Balearic Breakfast | Episode 187 | None of us are free

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 187th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on August 6th 2024.

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About this episode. – "UK Riots 2024: England is witnessing its worst rioting in over a decade, triggered by anti-immigration protests following a mass stabbing in Southport. The violence, fueled by online misinformation, has spread across multiple cities, leading to clashes with police and significant unrest. Authorities are struggling to control the situation as far-right groups exploit public concerns about immigration, particularly the influx of migrants arriving by boat from France. The events have sparked a national debate on immigration and the influence of far-right agitators."

Balearic Breakfast is a show of its epoch. For almost five years now, Colleen has spoken out about what triggers the Family – as we all share commune values of peace, respect and openness towards one another (in non-legal terms). Yet, very often, these values need to be put on the frontline and remembered for what they are: core values of what one calls a "Nation" (more about this here). Once again, today, and sadly – as the riots in the UK reached a new degree of violence, showing an unbearable amount of hatred, destruction fueled by the far-right party – Colleen needed to say how much these riots affected her. As usual, her words stroke a chord within our hearts...

"Today’s show opens with Solomon Burke with ‘None of Us Are Free’, a song that reminds us that while people are still being oppressed and victimised, that none of us are truly free and I wanted to play this because of the racist riots that have taken place over the last week here in the UK. I have friends of colour who right now, in 2024, are afraid to walk through their own city, the city in which they were born because of the recent actions of violent, racist, white thugs. We (especially we white people) have a collective responsibility to challenge racism whenever or wherever we detect it whether it’s the so-called insidious ‘casual racism’ to the overt acts of hatred that we are seeing on the streets of the UK today. Until we put an end to racism of any kind, none of us are free."

As we shall see, the show reflects these troubled times in a subtle yet almost "constant" and direct way during its two-hour musical run, still allowing the sun to shine during a few songs...

Listen back to the 187th episode of Balearic Breakfast:

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PLAYLIST

(2002) Solomon Burke – None of Us Are Free

(1973) John Martyn – Solid Air

(1977) Santana – Flor d’Luna (Moonflower)

(1975) Smokie – We're Flyin’ High

(1977) Jean-Luc Ponty – Mirage

(1979) Risco Connection – It's My House (Special Disco Version)

(1984) Les Rita Mitsouko – Marcia Baila

(2023) Agustin Pereyra Lucena – Consolacao

(2024) Flying Mojito Brothers – Glitter

(2024) Leo Basel – Quelle Drôle de Vie (Nick the Record & Dan Tyler Re-Edit

(2024) African Shaketown – The Wonder (Magic Jams Edit)

(2004) Calm presents K.F. – Shining of Life Flutemental (Unreleased Version)

(2013) J. Kriv – Make it Acid (Idjut Boys Remix)

(2024) ASHRR – Different Kind of Life (Massimiliano Pagliara Remix)

(1997) Nick Holder – Paradise (Salt City Orchestra Remix)

(2024) Mouth Water – Blackout (Lindstrom Cosmic Dub)

(2021) MC Jin & Wyclef Jean – Stop the Hatred

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THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE

This 186th episode of Balearic Breakfast features many songs challenging the way we experience the world and – more generally speaking – life. While listening to it, I witnessed a slow evolution towards light and hope. However, this evolution was always tense and uncertain, just before being crushed in the last 30 minutes of the show by a darker cloud, ending abruptly with "Stop the Hatred." It is not an "easy" episode and not one that you can listen to without coming back to a sort of reflection on yourself. This show constantly looks at you and keeps on waiting for you to see the Truth, one that you maybe didn't want to exhume...

The first 29 minutes provide a beautiful continuum of music. Yet, there is something inhabited here, something weighty, something constrained that keeps you from enjoying the moment with a relaxed mind.

Solomon Burke – None of Us Are Free. – Solomon Burke with None of Us Are Free, a song that reminds us that while people are still being oppressed and victimized, that none of us are truly free. And I wanted to play this because of the racist riots that have taken place over the last week here in the UK. You know, I have black and brown friends who right now, in 2024, are afraid to walk through their own city, the city in which they were born because of the recent actions of violent, racist, white thugs. And I know what it's like to be afraid to walk the streets as a woman, so I have some degree of understanding. But as a white person, I'll never truly know what my friends and people of color experience every day. And I only know that we have a collective responsibility to challenge racism whenever or wherever we detect it, whether it's the so-called insidious, casual racism to the overt acts of hatred that we are seeing on the streets of the UK today. Until we put an end to racism of any kind, none of us are free. – Written by Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, and Brenda Russell in 1993 and first recorded by Ray Charles on his "My World" studio album, "None of us are free" has been covered since then by countless other artists including Sting and brought Burke (already featured in the show with "Let your love Flow") back into the public eye in 2002, the song being taken from his "Don't Give Up On Me" studio album. The Preacher is here backed by The Blind Boys of Alabama. Click here to find 14 other powerful songs against Racism.

John Martyn – Solid Air. – Solid Air, the 1973 record from Scottish singer-songwriter John Martyn. He wrote the title track for his good friend and fellow musician Nick Drake, who sadly passed away from an antidepressant overdose a year and a half after the album was released (ed. click here to find more information about the recording of the song).

Santana – Flor d’Luna (Moonflower). – From Santana's 1977 double album of the same name, which is both a studio and a live record that features their trademark Latin rock, blues style, but bringing in more of that spiritual jazz element because of Carlos Santana's own spiritual journey. He became a disciple of Stri Chimnoy earlier in the decade through his friendship with John McLachlan, and Carlos Santana's solo work and his album with Alice Coltrane around that time (ed. the 1974 Illuminations) were also mainly spiritual, creative expressions.

Smokie – We're Flyin’ High. – Smokie, a band from Yorkshire that formed 60 years ago this year, and they're still performing, still flying high. They had to change the spelling of their name in the early 70s as Smokey Robinson threatened legal action, and they did so during the release of their second album, Changing All Time in 1975. Great name. Early pressings actually had their original spelling. And the album was produced by Mike Chapman, who created hits for some of the glam acts at that time, bands like The Sweet and also acts like Suzy Quatro.

Jean-Luc Ponty – Mirage. – by the French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, who really helped redefine the role of the violin in modern jazz. In his early career, he worked with the Modern Jazz Quartet, John McLachlan and Frank Zappa. Ponty was also simultaneously releasing solo albums, but his fortunes changed when he signed to Atlantic Records in 1975. For the next decade, he toured the world repeatedly and recorded 12 consecutive albums, each of which reached the Billboard Jazz Charts top five, selling millions of records. And this is one of those albums, Enigmatic Ocean, which reached number one on the Billboard Chart in 1977. – This incredible musical piece features guitarists Allan Holdsworth and Daryl Stuermer, keyboardist Allan Zavod, bassist Ralphe Armstrong (who also worked with MIles Davis) and drummer Steve Smith. The related album “Enigmatic Ocean” reached #1 on the Billboard Jazz album chart in 1977.

In an interview, Ponty shared: "I started my band in 1975 and it was the fourth album, two years after the first. As soon as I started my band I went on tour, I couldn’t stop! At first it was by car, the clubs, but after a year it was already the theaters. It was a quick climb. So I find myself in 77 for the fourth, and I had written the music especially for this album. My concept was to record with my orchestra which was very experienced since we were touring all the time, but I saw that the drummer Tony Williams, with whom I had played in 72, had just released a record which I bought out of curiosity and I discovered Allan Holdsworth. I couldn't believe it, I had never heard a sound like that, and what lyricism! Until then, all young guitarists had only McLaughlin as an example in jazz-rock. I had just written a very nostalgic piece, actually called Nostalgic Lady, and I could hear Allan's sound very well on it. I called him, and he agreed to come and record in Los Angeles. I taught him the melody note by note by ear, he didn't read music and didn't even know the names of the notes! Seeing this, I was in shock: how can someone who doesn't know where an A is do solos like this on the guitar, so detailed and harmonically complex? He too, like McLaughlin, began on the violin. I will never forget this experience of teaching him the melody of the Enigmatic Ocean suite. I was playing the note for him on the violin in the studio, and I could hear the sound of his guitar in my headphones. He then went back to England, I invited him to come tour with us but he was part of the new group U.K. and he wasn't really available, that's why he didn't do the tour. It is kind of a shame. Enigmatic Ocean quickly made an impact, and Holdsworth had something to do with it."

From the 30th minute of the show, there is a slight change; it seems the songs do have a more combative feeling. But he underlying feeling of abnegation towards fate is still present (with songs like "Marcia Baila" or "Quelle drôle de vie"). As I said in the beginning, you feel some tension in this part, some kind of fight, even if it has some sun outburtst here and there, thus, somehow, leading towards hope (especially with the last Calm's track)...

Risco Connection – It's My House (Special Disco Version). – A cover of Diana Ross's "It's My House" (ed. previously featured in the show) by Risco Connection. It was a project spearheaded by producer Joe Isaacs. And Risco Connection were very prolific and recorded both originals and covers of disco hits, and Strut Records has put out a six-sided vinyl release of their releases a couple of years ago, and it's called Risco Version. Strut founder Quinton Scott first made contact with Risco Connection when David Mancuso and Colleen were co-producing the Loft compilations. Now, the compilations came out on Nuphonic. Strut was sharing an office, and they were downstairs in the basement, and Quentin was handling the licensing for the compilation and that's how Colleen and David got the unreleased version of Risco Connection's Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now that was released on the 10-inch on Nuphonic Records. – Diana Ross' album "The Boss" turns 45 this year!

Les Rita Mitsouko – Marcia Baila. – A song that really took Colleen back to the Boston dance floors of her teenage years, Les Rita Mitsuko's (ed. Catherine Ringer on vocals & Fred Chinchin on guitars)1984 hit Marcia Baila is a tribute to their Argentinian friend and tour dancer and choreographer, Marcia Moreto, who had passed away the year before at the age of 36 from breast cancer. Les Rita Mitsuko co-produced the album with Krautrock engineer producer Connie Plank (ed. and, as Colleen said on the chat, knowing that song back in the days made you look cool).

Agustin Pereyra Lucena – Consolacao. – Outstanding South American guitarist Augustin Pereyra Lucena, an Argentinian composer and guitarist that came to be one of the greatest personalities of Brazilian and Latin American music. And following Far Out's reissue of Augustin Pereyra Lucena's Quartet La Rana (ed. 1980), the label continues its memorialization of the late great Argentinian guitarist music with the first ever direct from tape audio file reissue of his self-titled debut album from 1970, and it does sound terrific. –

Flying Mojito Brothers – Glitter. – The Flying Mojito Brothers are back with their special brand of rhinestone disco, and this one is an original song rather than a rework or re-edit from the country disco Mezcaleros duo. It's coming out this Friday.

Leo Basel – Quelle Drôle de Vie (Nick the Record & Dan Tyler Re-Edit. – Nick the Record and Dan Tyler's re-edit of Leo Basil's 1987 single, Quel Drôle de Vie, which is available on Nick and John Gomez's Tangent compilation, which is out now on Mr. Bongo, and the compilation celebrates the 10th anniversary of their Tangent Club Night. It's a great comp, and they are both great selectors. – Strangely enough, the original version is way more relaxed and, with the complete lyrics, there is a much stronger balance to the message conveyed. BTW, Nick the Record & Dan Tyler Re-edit use, as a musical basis, the original 1987 special remix.

African Shaketown – The Wonder (Magic Jams Edit). – A mysterious Magic Jams (ed. aka David Benjamin, Berlin-based Guitarist, DJ, Producer and Label owner) edit, and funky afro disco workout called The Wonder, out on Noema's African Shakedown Imprint, a label that has released two fine collections of afro beats and re-edits in 2012 and 2013, respectively, and they have another strong four-tracker of reworks from the magic jams out now.

Calm presents K.F. – Shining of Life Flutemental (Unreleased Version). – A beautiful new unreleased version of Shining of Flumental by Calm Presents KF, which is out on vinyl now on Music Conception, the other versions were released 20 years ago. Calm is Kiyotaka Fukagawa, and sometimes he also goes under the moniker Far, and I'm a big fan of his work, as you probably know, as I've played his music a lot on numerous occasions on Balearic Breakfast.

Calm's positive episode quickly gives way to a darker musical moment, astoundingly crafted by our dear Captain. Without a shadow of a doubt, this mix is Colleen's darker one since the show started almost five years ago, and for that specific reason, it wins hands down the Wow effect!

J. Kriv – Make it Acid (Idjut Boys Remix). – An old JKriv tune, Make It Hot (ed. 2013 from Jason Kriv, the Brooklyn-based producer, DJ, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, co-owner of record label Razor-N-Tape, and cofounder/resident of NYC summer party), but I hope you don't mind, Bert. Instead, I'm going to make it acid. This is J. Cribb with the Itchy Boys remix, Make It Acid.

ASHRR – Different Kind of Life (Massimiliano Pagliara Remix). – From ASHRR's forthcoming album Sunshine Low, coming out in September on 2020 Vision, and we will have an exclusive mix from and an interview with Asher around that time (ed. see the interview Artur did on the blog here in 2023). They have such an interesting musical background. They're kind of anomalies in the house disco dance music sphere.

Nick Holder – Paradise (Salt City Orchestra Remix). – One of Colleen's big records, a track she played all the time when it came out, on the NRK label in 1997, the Salt City Orchestra remix of Paradise by Toronto producer Nick Holder. Colleen really loved Nick's work on his D&H label, and NRK was also a great label. They put out music from Francois K., Carrie Chandler, Ian Pooley, and much, much more.

Mouth Water – Blackout (Lindstrom Cosmic Dub). – A brand new remix by one of our favorite Norwegian producers, Lindstrom. That's his rework of Italian producer Mouthwater's single, Blackout, and it's out now, and you can find it on Bandcamp.

Ending the show with the heavy and direct "Stop the Hatred", Colleen sends the listeners a clear message, one mixing despair and hope in crushing lyrics. Yes, this 186th episode is another one to keep close to your soul and your mind when living your "everyday life"...

"This last song came about when anti-Asian hate crimes were taking place in New York City in the early days of the pandemic, and during a protest, rapper MC Jin's son shouted, stop the hatred, and this became the name of MC Jin's 2021 song, which features Wyclef Jean. In this song, Jin describes being afraid when his parents leave the house, and sadly, this is how many of our friends who are people of color here in the UK are feeling right now due to violence from racist thugs. Please listen to the lyrics on this one, and please, please combat racism whenever and wherever it arises."