Balearic Breakfast | Episode 182 | Sunny Vibrations...

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 182nd episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud and Twitch TV socials on July 2nd 2024.

---

About this episode. – Recently, I've stopped trying to figure out why I consistently encounter a peculiar "Synchronicity" while working on the blog. All I do is let things happen and notice when they do...

A few days before this very show, I saw a video that really shook me. In this video, Kyan Khojandi, French humorist and actor, asks Alexandre Astier, French author and actor, where his confidence comes from. Alexandre's answer is one to keep in mind here: "If you don't have confidence in yourself, that's the only thing that makes you go down. The only thing that differentiates people who do from those who don't is just a sense of legitimacy in doing. It means, I have the position of someone who makes, whether it's good or not, it's none of my business, whether people like it or they don't, it's none of my business, I have to do what I have to do, I have to do it with everything I can put into it, I have to do the best I can but if I do the best I can, if it doesn't suit you, it's okay, if you don't like me, don't look at what I'm doing, don't insult me, that's all. And you know what, there's something I want to say there. I met really Great people. You must have met some too. Do you know what they have in common? They're all kind. So when you read harsh words, they're just coming from someone that wishes he was great"...

A few hours before hitting the desks at the great Last Note Party (held in Perugia, Italy), Colleen posted the Request line on her socials on June 30 st, 2024: "A lovely snapshot of the last week’s summer solstice weekend at @firstlightlowestoft - turns out I not only love sunset sets but also sunrise sets! Must be the lark in me. I’ll post it up soon. Which brings me to…. What would you like to hear as part of your weekly Balearic Breakfast this Tuesday (10am-12pm BST on my Mixcloud Live and Twitch TV). Looking forward to@your suggestions as always and thanks for your incredible contributions to last weeks’ 3+hour Pride special - it’s now archived along with all of the other Balearic Breakfasts on my Mixcloud (please give a a follow while you’re over there).

Now relaxing in Umbria before tonight’s @lastnote_party - photos to follow. Have a great weekend!"

The Balearic Breakfast family answered with songs showcasing one commune element we've all been missing lately: sunny feelings! Today's show was indeed sunny on all fronts, as we'll discover together in the listening experience part of this post! What a great way to celebrate the 181st episode of our Beloved show! Onwards!

Listen to the 182nd episode of Balearic Breakfast:

---

PLAYLIST

(1987) Orquesta de las Nubes – Vendrán Lluvias Suaves

(1984) David Sylvian – Weathered Wall

(2024) Iraina Mancini – Undo the Blue

(Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Reimagination)

(2024) Feel Fly – Sole (Versione Tramonto)

(1984) Pellegrin El Kady – Seiva De Carnaval

(2024) Dan the Drums & Ronnie Turner (ft. Emma Noble) – JazzCazz

(1986) Prince – Mountains

(2024) Barbara Hernandez – All Nite Tonite

(2024) Belouis Some – Imagination (Orchestral Extended Version)

(2024) Shunt Voltage – Resistor (Cosmikuro Remix)

(2023) Precious Bloom – Teka Teki Asmara

(2024) Galliano – Pleasure Joy & Happiness

(1980) Change – A Lover's Holiday (Jim Burgess Mix)

(1989) The Beloved – The Sun Is Rising (Danny’s Love Is Mix)

(NOL) Lindstrom – Sirius Syntoms

(1993) Black Rascals (ft Roger Harris) – Keeping My Mind

(2024) Myrna Summers – So Much to Live For

(Joaquin ‘Joe’ Claussell Remix)

(2024) Lea Lisa – Poem for the Lost Souls (Kuniyuki Version)

(2000) The Boyz from Brazil – Land of Make-Believe

(A Terra do Fazer Crer Bossa Novo Mix)

---

THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE

(Coming soon)

A calm, wavy, evolving and very Balearic sound comes to you, entwined with nervous electronic outbursts, decorated with a Spanish guitar... Welcome, a new day has just begun... Colleen always chooses tracks that open up the musical scene for every show. She, once again, perfectly does it here by playing Orquesta de las Nubes' (the Cloud Orchestra),Vendra Lluvia Suaves, (Black Rains Will Come) from their 1987 LP Manuel del Uso Ario.

Orquesta de las Nubes were a trio: guitarist Sonic Manipulator Suso Saiz, percussionist Pedro Esteban, and singer Maria Villa. Influenced by the sounds of ECM and Brian Eno, they were trying to develop a new kind of Spanish music that drew on the new music of Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich, along with the hypnotic music of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Extending the beautiful morning sunset visuals, Colleen then plays David Silvian's Weathered Wall, taken from the former Japan's frontman solo debut album, Brilliant Trees, released on the 25th of June, 1984 (on which we found a track already played during Balearic Breakfast's first episode, Red Guitar).

Even though Japan had disbanded, former band members Steve Johnson and Richard Barbieri both appear on the record, alongside a stellar array of other guests, like Hans Holger Zukai, Danny Thompson, the bassist John Hassel, Mark Gisham, and the late Urichi Sakamoto, who had collaborated with Silvian before. It was a well-received album. Sounds critic Carol Linfield wrote: "Silvian has grown up. He's left art school, gone through the gray, and come out in a spectrum of pastel shades that entrance and enthrall. Gone is the clichéd imagery that once haunted Japan. "'In its place is a solo artist who deserves more respect than his beautiful face often allows."

In a beautiful interview that you can read here, David Silvain explains a few things about "Weathered Wall". – "I have never visited Jerusalem. Again, the album 'Brilliant trees' was written in a period when my belief system, my faith, came under attack. I wanted to see what remained when all pillars of support were removed. The pieces you mention are explorations along those lines. The narrator of Brilliant trees ultimately finds redemption in human love which for him is linked to the divine."

Once again, when listening to Colleen's show, pay attention to the details. The rhythmic perfection meets us once again as the next track, a gentle and promising number, this time of singer, songwriter, and DJ Iraina Mancini's Undo the Blue, starts, allowing the listener to dive fully into this new morning.

This "Beyond the Wizard's sleeve reimagination" is a new single. On the flip side is a Saint Etienne remix of her song Sugar High. You can hear touches of French pop, psychedelia, and some cinematic soul on there. Speaking about the very song in an interview, Iraina shared "I wrote this song about reinvention and fresh starts. Leaving the bad behind and seeing a bright shiny new you.“

Even through Silence, Colleen's soul shines. Do you hear the musical continuity here? Listen to the musical "pattern; I'm sure you'll understand what I'm talking about. Pure Beauty, right? Italy's Feel Fly's Sole (Versione Tremonde), or sun, came out very fittingly on the summer solstice on June 21st and oh so perfectly gave me the title of today's post, just a few minutes before Colleen actually introduced the track. Isn't this intellectual Synchronicity in its purest form right there? (.....)

Feel Fly is Afro-Templum co-founder Daniele Tomassini, and there's just so much good music coming out of Italy right now. You know, from jazz, all that whole Napoli scene, and also kind of the further evolution of Italo disco, Italo house. As Colleen said, grazie per la musica!

Following this blissful moment comes a track that I considered the Wow moment of today's 181st episode: a profound, visionary, freewheeling, incantatory and musical trip by Ricardo Pellegrin-Elkady, with Seiva De Carnaval. What's really interesting at that moment of the show is the "timing" element; you could almost draw a little storyboard in which every song would see the sun going up in the sky; what a beautiful musical progression right there!

Ricardo came from Guinea-Bissau. Settling in Quebec in 1974, he became a pioneer of world beat in Canada, blending sounds from Africa, South America, Asia, and Europe. This incredible track is taken from Elkady's 1984 EP Sanguila. Elkady spent his life sharing the importance of Culture, fighting against analphabetism, sharing music that would always go beyond "folklorization" (he issued 3 albums between 1984 and 1995) and putting the respect due to the person on the forefront of his strongest beliefs (read here).

Keeping her pulse tremendously perfect, never missing a beat, Colleen then plays the lovely cover of Casanova, the 1980 single by Coffee (First release by Ruby Andrews, 1967), given here a jazzy and broken-beat twist by Dan the Drums and Ronnie Turner with vocals by Emma Noble (the track is out now on the wonderful Ramrock Records), beautifully followed by the incredible, and still funky fresh-sounding Mountains by Prince! Colleen is such a musical delight right here!!!

The funky and high-spirit reaching song Muntains isTaken from Prince's eighth album and his last one with the Revolution "Parade", released in 1986, a year after Around the World in a Day, two years after Purple Rain, and alongside a load of other projects.

Do you hear the rhythmic connection between Mountains and the Trinidadian disco number that is Barbara Hernandez's All Night Tonight? It's another blissful Balearic musical moment we absolutely all love here on Balearic Breakfast!

Issued on another one of Collen's favourite labels, Soundway, which reissues fabulous and often forgotten nuggets, also featuring upcoming stars like Australia's Psy Galaxy, this Cult Soca Disco 12-inch was produced by Leston Paul, initially released in 1984, and now available in full vocal and instrumental versions for the first time in 40 years. Barbara was a backing singer for Kool and the Gang in New York at the time this track was recorded, and the session featured Kool and the Gang's horn section as well as a who's who of the Trinidad music scene for what would be Barbara's only solo release.

Colleen perfectly ends the first hour of the show by playing two incredible songs, perfectly mixed by theway (once again, laughs!): the slow starter but definitely strong builder (laughs!) orchestral extended version of Imagination by Belouis Some, followed by The Cosmic Kudo remix of Resistor by Shunt Voltage (Shunt Voltage's generator is featured on the Balearic Breakfast Vol. 3 compilation btw). I absolutely adore this last track as it does have these strong and sunny visuals attached to it! That track is so Mean, I really mean Mean! Another Wow moment of this 181st episode for sure!

Originally a hit from his 1985 debut album Some People, Imagination is about a British man's encounter with an extremely self-indulgent American woman and one that expresses the conflict between reality and dreams. The album was produced in New York City, and the video was directed by the late Storm Thorgeson, who designed many of Pink Floyd's album covers. It caused a little bit of controversy because it featured full-frontal nudity.

---

Now that the sun is high in the sky, it's past 10 o'clock in the morning already, we can all have a proper Balearic Breakfast Party! And this is exactly what Colleen is going to propose us here in the second hour of today's sunny episode, starting with Precious' Bloom, Teka Teki Asmara, oh so beautifully followed by the light "carnival-like" number that is Galliano's Pleasure, Joy, and Happiness, the "ha-chika boom boom" moment ending with the incredible A lover's Holiday by the Italian studio project that is Change!

Precious Bloom, a band from Jakarta in Indonesia, is comprised of record digger and producer Aradea Barindana and singer-songwriter Adinda Dwimadasari. With a penchant for 80s Indonesian city pop, the band released Precious Bloom last year. The album has a wide spectrum of sounds, including new beat and proto house, high energy, and even some bossa nova influences.

Pleasure, Joy, and Happiness from Galliano's forthcoming album, Halfway Somewhere, is coming out on Brownswood Recordings on the 30th of August. It's a cosmic, uplifting take on Eddie Tricone's 2020 record. Rob Gallagher was inspired when he saw Eddie perform it at Clapton's Church of Sound and at We Out Here, and he felt a strange disco version trying to get out.

The immaculate sounds of the Italian studio project Change with A Lover's Holiday, a single from their 1980 LP produced by Jacques Fred Petrus with backing vocals by Luther Vandros, who sang lead on other Change songs. The song was written by David Romany of High Fashion and the BB&Q Band, and it was mixed by the late DJ Jim Burgess, who that same year became one of the resident DJs at the newly opened gay club The Saint in New York City.

For the second mini mix of today's show, we all love when Colleen does these, our dear Captain plays Danny Rampling's mix of the beloved 1989 Balearic classic The Sun Is Rising perfectly followed "in da beat" by Norwegian producer and DJ Hans-Peter Lindstrom's Sirius Syntones; lifting this incredible musical moment with a well-deserved tribute to the Loft, bringing us all to David Mancuso's home on East 3rd Street (in Manhattan's Alphabet City) with Black Rascals' (ft. Roger Harris) Keeping My Mind, climaxing it in a craze and gospel cry with the incredible Joe Claussell's workout that is Myrna Summers' So Much to Live For and ending it in a stunning mix with Lea Lisa's Poem for the Lost Souls!!! Another Wow moment for sure (allowing us all to send positive thoughts to Rick's mom, who celebrated her 80th birthday today)!!!

Sirius Syntones, a Norwegian producer, and DJ Hans-Peter Lindstrom's new single on his own Fidelity label has a fun, uplifting and Italo house feel to it. Great for festival sets on warm summer days. Such a great arranger with a great ear!

Black Rascals featuring Roger Harris' Keeping My Mind was actually Blaze, Kevin Hedge, and Josh Milan. The track came out in 1993 as a first single on Danny Diaz's label, Suma Recordings, and he released their productions and also one by the late DJ Camacho in 1996, called "Renegade".

Joe Claussell has become something of a powerhouse of Latin jazz house productions and can be here heard on Maryland gospel singer and a minister of music at Reed Temple AME Church Myrna Summer, who released 19 albums between 1970 and 2006, here with So much to live for.

French DJ and producer Lea Lisa is a Lausanne-based artist. She released records on Wolf Music and Fonica, and now has a new one on German label Smallville. Here she is with the Kuniyuki version of her Poem for the lost souls. There's also a double 12-inch released last week.

After such an INCREDIBLE SHOW, Colleen signs off by playing one last song, actually a cover of a song many of us treasure. A true Loft classic that really makes end meets (if you see what I mean (😜) here in a version by The Boys from Brazil (taking this opportunity to wish her friend, James Hogarth, a Happy Birthday!).

By the way, I almost forgot. Yesterday evening, as I was talking to my friend Ana, she told me, "I've read your last post on the blog. It's really good. I don't know how you do it." My answer came instantly: "I do it by dying every time." Remember, the sun doesn't think about the fact that it must shine. It Shines.