After hours grooving…
The Ananda Project – Cascades Of Colour (Wamdue Black Mix)
Never get tired of this track – must be the birds and the harmonies. It’s such a simple yet gorgeous piece of music. The beats are so 1990s and so perfect. Leon Paradise’s 2014 remix stays very true to the original.
Daft Punk – Veridis Quo
Hard to beat the mood of this one on a Sunday-afternoon-post-clubbing or wherever the sun and moon took everybody. Understated.
Anne Clark – Sleeper in Metropolis
Although we named our track “The Sitting Room” in her honour, it always has to be about “Sleeper in Metropolis”. The Godzilla-esque track of art house electronica.
Everything But The Girl – Temperamental
Before our demo caught the ear of Ben Watt, I had already been a devout fan of ETBG. However, this particular album had it all. Great song writing, late 90s beats and samples, and of course, Tracey’s voice.
The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead
The artwork’s appeal was its darkness. Then there were the song titles, “Bigmouth Strikes Again” and “Frankly, Mr. Shankly”, and the lyrics, “So I meet you at the cemetery gates, Keats and Yeats are on your side, while Wilde is on mine.”
Chet Baker – Chet Baker Sings and Plays
The perfect balance between jazz trumpet playing and ‘west coast cool’ jazz crooning. The change in sound frequencies after clubbing are medicinal.
Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
Laid back soul and produced by the man himself. This slickly mixed cross-genre masterpiece remains on the iphone’s permanent rotation.
The Cure – Disintegration
At the time the music was dark and tortured enough to get lost in but it also had those small pockets of light – the more poppy side of The Cure – that made you realize they were just a bunch of kids making some good music.
George Michael – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Songs from the Last Century)
Roberta Flack cover showcasing George’s awesome vocal ability. Pure silk. Best voice of a generation? If not, makes one realize he was definitely born in the wrong era.
Kraftwerk – Tour de France
If nothing other than for the trippy harps and synths, the orgasm guy, and the mid-1980 horror movie nostalgia that it evokes.
Flowers and Sea Creatures – Afternoons & Afterhours Remixes
(My Favorite Robot Records Cat. No. MFR110)
For their next release, leading Canadian indie dance label My Favorite Robot returns to a huge release from earlier in the year by Montreal duo Flowers and Sea Creatures. Their ‘Afternoons & Afterhours’ release featuring Wrong Jeremy was a serene and widescreen EP that built patiently and won them many fans, and now label regulars Eric Volta and Speaking Minds, alongside Adriatique all remix it. DJ and production duo Adrian Schweizer and Adrian Shala aka Adriatique hail from Switzerland and have really put their country on the map in recent times. Releasing a string of standout EPs on labels like
Culprit, Diynamic and Hive Audio, they are also regulars in the world’s best clubs and this year are residents at Solomun’s Diynamic night at Cova Santa. Their version of the ‘The Very Next Day’ repackages it as a trippy, melody rich house roller with deep, groaning and moody basslines underpinning the whole thing. It grows increasingly chaotic as things roll on, taking dancers ever deeper down the rabbit
hole in the process.
Next up is Eric Volta, a MFRR regular and masterful synth craftsman who also releases well received sounds on 1trax, No.19 Music and Visionquest. His ‘Navigate the Untold Cosmos remix’ is a fantastically moving thing that initially casts you adrift in a celestial and heavenly sphere of beat-less ambience. Eventually it coalesces into an engaging, ticking house number with synths spraying about of their own
free will and vocals bleeding in to add more layers of heavenly atmosphere. It’s hugely sensitive and emotive and will make all the hairs on your body stand right on end.
Last but not least to remix is Speaking Minds, a project born in 2012 from the union of 2 Italian guys with a common passion for music: they have appeared on Noir Music, had a standout EP on MFRR earlier in 2014 and have had support from the likes of Tale of Us. Their remix of ‘Citadel’ is similarly spine tingling in the way it so patiently builds on spaced out kicks. A sombre, undulating synth line adds a sense of drama and the airy vocals are allowed plenty of space to breath up top. It’s the sort of peak of your set track that really brings everyone together in magically moody fashion.
This moving package is a fantastic way to revisit one of the MFR label’s biggest hits this year and proves they know exactly who to call when it comes to choice remixes.
Flowers and Sea Creatures – Afternoons & Afterhours Remixes (My Favorite Robot Records Cat. No. MFR110) Release: October 6th 2014
