut has reissued their self-titled offering and on there is one of the group’s finest grooves (‘Total Eclipse’), which we’re gonna ride for the full 11 minutes to appreciate the rhythm section of bassist Barry Dean and drummer Robbie McIntosh. Though guitarist Jim Mullen is all up in this track, saying don’t forget about me.

ROLAND BRIVAL – Créole Gypsy [Soundway] 1h 09 20sOsunlade introduced me to the resonant timbre of Roland Brival with his Yoruba Soul remix of ‘Sakitayo’ in 2004. The Martinique poet and painter’s Jon Lucien x Leon Thomas incantations instantly put me in a trance and hinted at a rich musical heritage. And so it was that in 1980 he made a spiritual jazz opus about his Créole identity, love and colonial injustices that became a private press obscurity. Until now…

HUNEE – The World [Rush Hour] 1h 17m 05sI think it was Rush Hour who served me this flashback to 2015 Hunee. I knew of his reputation as a marathon DJ and selector at the time, but I skipped over his album Hunch Music. Listening more than ten years after its release, there is a nagging sense of unease or introspection in tracks like ‘Bruises’ and this one, which samples June Tyson on Sun Ra’s ‘After The End of The World’, beckoning us into whatever comes next. A track for precarious times, right.

SHACKLETON – The Dream in Fragments [AD93] 1h 23m 00sAfter dropping one of Shackleton’s many versions of Saagara in the last show, I couldn’t resist giving the trance master a little more airtime with this, ‘The Soul of Everything’, taken from AD93 album Euphoria Bound. The PR blurb for it chooses some very apt words to describe its mood … or should that be mode? Dissolution, erasure, disintegration… Yes, something is being shed or cast off in this set and it all feels necessary. To make way for renewal.

NONDI – Tree Festival [Planet Mu] 1h 27m 15sComing out of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Nondi makes these very raw but melodic rhythm trax that draw from juke, footwork and IDM among other sources. Think Aphex, Actress, Rashad… Ringing, rumbling, clattering into your ears and down the spine, it’s a full-body experience. ‘Tree Festival’ is my eargasm of choice. Check out Nondi’s first Planet Mu release Flood City Trax as well.

DJ FOOD – Peace (Harvey’s 30 Something Mix [Mr Bongo] 1h 30m 25sA standout track from Luke Una’s third volume of É Soul Cultura. A psychedelic coolout track that I haven’t heard since picking up Harvey’s Late Night Sessions mix years ago. Always open to some gratuitous shredding, especially when it pops up in unexpected places. Luke’s been playing some proper parties around the world recently, restoring my faith in the floor. Go dance with him.

WILLIE COLÓN – Set Fire To Me (Inferno Dub) [A&M] 1h 38m 25sPure Afro-Cuban sounds rarely make an appearance on Moonbeam Levels. We should rectify that because I do love heavy brass sections and tuff percussion. When it comes to 70’s Nuyorican artists, the Fania All-Stars still wear the crown because watching Our Latin Thing was my initiation. Chief among them was the late trombonist, producer and singer-songwriter Willie Colón, a fierce proponent of the Puerto Rican community, who wasn’t afraid to challenge the status quo. I could have chosen something from his Rubén Blades collaboration Siembra, the biggest salsa record of all time. Or barrio badboy groove ‘Calle Luna Calle Sol’. But the first track I associate with him is the outlier ‘Set Fire To Me’ – an NYC Loft classic from 1986. An eyes-closed, deep-in-the-dance masterpiece.

** Tribute to Ebo Taylor ** 1h 48m 15s

Where to begin with someone who has been a standard bearer of Ghanaian music for more than half a century? The late Ebo Taylor took the music of ‘King of Highlife’ ET Mensah and traditional Fante rhythms into dynamic new territory with his jazz-informed conception of afrobeat and funk.

Miles Davis and John Coltrane were big influences on those horn lines that became hallmarks of his arrangements for the Essiebons label. But then so was the propulsive sound of James Brown who was making intense, emphatic statements in black music using the minor mode. (This Afropop Worldwide radio special on the deep funk connection in Ghana is very informative and entertaining.)

Taylor attended Eric Gilder School of Music in 60’s London, where a certain Fela Kuti, studying at Trinity College, would reason with him on harmony. At the same time, he would be studying Dvorak’s “From the New World” Symphony No 9 in detail. Taylor wanted to both honour the past and stride ahead, drawing inspiration from warrior songs, nursery rhymes and political events… To do it his way, like Fela insisted they should as West Africans.

As recently as 2024, he was in the studio recording his 16th album with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammed. This tribute, published by their management company Art Don’t Sleep, paints a tender portrait of “Uncle Ebo” – a warm, humble, dignified elder who was still “commanding stages at 89”. ‘Love & Death’ is foundational music and often the first pick from his catalogue. Here are some other favourites to close the show.

EBO TAYLOR – Amponsah [Strut] 1h 49 43sI always get swept up by the brassy fanfare on this closing cut from Taylor’s self-titled debut album in 1977. A more muscular and full-blooded incarnation of highlife, bolstered by a resounding chant. I wish I knew who was in the band.

EBO TAYLOR & THE PELIKANS – Egya Edu [Strut] 1h 56m 35sAn all-too-brief collaboration with a 12-piece band from the Cape Coast region of Ghana. It’s one of the first to feature Taylor on vocals (in a mixture of English and Fante) but it’s his guitar playing that adds a little extra electricity to this number.

GYEDU-BLAY AMBOLLEY – Fa No Dem Ara [Strut] 2h 03m 45sAnother Essiebons classic with Ambolley purveying his James Brown-inflected Simigwa sound with Taylor on co-writing and producing duties. The horn arrangements, in particular, are infectious and life-giving.

EBO TAYLOR & THE SWEET BEANS – Odofo Nyi Akyiri Biara [Analog Africa] 2h 08m 20sTaylor was Essiebions in-house arranger and producer for several years, hooking up here with one of the label’s deadliest backing bands for a fiery 10 minutes of afro-funk. I think that’s Pat Thomas on vocals.

EBO TAYLOR – Peace on Earth [Strut] 2h 18m 55sThere’s something both ominous and reassuring about this simmering standout from Twer Nyame in 1978, with its undulating bassline and pitter-pattering percussion. Taylor meandering all over the session as the chorus repeats in come-what-may fashion, “Don’t know where we’re going…”

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

After easing into the new year with a home-based episode of Moonbeam Levels, the plan was to come to the Sister Midnight FM studio with a special guest in tow for February. One of Lewisham’s greatest success stories who has ventured far and wide in his pursuit of a sound to call his own. But it wasn’t to be, so I had to pivot at the last minute.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Jill Scott recently as a new album is here. In particular, one disc of live music that I have obsessed over since its release in 2001. It got me thinking about how often I prefer to reach for live renditions of songs. Wondering which artists can hold a crowd better than others, or seeing who’s most willing to deviate from studio recordings.

I thought, why not share a couple of hours’ worth of the ones I always come back to? Unfortunately, most of my live tracks are on CD, which we don’t use in the studio, so this is more of a limited sampler culled from whatever I could get my hands on quickly. The focus is soul, jazz, rhythm and blues, which are at the core of my being.

But, hey, I am a man of many moods and sounds. Why not make this a series? Expect me to stretch out much further in volume two – from BB King, Gil Scott Heron and Erykah Badu to Toumani Diabate, Majid Bekkas and Hermeto Pascoal.

For now, enjoy this testimony to some awe-inspiring moments of human connection.

And do send me some of your favourites, either to [at]amarofpatel on IG or in the comments section.

Back on SMFM on 3 March at 2pm GMT. Subscribers, I’ll get the show out to you soon after.

Laters,

Amar

*****

JACO PASTORIUS – Jaco’s Solo/SlangA mesmeric solo performance from the maverick genius while on stage at Santa Barbara County Bowl during Joni Mitchell’s Shadows & Light tour in 1979. Jaco was her musical director at the time, wrestling with a few demons and prone to tyrannical episodes from what I’ve read. But who else could coax these vibrations from their fretless bass? Space Echo working overtime here.

DWELE – Red Clay Revisited (live at Maida Vale, 2004)Recorded at Maida Vale in Summer 2003 for Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide show in front of a studio audience, this after-dark broadcast remains one of the greatest radio sessions I’ve ever experienced ‘live’. Just a magical atmosphere, a star ascending, beguiling his audience, musicianship to the fore. This one is a riff on Freddie Hubbard’s original composition ‘Red Clay’, featuring the great Roy Hargrove on trumpet who is dearly missed (and let me tell you why). Dwele G we need you back, sir. Something’s off in the world.

PRINCE – 17 Days (piano and a mic version) [NPG/Warner]You can’t do a live music special and not include the artist who raised the bar highest night after night on copious tours. And then did it again just hours later at one of his infamous afterparties. Sometimes, all it took was a bluesy solo guitar interlude to send me. Most of my top selections are on CD so I’ve cheated a little bit and included this studio rendition. But it might as well be live because the way he gives goosebumps by summoning such visceral energy on his own, drip-feeding the track as he kick-drums on the piano, is all about being the moment.

ARETHA FRANKLIN – Wholy Holy [Atlantic]On Amazing Grace, the biggest-selling gospel record of all time, we hear the Queen of Soul taking it back to her church roots as she stirs the crowd to shiver-inducing, hand-to-the-heavens glory, backed by Cornell Dupree on guitar, Chuck Rainey on bass, Bernard Purdie on drums and the 30-strong Southern California Community Choir led by mentor Reverend James Cleveland. Their cover of ‘Wholy Holy’ (from Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On) is where the concert became a truly transcendent for me. There is perhaps no greater testament to the power of faith and communion through voice than this landmark. You must watch the documentary.

DONNY HATHAWAY – I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know (live, 1971) [Atlantic]My favourite vocalist of all time. The intensity and sincerity Donny Hathaway could radiate through his voice struck me from day one. These Songs For You Live, a compilation of performances that flows like one concert, is one of his first albums I bought. I wrote about the other one here. Such a wonderful group of musicians backing him including Phil Upchurch and Cornell Dupree again on guitar, Willie Weeks on bass and Fred White (later of Earth, Wind & Fire) on drums.

BILL WITHERS – Grandma’s Hands (live at Carnegie Hall, 1973) [Sussex]This is the other live album I played obsessively as a young adult, always beaming at the rapport Uncle Bill had with his audience. That alone was worth listening to on repeat. But when you throw in storytelling like the intro to Grandma’s Hands’, his simply yet profound lyricism and the quality of the musicianship around him (most evident on a rousing ‘Harlem/Cold Baloney’), this set will stand the test of time and be aspired to by artists for generations to come.

D’ANGELO & THE SOULTRONICS – One Mo Gin (live in LA, 2000)From day one, D’s integrity was sky-high. The intention was to make art. For the son and grandson of Pentecostal preachers, catching the spirit and moving people were birthright and vocation – from the pulpit side to the stage. Just listen to this extended rendition of ‘One Mo Gin’ from 2000 in LA. The artist in deep meditation as a vocalist, pouring over each line, oblivious to the lustfulness of the crowd just inches away from him. The way this Voodoo staple is extended and indulged in is pure ecstasy. I wrote a lengthy reflection and created a words-and-music special for my man here.

MAXWELL – This Woman’s Work (live on MTV Unplugged, 1997) [Columbia]Originally written by Kate Bush for her album The Sensual World and used before that in a film called She’s Having A Baby, ‘This Woman’s Work’ was turned inside out by Maxwell and his band on MTV Unplugged in 1997. It’s surely in the running for best cover of all time. Bush imagined a man waiting for his wife to give birth and “being left on their own in a big way”. He has to grow up suddenly and release he could be a better human being. Maxwell expands the emotional scope of the track to place the man in an even more vulnerable place, perhaps contemplating the loss of someone important, and trying to convey their pain through a fragile falsetto. The concert is a fun watch. An urban hang suite, for real. So is this on BET.

ODETTA – All The Pretty Horses (live at Carnegie Hall, 1960) [Vanguard]Odetta, who was a big inspiration to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in the 50s, forged her own path in American folk music by incorporating blues and spirituals into her repertoire. And by delivering deeply resounding performances like this captivating set at Carnegie Hall. Gently propelled by bassist Bill Lee (father of Spike), you can hear the unique timbre of her voice stretching across aisles, ocean and ages. Sombre yet dignified, this live version of ‘All The Pretty Horses’ from the Odetta at the Gate of Horn LP featured on the first edition of my Singers, Songs & Strings series from around 2010.

PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC – Mothership Connection/Swing Down Sweet Chariot (live on P-Funk Earth Tour, Houston Summit, 1976)One of those live experiences that probably would have changed your life. Seeing The Mothership land as Glen Goins takes it to church, I’d have come out believing anything was possible. George Clinton and his Parliament Funkadelic all-stars were on a mission “to save a dying world from a funkless hell”, taking black music places it had never gone before (Sun Ra not withstanding perhaps). Extraterrestrial brothers mining outer space for that uncut funk. I could study the p-funk universe at length. The different characters, the wild fashion, Pedro Bell’s artwork and liner notes… My philosophy eternal: “free your mind and your ass will follow.” Put documentary One Nation Under A Groove on your watchlist.

THE ROOTS – Proceed (Live at Elysée Montmatre, Paris, 1999) [MCA]My expectations of hip-hop were transformed by this all-the-way-live recording of The Roots in Paris. The musicality and jazz chops each instrumentalist brought to beats and rhymes. I’d never heard anything like it before. Bass vibrating in the pit of the stomach, keys making the skin tingle, hi-hats fizzing through the air… The showstopper on here is probably Jill Scott’s performance on ‘You Got Me’, but it’s the arrangement and raw sonics of ‘Proceed’ that still get be buzzing.

JILL SCOTT – Love Rain Suite (live at DAR Constitution Hall, Washington, 2001) [Hidden Beach]Speaking of which… My inspiration for doing this show can still go toe to toe with anyone on any stage. I am a huge fan of her first album and was fortunate to see her perform it live in London a couple of years ago. Poet first, singer second, she puts so much of herself into each song, each performance, that’s why the bond is so strong. And Jill loves flipping originals. My first experience of that was her 826+ double CD. This version of secret track ‘Love Rain’, recorded in Washington during her Words & Sounds tour, just soars and soars, then twists and turns into a whole other movement. You better get in line for those To Whom This May Concern gig tickets.

MAZE – You (live at Saenger Theatre, New Orleans, 1980) [Capitol]Singing along to Uncle Frankie – I have many soul uncs – feels so good. This tune is among the band’s most cherished and has soundtracked many a cookout and kitchen bop since its debut in 1977. Maze had a special relationship with New Orleans, going on to headline the Essence Fest there for more than 20 years and closing the Congo Square stage at Jazz Fest for 11 consecutive years. When it came time to record a live album in 1980, there was only one city in the running. ‘You’ is a contrite declaration of love for someone who loves you “through thick and thin” and, as such, will always be a meaningful one to get down to. Watch the full live performance for Ron Smith’s joyous solo. And check Maze forerunners Raw Soul doing their “whole thing” on YouTube (thanks, Questlove).

BEMBE SEGUE – Mother of the Future (live at Jazz Café, London, 2006) [Expansion]Bembe has been an in-demand vocalist and writer for several producers who pioneered what became known as the West London sound, spanning broken beat to nu-jazz and bruk. The likes of IG Culture, Dego, Bugz in the Attic and Mark De Clive-Lowe. A spiritual jazz classic originally written byCarlos Garnett and supercharged byNorman Connors, ‘Mother of the Future’ was dialled up even more by Bembe and an unknown group of musicians, becoming a tuff workout for the dancers to come alive to.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

Ello!

One twelfth of 2026 has already gone 🤯 How’s it been for you? January is always what I would call hard yards. Slowly thawing from Christmas, chasing the light and straining to act on all those resolutions – though rituals are far more important, ok.

Getting back to basics is my way of trying to ease in. Part of that is renewing my commitment to these monthly radio sessions. The gradual process of accumulating from all around, then weaving it all into something that feels cohesive and satisfying to you, even if some of it isn’t your vibe.

As a writer, sharing acquired knowledge is a big part of everything I do. So, I will always have notes and links to set you off on your own voyage of discovery.

This year I would like to have more open-ended conversations ‘on air’ with neighbours and strangers, dipping into the culture and events that provoked the art that fascinates me. Previous guests include musician Sam Akpro and FOLK author Stef Macbeth.

I’d like to talk more about the struggle to make work amid all the financial precarity, inner and outer conflict that exists. Is that you? Come on the show.

Perhaps, you’ll see more of me, quite literally. I hear algorithms like faces, and people seem more interested in being talked to than written for (when it comes to phone browsing, anyway). None of this tiny mic-holding affectation, however. It’s called a lapel for a reason 🤦🏽‍♂️

This episode is an amalgam. A bit of housecleaning as I open the window and let out a winter surplus of sounds. Inevitable tributes to more departed heroes, plus a look over the horizon to upcoming releases and rising stars.

As I explain on the broadcast, the February edition is a special gift for the subscribers, recorded at home on a primitive mixer, so apologies for the erratic levels. If you would like to listen live, I’ll be back on Sister Midnight FM every four weeks from 3 February 2-4pm (GMT). Working on a special guest…

Please let me know you’re into and what you would like to hear more of, either in the comments or by sending a message [at]amarofpatel through socials. Equally, if you subscribed to read more of what I am not providing enough of … well … I am a people pleaser. Try me.

As a board member, I am duty-bound to mention that we have opened the next round of crowdfunding to renovate an old working man’s club in central Catford, my neighbourhood in South East London, and turn it into the borough’s first community-owned music venue.

Shares are available from £25 and give you a real stake in how things are run. If you believe in solidarity, equity, mutual benefit and giving venues a legitimate chance of long-term security, community ownership is the way ahead.

And guess what: invest before 31 March and your amount will be match-funded by both Music Venue Trust and Co-operatives UK's Energy Efficiency Sharematch, turning our £25,000 target into £75,000.

Join a community of more than 1,000 members and let’s kick open the doors. Stay close,

Amar***

YOSHIAKI OCHI – Anywhere [WRWTFWW]Ochi’s 1990 album Natural Sonic gets a loving reissue courtesy of WRWTFWW. A high point of so-called environmental music, created when he was in-house composer and performer for Issey Miyake. An interesting fact that hints at the artist’s elemental nature. This is a primal and deeply resonant record that offers vital breathing space. All water, wood, earth and stone. FYI, there is a Natural Sonic 2.

SAAGARA – Earth, Water and the Holy Groove (Shackleton Version) [Glitterbeat][4m 50s]There are few better than Shackleton when it comes to reimagining the possibilities of percussion in electronic music. Every once in a while, I pull out my ‘Blood On My Hands’ 12”, crank it up and let the endless trance take me.

Saagara asked the man from Lancashire to remix one of their tracks from 3 and he responded with his own version of the album. Now that is dedication to your craft. Shackleton also has a new album of rumbling, clattering skull disco out on AD93, called Euphoria Bound.

GRACE JONES – Private Life (dub version) [Island][10m 15s]Sly and Robbie can lay claim to being the most-recorded artists in history with great confidence. Not many rhythm sections could run the gamut from Bob Marley, Junior Murvin and Chaka Demus & Pliers to The Rolling Stones, Serge Gainsbourg and Marianne Faithfull. For disco dub disciples like myself, they are perhaps most loved for their time in the Compass Point All Stars and the three genre-bending albums they recorded with the inimitable Grace Jones.

This version of Chrissie Hynde’s song is bloodfire, the late drummer peppering the riddim with the rata-tat-tat. Other Sly-related releases to check out include Raiders of the Lost Dub (Black Uhuru, in particular), A Dub Experience, Riddims collection 1978-80 and Gwen Guthrie’s Larry Levan-enhanced Padlock EP (one of the best-engineered records of all time).

HUGH B & THE MODERN POP EMSEMBLE – Young Donny[18m 15s]I think Hugh B and the crew performed a version of this live set from Australia on Charlie Bones’ Do You breakfast show. A lovely way to start the day. Blissful, bleached-out, guitar-laced grooves in the key of Steve Hiett and JJ Cale, made for reflecting in the sunshine. Or imagining somewhere you can.

They do an energising cover of Stereolab’s ‘Brakhage’ but ‘Young Donny’ is calling to me. Fun fact: Hugh has also produced house music under the name Hubert Clarke Jr. Check this one put out by my friends Wolf Music.

LISANE BAHIR – Lisané Bahir ልሳነ ባሕር [Flying Carpet][23m 00s]Fourth album in and Lisane has used analogue modular synth to summon his Ethio-jazz ancestors and transport them to a distant musical dimension. In their new context, these traditional scales feel born again. The record’s textures so tactile as they waft into the ears. The title track sounds like Tangerine Dream hooking up in the studio with Hailu Mergia.

PHIL UPCHURCH – Black Gold [Cadet][29m 00s]This is probably the first track I heard that was credited to the late guitarist and composer when I was following the tributaries of Charles Stepney and The Rotary Connection’s “I Am The Black Gold of the Sun’. Dusty Groove put me on to his eponymous solo debut and said in no uncertain terms that this was a seminal recording in the history of Chicago soul, blues and rock.

They weren’t wrong. Step arranged, conducted and produced this session. He also wrote ‘Black Gold’, the psychedelic seed of what would become the aforementioned anthem. Here, Upchurch was “backed by 36 pieces, including 20 strings and five voices”, as the liner notes tell us, and the result is “sheer electricity”.

A quick look on Discogs reveals that Upchurch has more than 600 credits, almost 200 of which are for writing and arrangement. He co-wrote ‘Voices Inside (Everything is Everything)’, made famous by Donny Hathaway and ‘Afro Harping’ with Dorothy Ashby.

The kind of prolific artist who goes underappreciated. PS If you haven’t heard this Stepney podcast I helped to make, treat yourself. I tried to get Phil involved but he was busy working on his autobiography, which I will be picking up if/when it comes.

UPCHURCH & TENNYSON – Don’t I Know You [Kudu][34m 20s]A mid-tempo banger that I discovered in the early 2000s on a compilation. Keyboardist Tennyson Stephens was a perfect foil for Upchurch, who eschewed any grandstanding on the guitar in favour of a more symbiotic exchange from track to track. ‘Don’t I Know You’ recalls Curtis Mayfield and wouldn’t feel out of place on a classic Blaxploitation soundtrack. The rest of the album is strong, spritely – not-too-smooth soul jazz arranged by Bob James. It also features another version of ‘Black Gold’, which echoes the refrain of his first on that self-titled Cadet LP that Stepney produced.

NAISSOO FREEFORM QUINTET – White [NooPop][37m 12s]I’ll take any chance to show a little love to musicians from Estonia, a country I have visited and toured a bit on my limited DJ excursions. Jazz heritage runs deep across different parts of the Baltic state and this set led by keys player Tõnu Naissoo is among the more expansive ones I have heard. The vibe segues from Mwandishi 70’s fusion to the astral reveries of Lonnie Liston Smith. Moog, Fender Rhodes and ARP Odyssey in full effect, with Meelis Vind’s bass clarinet adding an ear-catching counterpoint on this one. Destination out.

THE CONTEMPORARY JAZZ QUINTET – Unknown Track #3 [BBE][45m 40s]A high-tension and sinuous standout from DJ Amir’s second volume of The Sound of Detroit, which shares more precious recordings from the gone-too-soon Strata label that brought us Lyman Woodard Organisation’s Saturday Night Special and Kenny Cox’s Clap Clap among other diggers’ delights. Things get very interesting halfway through here – someone must have sampled that bass riff! There’s also music from The Soulmates, Keith Boone and Fito Foster. Volume one is here in case you missed it.

FLEA – A Plea [Nonesuch][54m 35s]Anyone familiar with Michael Balzary and the origins of Flea will know that there is a jazz man in him eager to burst out. He doubted he could go there but with the support of some prime exponents of the form including Deantoni Parks on drums, Anna Butterss on bass and Jeff Parker on guitar, he’s flying. The sentiment behind this rousing number is the energy I would like to carry into 2026. “Make something beautiful. I don’t care if it’s a little scrap of squiggly crayon on a paper. Make something beautiful and see somebody. Give it to somebody.” Album Sonora is on the way at the end of March.

DJ HARRISON – Recycled [Stones Throw][1h 02m 15s]The Richmond producer returns with more so-good-it-could-have-been-sampled grooves, organic and effervescent. His music continues to explore the lineage of black music in a way that feels more of the moment than retrospective pastiche.

New album Electrosoul lands somewhere between an eclectic mixtape and starry radio show, and was born after Devonne had sudden health issues. The experience reaffirmed something in him and ‘Recycled’ was one of the first fruits of his renewed creativity after a lengthy hospital stay. Like a good architect, he sees the big picture and knows what goes where. And who to bring in when – among them Miguel Atwood Ferguson, Yaya Bey and Kiefer and Fly Anakin.

GENA – HOWWEFLOW [Lex][1h 06m 15s]Lots of buzz around this class collab between Liv.e and Karriem Riggins (sparked at Detroit Jazz Festival), and it’s justified. ‘Circlesz’ hooked me in with its finger-snapping breeziness last year but ‘HOWWEFLOW’ has the grand and intergalactic stomp that’s fit for striding into a new year. That majestic chorus reminds me of superfreaks Sa-Ra (who also have new music out). We have a whole album’s worth of this head-nod soul to look forward to. The Pleasure is Yours drops in late February.

JILL SCOTT – Pressha [Blues Babe][1h 08m 44s]Jilly from Philly is everywhere – from COLORS to Camden Town – and I love it. One of those generational artists you grow with, her debut album will forever be one of my great record shop blind buys. An artist who instantly came through with such vulnerability, honesty and sensitivity, and yet someone who could fire your spirit with the promise of a new day.

Poet first, singer second, her ability to tell stories and unpack emotions is eternal judging by the material I have heard on To Whom This May Concern. The chord dissonance, as she put it, is delicious on this track. The perfect platform for the artist to speak on some sh*t. Shy One’s interview with Jill is worth a listen if you’d like to know where the artist is coming from in 2026.

PS Out to my 826+ crew – disc one should be in the conversation about the greatest live albums of the 21st Century.

ALEX NUT – andthenitstarted (featuring James Mollison) [Eglo][1h 12m 50s]Listening to the Eglo Records boss’s impressive first EP, I can almost trace his influences after years of tuning in to his NTS and Rinse shows and probably attending the same nights at Plastic People, before we’d even met. You can hear Alex trying to respect the beat, use space evocatively and move soulfulness a little to the left. Looking forward to hearing more. In your own time.

JEAN-CLAUDE PETIT – The Age of the Breaking Down [WEA][1h 17m 15s]Plucked from Favorite recordings label founder Charles Maurice’s latest compilation Endless, which gathers hard-to-find records from liminal spaces between the jazz-funk, ambient and electronic fields, Petit’s cosmic jam is a helluva ride. All the great keys sounds of the era are in the mix, from ARP Odyssey to clavinet. Quite a departure from the scores to Jean De Florette and Cyrano de Bergerec, which help make his name. Maurice’s French Disco Boogie and AOR collections are also worth a look.

MAURICE POTO DUODONGO – Yelele [Editions De Lux][1h 22m 10s]The Lost Album from 1987 may have come out previously on Crammed Discs but in limited quantities. Anyway, the headline is that this is seriously fun and bursting with ideas. A synth R&B meets Congolese rumba record with a sprinkle of Wally Badarou, made after Maurice had moved to Brussels. You can hear an artist eagerly funnelling all their influences into “an unstoppable current” of a session. ““Music has no frontier,” he says. “You take what you like. Prince, Fela, Papa Wemba – there is no contradiction. It’s all part of the sound.”

VOX POPULI – Alternative Fresh [Dark Entries][1h 26m 40s]Trust Dark Entries to find those weird little oddities on DIY cassette tapes of yesteryear, gathering dust in some forgotten corner of the world. Vox Populi’s members had roots in Palestine, Greece and Tehran but came together in Paris in the early 80s, melding new wave electronics, post-punk rhythm and industrial grit. The result was hypnotic, kinetic and elusive records like their sixth album, Sucre de Pastèque.

HONOUR – U&Me (decemberseventeen) [PAN][1h 29m 40s]A respin for one of 2023’s standout, slow-burn albums. With Àlááfíà, the Chicago-based artist frequency-hopped through a collage of guitar drone, ambient wash, gospel, field recordings, conversation fragments, trap-y beats, rap and RnB references. The result was more than a mournful and often opaque dedication to his beloved grandmother.

As the lo-fi sketches crash or vaporise into one another, they form this diasporic sound continuum that will feel compelling – transcendent, dare I say – to anyone that floats between worlds. Into Dean Blunt, Space Afrika and Mica Levi on a dark one? You need this.

KEN ISHII – Endless Season [R&S][1h 34m 10s]Last year was the 30th anniversary of Jelly Tones, Ken’s pioneering album of electronic-to-ambient soundscapes that would have entranced fans of Warp’s Artifical Intelligence among many others in the mood for something other than bangin’ techno, something more abstract, after the rave. ‘Endless Season’ makes me feel like the star of my own sci-fi manga film, or perhaps that’s just the memories of Koji Morimoto’s MTV Europe award-winning video for ’Extra’ replaying in my mind.

LUKID – Toy Surge [Death Is Not the End][1h 40m 30s]Whether it’s solo or as one half of Rezzett, Lukid knows how to send air participles exploding all over the place with his electrostatic frequencies. This is music built with machines but infused with the messy soul of humankind. Underloop passes from beatless, bleeping washes of sound to thudding pulsations to more frenetic out-of-body experiences. Never ordinary, always out there.

YU SU – Bonita [Short Span][1h 43m 50s]Has Yu Su been staying up late? The Vancouver-to-London transplant has upped the bpms and crept closer to the dancefloor on this release. Apparently conceived to play out at festivals such as Mutek you can still hear her aptitude for texture and warmth coming through. ‘Bonita’ has the extra intimacy I crave in the dark as the tempo builds.

PEVEN EVERETT & TONY TOUCH – No Wonder (Yoruba Soul Mix) [Funkbox][1h 48m 00s]Anything Peven does, I am all over it. He’s a living legend who writes, sings, plays and performs like few others. But when Osunlade applies his Yoruba Soul touch, then I move double-time to pick it up. This BBE collection is timeless, particularly his version of Roy Ayers’ ‘Searching’.

Then there’s the unreleased catalogue, which I am working through. Prince’s ‘Movie Star’ is hot. Osunlade’s take on PE’s collaboration with Tony Touch is warm and uplifting, like the sun coming up on a day off.

APHRODISIAC – Song of the Siren [Nu Groove][1h 53m 40s]I had to slip something in from the late Ronald ‘Rhano’ Burrell, who, along with brother Rheji, came to define the sound of late 80s’ NYC house as The Burrell Brothers on Nu Groove. A mark of real quality to check for (listen to Gerd Janson’s mix for confirmation).

They brought a unique combination of sensuality, rawness and precision to their productions. Musicality also – the brothers joining their first band together at 13. Aside from solo aliases such as KATO and Equation, it was as Aphrodisiac that he made this classic. Mystical and transcendent.

Did you know the brothers worked with Toni Braxton and Aaliyah? Check this interview with Lenny Fontana and beam at their longstanding integrity and an I-don’t-give-a-f*ck mentality.

JAZZANOVA – That Night (featuring Vikter Duplaix) (Wahoo Remix) [JCR][1h 58m 00s]Someday I’ll have to reflect on the influence of this German supergroup on electronic music, ‘future jazz’ and myself. Their first remixes collection still sounds revolutionary from the off – a flurry of ideas beyond borders and a will to take originals someplace else. Early original productions such as ‘Fedime’s Flight’ continue to carry an ineffable aura.

What to pick from the deluxe reissue of debut album In Between hmmm… This remix by Georg Levin and Dixon was my tune from back in the day and we don’t hear enough Duplaix on the mic so let’s run this one.

BLAKE BAXTER – When A Thought Becomes You [Mint Condition][2h 5m 00s]Keep an eye out for Tresor reissues of classic trax from The Prince of Techno, including special EP Dream Sequence-X and his 1995 album Dream Sequence. Still unheralded for his influence. I can rarely look past this sexy number, first released on UR in 1991. Here’s Blake doin’ it live in 2019. Interesting interview here.

GLENN UNDERGROUND – Sound Struck [Peacefrog][2h 10m 30s]Glenn’s classic debut album Atmosfear has its 30th anniversary this year and should be in more hands and on more decks. Thankfully, Peacefrog knows what’s up and decided to reissue it on some very smokey double vinyl. Joyous, uplifting house music rooted in the discotheque, stacked with those signature layers of keys from the Chicago OG and Strictly Jaz Unit founder.

VELVIT – Testament [Exit][2h 16m 20s]Out to Simon See for sending this EP my way; always unearthing things I may have missed or never knew existed. Velvit is an alias of D&B champion dBridge, born from his “recent sonic explorations with the Elektron hardware”. Gospel house is about as close as I’ll get to ecstatic fervour. With ‘Testament’ he’s added tech-stures to the mix, which takes this kind of track into another dimension. Ok, let us pray…

MU-ZIQ – Houzz 14 [Balmat][2h 21m 55s]Tucked into a mostly calm and abstract set from Plant Mu founder Mike Paradinas, recording under µ-Ziq, is this acid whirlpool of a house cut. It’s giving me the energy I need to make the hard yards in winter, with the promise of reaching euphoria in little over four minutes.

HOT CARGO – What’s In It For Me? (long mix) [Still Music][2h 25m 30s]When I started getting heavily into dubby disco and boogie in the early 2000s, one mysterious record I obsessed over and relentlessly pursued was a Faze Action edit of The Jammer’s ‘Be Mine Tonight’. The man behind that project? Richie Weeks, an NYC triple threat who could write, arrange and produce dancefloor dynamite. He also performed at Studio 54 and Paradise Garage. Yeah, he was in the thick of it.

This Hot Cargo track is previously unreleased and part of a third volume of tracks selected from his personal archive. This RA documentary offers a valuable insight into Richie’s career and struggles in the industry.

THE STONE ROSES – Something’s Burning [Sony][2h 33m 55s]For my money, the best thing that the Roses ever recorded, perhaps apart from ‘I Wanna Be Adored’. Certainly one of dearly departed Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield’s most seductive basslines, runnin’ the Manc voodoo down at length with drummer Reni and the gang. ‘Something’s Burning’ is on the b-sides and rarities compilation Turns to Stone.

If you want to get to know “Manniechester’s” favourite son a bit better, a man for whom “laughter was his number one pursuit” as bandmate and lifelong friend Ian Brown put it, listen to his and Bobby Gillespie’s eulogies. For Roses lore, try documentary Made of Stone or any podcast featuring Mani.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com

Season’s greetings!

As I was climbing a mountain in Wales last weekend with my doggie (more on that soon), I had to miss studio day at Sister Midnight FM. Short of time and eager to offer something to counter the winter chill, I thought, why not release volume five of Singers, Songs & Strings?

This is a series I started in 2010 to celebrate the bare beauty and sacred mystery of songwriting. Mostly acoustic but not always. Sometimes instrumental and occasionally veering into the electronic and ambient ether.

Lots of names you will recognise here, including Jeff Buckley, PJ Harvey, Can and Sinead O’Connor. But I have also folded in some more obscure moments from the likes of Cy Timmons, Skip Prokop and Hako Yamasaki. All braided together into that signature ML odyssey.

Something high-tuft for you to stretch out on. I hope it’s good to you and at least one of these tunes induces a sweet little reverie.

Round and round the burning circleAll the seasons, one, two and threeAutumn comes and then the WinterSpring is born and wanders free’Milk & Honey’ – Jackson C Frank

The mathematicians among you will note that there should be four other volumes before this. If you would like them, let me know in the comments or DM me at [at] amarofpatel on IG.

Back in January with a more ancient-to-future selection, but you can expect a dispatch before then.

Stay close,

Amar

***

DAVID HORRIDGE – At First Sight [Smiling C]

DOROTHY CARTER – Along The River [Palto Flats] 3m 10s

CY TIMMONS – Nowhere [Erewhon Music] 8m 36s

MARIA RITA – Canção De Garoa [Mr Bongo] 17m 00s

JEFF BUCKLEY – Opened Once [Columbia] 18m 30s

HAKO YAMASAKI – Komori Uta [WRWTFWW] 21m 47s

MARC RIBOT – Sobo (composed by Frantz Casseus) [Knockwurst] 25m 43s

LINDA PERHACS – Parallelograms [Kapp] 29m 55s

ANDRE GIBSON & UNIVERSAL TOGETHERNESS BAND – Valentine Lover [Numero] 34m 09s

LINDA LEWIS – It’s A Frame [Reprise] 35m 48s

SKIP PROKOP – Blue Boy [NTS] 39m 21s

JUST US – Just A Thought 43m 55s

CHARLIE MEGIRA – Smile Now, Cry Later [Numero] 48m 40s

CAN – She Brings The Rain [Spoon] 52m 28s

ULTRA VIOLET – How Do You Do (Children Of The Most High) [Light in the Attic] 56m 40s

BO HARWOOD & JOHN CASSAVETES – No One Around To Hear It [Efficient Space] 1h 00m 55s

THE REPLACEMENTS – Sadly Beautiful [Sire] 1h 04m 13s

EVERYTHING BUT THE GIRL – My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains [Blanco y Negro] 1h 07m 22s

DEAN BLUNT – Woosah [Rough Trade] 1h 10m 10s

THE ROCHES – Hammond Song (featuring Robert Fripp) [Warner] 1h 13m 05s

SINEAD O’CONNOR – Black Boys On Mopeds [Chrysalis] 1h 18m 30s

PJ HARVEY – Beautiful Feeling (Peel Session 2000) 1h 22m 21s

RY COODER – Houston in Two Seconds [Warner] 1h 26m 10s

NICK HAKIM – Needy Bees (live on NPR Tiny Desk) 1h 28m 10s

EDDIE FLOYD – I Will Always Have Faith In You [Stax] 1h 31m 28s

JACKSON C FRANK – Milk & Honey [Antarctica Starts Here] 1h 33m 28s

GUNS N ROSES – Patience [Geffen] 1h 37m 06s

FRED NEILL – Faretheewell (Fred’s Tune) [Capitol] 1h 42m 54s

KAREN DALTON – Are You Leaving For The Country [LITA] 1h 46m 53s

FAIRPORT CONVENTION – Who Knows Where The Time Goes [Woodworm] 1h 50m 00s

LOU REED – Coney Island Baby [RCA Victor] 1h 55m 00s

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amarofpatel.substack.com