Super Selections and Wonderful words by Balearic Mike.

The girl from Ipanema has left this planet…

Astrud Gilberto – Black Magic (A Gira) – Image Records 1977

Astrud Gilberto was catapulted to global fame in 1964 when her recording of the song, The Girl From Ipanema, became a worldwide hit. The song had originally been recorded by her husband, Joao Gilberto, and Stan Getz, but the session producer wanted an English language version of the song to try and score some crossover success in the US. Astrud, who had never recorded before, was the only person who could speak English, so stepped up to the mic. When her version was released as a single, it not only became a gigantic hit around the world, but it also established both bossa nova as a musical style, and Brazil itself as the epitome of modernity and cool.

“When she walks, she’s like a samba, that swings so cool and sways so gently, that when she passes, each one she passes goes, “Ah”.

The version on this LP, That Girl From Ipanema, is a really ill-advised attempt to turn the track into disco, and despite the best efforts of Vince Montana, Jnr., it’s best left well alone. Head instead for the last track on the A-side, a stunning version of the track A Gira. Originally recorded in 1973 by Trio Ternura, but here, once again, given an English language vocal, it’s turned into a slo-mo-sleaze epic. It’s sheer perfection, and my only criticism is that at just 3.11 long, it could be twice that and not outstay it’s welcome. I didn’t come across this record until the early 2000s, when it appeared on a list of tunes played on Italy’s Cosmic-Afro scene. Better late than never. Thank you for the music Astrud.

His Royal Badness would have turned 65 today…

Prince & The Revolution – Pop Life / Hello / Girl  – Paisley Park 1985

So happy birthday to Prince Rogers Nelson, Jamie Starr, Alexander Nevermind, Camille, and that unpronounceable ‘love-sign’ he occasionally went under. You’re still the most important artist in my life, and always will be. 

I’m celebrating what would have traditionally been the day that Prince got a free bus pass (it’s actually been raised to 66 in England, so tough shit on that front from your caring Conservative government), by listening to this simply incredible single lifted from 1985’s Around The World In A Day. Pop Life, an absolute masterpiece, only reached the giddy heights of #60 in the UK charts upon it’s release in October of that year. Mind boggling isn’t it!

Pop Life was recorded over 2 days, on February  19^th and 20^th 1984. Prince was still putting the finishing touches to both the movie and the album Purple Rain at the time, as well as compiling albums for both Apollonia 6 and The Time. He was also about to start work on a solo LP for Sheila E. Pop Life was the first Prince track on which Sheila E plays drums – with Prince accompanying her on bass during the genesis of those sessions. With Peggy McCreary in the booth at Sunset Sound, Prince and Sheila – and possibly Wendy & Lisa too – worked on the track for 10 hours straight, before asking Jill Jones to add some backing vocals, and working on the track for a further 7 hours. At the end of Day One they had a 9.22 version, that they then went to work on again the following day, adding overdubs, and sound effects from several Library Music LPs. The treatment on Prince’s voice is apparently called ‘tape slap’. The song was then polished to the 9.06 version that you’ll find on the UK 12”, with Sheila assisting in the editing process, cutting up tape and splicing it together, and eventually producing her own remix, the ‘Fresh Dance Mix’ which appears on the US 12. 

The very odd release schedule of singles from the Around The World In A Day meant that the US and UK versions were released at different times and had different B-sides, which are both excellent in their own right. Pop Life was the second single issued in the US, at the same time roughly the UK got Raspberry Beret, while it was the third single from the album in the UK – released at the same time as the US got America.

The US version of Pop Life has Hello on the B-side. This is a killer slice of up-tempo dance-floor funk, with a great guitar riff, killer synth melody, loads of slightly disturbing electronic effects, and a highly autobiographical, reportage style lyric. The gist of the song revolves around Prince’s reluctance to take part in the recording of the USA For Africa single, We Are The World – he knew it was a stinker – and his offer to pen an original number for the project instead. However, there was a huge press backlash about this, resulting in the incident detailed in the Hello’s lyrics, where a photographer jumped into Prince’s car. The track is an absolute killer, with a storming background vocal performance from Jill Jones. I’ve no idea what’s going on at the end, but it ends with the hilarious line …

“Come now, isn’t life a little better with a pair of good shoes?”

The UK single has Girl on the flip – a lovely, sexy, smutty, if slightly woozy, wonky, and psychedelic sounding affair. Originally titled Boy, and written for Vanity back in 1982, Prince re-recorded it with this new gender perspective sometime in ’84.

As I said, 2 weeks on the UK charts, in at #60, down to #70, then out! What is wrong with you people? You don’t appreciate him like I do! Forever in my life.

Released into the world by my long-time friend Damien Harris, on his new label,  Vicious Charm…

JIM – Love Makes Magic – Vicious Charm 2023

From the opening, hypnotic, acoustic guitar riff of Across the Street I was hooked. The album combines the best bits of Laurel Canyon style singer-songwriter acoustics, with `60s psychedelic English folk-rock, a dash of that magical, undefinable ‘Balearic’ vibe, the occasional slab of discoid-funk, and a big fat line of yacht-rock. It moves effortlessly from, barn-storming, chugging, Balearic end-of-nighter, to dreamy, balladry, and all points in between. 

The 2 singles that preceded the album, Across The Street and Still River Flows are highlights, and both fall into ‘Balearic end-of-nighter’ category, particularly in the shape of their accompanying sensational Generalisation Dubs – which sadly haven’t appeared on vinyl, yet. These up the dancefloor potential just the right amount, while maintaining the musicality of the originals. The album, however, is chock full of great songs. 

Nick Drake and John Martyn vie with the more contemporary Common Saints, and Kirk Degiorgio’s underappreciated Beauty Room project as influences. The Nick Drake in particular is really apparent in some of Jim’s wonderful guitar work, especially on the opener, and the superb, A Life In Between, where it’s joined by wonderful cello work from Faze Action’s Robin Lee.

It’s at its most dancefloor friendly on the superb, bassline driven disco-chugger Oxygen, with its sensible instruction to ‘breathe’ – always sage advice – and at its most hauntingly beautiful on the delicate, Phoenix – a CULT cover – where we get the bonus of Danielle Moore’s gorgeous, atmospheric backing vocals. Love Makes Magic is going to be fighting it out in those ‘album of the year’ poles, and looks as fab as it sounds, with beautiful cover art, and a bonus print and flexi. Go on, treat yourself.

A shit load of great new records have been released over the last couple of weeks, I can hardly keep up with them all…

Fila Brazillia – Retrospective Redux 90-22 – Re:Warm 2023

For much of the early `90s, a period rightly regarded as one of the most exciting times in electronic / dance music history, some of the most vital, forward thinking, and exciting music being made was not coming out of Chicago or New York. Not even London, or Manchester – my beloved home at the time. No, the most incredible, unclassifiable, and outstanding music was being made across the other side of the country, in East Yorkshire, in the city of Hull. From their debut single on Pork Recordings, 1991’s Mermaids – still for me one of the greatest UK house records – I began buying everything by Fila Brazillia on sight. This meant that I also cursed Porky for forcing me into buying a CD player, as he steadfastly refused to release the label’s long-players on vinyl, despite my drunken badgering one night in a Manchester basement!

The music on Re:Warm’s new compilation, Retrospective Redux, spans 3 decades, tracing Fila’s career chronologically from 1990 to 2022. The first two sides cover those Pork Recordings, with the third detailing releases on the duo’s own 23 Records, while the fourth brings things bang up to date. There’s also a brand-new track to end on, the tremendous Toro De Fuego.

It’s quite incredible to me that you could swap album the opener, 1994’s The Sheriff – a big David Mancuso favourite I’m reliably told – with that closing track, recorded in 2022, and there would be no way to tell that you`d tampered with the sequence. All of the music compiled here sounds like it could have been made yesterday, with Fila’s absolute refusal to fall in to any easily classifiable genre a quite remarkable skill. The sunset epic, A Zed & Two Ls, still sounds every bit as wonderful as it did in 1995, but equally gorgeous is the incredible Hush Hush, from 2020’s MMXX E.P. As Porky states in the sleeve notes “Writing about music is like dancing to architecture”, so I’ll just say listen to this, it’s wonderful. An incredible collection of music from an exceptional outfit.

Luke Une Presents – E Soul Cultura Volume 2 – Mr Bongo Records 2023

In a somewhat desperate bid to make Kelvin Andrews and I look like feckless, workshy, idlers with our frankly staggering output of 2 compilation LPs in a little over a decade, Luke Una manages the utterly astonishing feat of releasing a second volume in his E Soul Cultura series – for Brighton’s finest purveyors of musical delights, Mr Bongo – inside (*) a year!

Well, if he’s rushed it out that quick it’s probably not that great right? Not a patch on the first? Well, no. It actually might be even better than Volume 1! The album opens with proof that a track doesn’t have to be rare to blow your mind, by picking a piece from scouse soul music pioneers and chart toppers, The Real Thing. Taken from the lads from Liverpool’s second album, Children Of The Ghetto, a gorgeous slice of soul-jazz can also be found on the B-side of their single, Can You Feel The Force? for pennies. It’s a marvelous piece of (Northern) soul music, which for me stands up to the songs of Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott-Heron  or Stevie Wonder. 

Side One keeps it soulful with 2 beauties from Avis, and Veronica Mickie, OGs of which, unlike The Real Thing, would have set you back considerably. The side closer, the Arp Duppy Chip Mix of Rare Silk’s Storm takes us deeper, and way out there, and is a beautiful taste of what’s to come.

Side Two is one of the best sequence of tracks that I’ve never heard before in a long time. Beginning with a tune that sounds like UR playing MTV Unplugged, we have Sheffield’s LFO, with what I can only describe as Balearic-techno-jazz (it’s a thing, honest!). With the slightly disturbing title, Shove Piggy Shove, this is a glorious piece of hi-tek soul which would be as beautiful at sunset on a beach as at sunrise on the dancefloor.

The album stays electronic with another outstanding discovery. Bach Revolution’s D.E. 108 should have / could have been a floor filler at The Blitz Club. Dating from 1979, and hailing from Japan, it’s pulsating rhythms predict the grooves of both Italo-disco and house, and I can’t believe I’ve never heard it before! Next is a fusion of Indian classical music and electronica from Hamburg. Ando Otto’s Bangalore Whispers being another jaw-dropping curveball record. 

Heading home to Manchester, the rainy city, one of the most beautiful tracks on the LP comes from Unnayanaa & Irfan Rainy. The side then closes with – well I’ m not sure! Michael De Albuquerque’s We May be Cattle But We All Got Names crosses over between P-funk, yacht-rock, and lord knows what else, but it’s brilliant and bonkers in equal measure.

Over sides three and four we get 6 more incredible tracks. There’s further props to Manchester with the inclusion of one of the city’s finest exports, the fantastically talented Mr. Scruff, and one of its best kept secrets, the phenomenal and “should have been f***king massive” Yargo, who’s tragically short contribution to the city’s musical legacy is also one of its finest.

Other musical masterpieces include the psychedelic organ-funk-freakout of Swiss band Pyranha, hi-tempo, afro-beat-jazz-fusion from Okyerma Asante, dancefloor shredding deep house from the DiY crew, as Isis, and a beautiful finale from Frank Hatchett, providing possibly the most Balearic piece of music on the album.

More treats lie in store if you get the LP digitally, and I have to say that the 3 tracks which are digital-only really deserve their place on vinyl, so maybe a sampler 12” folks? This is another superb compilation, with great artwork, sleeve notes and a lovely fanzine included. Sterling work from all involved. 

For more from Balearic Mike you can find him on both Facebook and Instagram – @balearicmike. 

Mike has a Mixcloud page packed with magnificent, magical, music, and you can catch him live on 1BTN, from 12 noon until 2 (UK time) every 1st and 3rd Friday.

You can also check out the super silk screen prints of “Balearic Wife” over at @jo_lambert_print