Attempting to recreate the golden yesterdays of Jose Padilla`s White Isle sunsets with the tunes of today.
ALBUMS
Be With Records’ vinyl reissue of Wally Badarou’s yoga CD, Colors Of Silence, will have topped a lot of folks end-of-year lists. While this is admittedly essential, Thomas Almqvist’s Nyanser is my personal Be With pick.
Other amazing albums that got straight-up reissues, or in some cases, first time vinyl pressings, were Mark Barrott’s Johatsu, Pilgrims Of The Mind’s What’s Your Shrine?, and the pedal steel exotica of Group Of Gods. Isle Of Jura continued to work with Ronnie Lion, cherry-picking tunes from Ambient Warrior’s mid-90s archive. The resulting LP, II, wasn’t really a reissue since most of this music hadn’t previously seen the light of day.
There were not one, but two, brilliant Fila Brazillia retrospectives, with Re:Warm pulling together a kind of “Best Of / greatest hits”, and the duo themselves then seamlessly sequencing a stunning selection of their Beatless gear. Music From Memory provided an essential overview of the enigmatic, ethereal, Dream Dolphin’s career. Glossy Mistakes gave us an expanded edition of Finis Africae’s 1985 debut, which featured a bonus disc of extras, including the magical, El Pulso de la Madera.
Killer compilations came from folks like Aficionado, Alex From Tokyo, and Isle Of Jura again. The latter’s Transmission Three featured Irresistible Force’s lovely Lotus Position, and while Alex’s comp was largely techno and house, it did also contain a Cafe del Mar favourite from Silent Poets. Likewise Richard Sen’s award-winning Dream The Dream, in amongst the dancefloor dynamite, opened with a highly sought-after mid-90s chillout room classic, in the shape of Centuras’ terrific Tokyo.
Paul Hillery, from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of musical marvels, both dusty old forgotten diamonds, and more modern, overlooked, jewels, blew everyone away with second volumes of Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours, and We Are The Children Of The Sun. One of the standouts from these, that got regular repeat spins up here in the mountains, was Aria Rostami’s Golden Hour.
SINGLES & E.P.s
As far as singles go, my favourite mellow reissues fell into a couple of contrasting camps – either “ambient”, mid-90s techno / trance, or groovier jazz and soul. On the techno side, Pennsylvanian label, re:discovery, revived IDM epics from Neural Network and Stryke. Transmigration had Hole In One.
More organic matter materialised via Paul Murphy’s Jazz Room, who licensed Slowly’s super dub of Onegram’s cover of Brian Briggs’ David Mancuso / Loft staple, AEO. They also repressed Take Vibe’s much-loved takes on hits by The Stranglers and The Police. Walking On The Moon is the one that I usually plump for.
Other jazzier bits belonged to Brazilian duo, Rosanna & Zelia, and Kenichiro Nishihara, who reimagined Pat Metheny’s Slip Away for piano. Gianni Oddi’s Dreamin’ was a delicious dose of sophisticated, sexy, Italian library muzak.
Soul and funk to follow….
TRACK-LIST
Group Of Gods – Thunder Island
Silent Poets – Meaning In The Tone
Nenad Jelic & Laza Ristovski – Rumba Balanca
Onegram – AEO (Slowly Dub)
Sun Sone – All That Glitters
Les Dupont – Mille Plateux
Gold In The Shade – Over You
Loftsoul – Unity
Take Vibe – Walking On The Moon
Ambient Warrior – Vibration Dub
Rosanna & Zelia – Baiao da Luna
Kenichiro Nishihara – Slip Away
Gianni Oddi – Dreamin
John Rocca – Open Spaces, Open Minds
Angelo Cruzman – In Your Mind
Pilgrims Of The Mind – Sandcastle
Thomas Almqvist – Coral Reef
Penguin Cafe – Find Your Feet
Sergio Messina – Sometimes Remember (Calm Remix)
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