Balearic Breakfast | Episode 204 | Under the Falling Snow...
- by The Lioncub
- Dec 17, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 25, 2024
Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 204th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on December 17th 2024.
About this episode. – After a beautiful show last week, and just a few hours after sharing the great set she did during the 2024 WOH Festival under the Love Dancing Tent, Colleen came back this Saturday and invited us to make new musical suggestions for the holiday season (it's Christmas next week 😊), and Balearic Breakfast's penultimate episode of 2024, writing on her socials:
"Good morning Balearicans! This week’s Balearic Breakfast is handed over to you. What would you like to hear this Tuesday from 10am to 12 noon GMT on my Mixcloud Live? Which songs will help us through the festive yet often hectic days leading up to the holidays? As always I look forward to your suggestions and please put the artist and song title in the comments (please no links). Over the weekend you can catch up with last Tuesday’s show and the last 4 years of Balearic Breakfast all archived on my Mixcloud via the playlist (and please give me a follow while you are over there). Enjoy your weekend and remember to breathe. Thanks for listening."
Looking at the requested songs, I truly think we all surpassed ourselves on that one! And this post will be another one for the books with Great memories to warm ourselves up during the cold coming days... So, without further ado, let's buckle up our seatbelts and let's get lost under the falling snow!
Listen back to the 204th episode of Balearic Breakfast:
PLAYLIST
(1981) Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays – September Fifteenth
(Dedicated To Bill Evans)
(2024) Opal Sunn – Elastic (Phase II)
(1979) Judie Tzuke – Sukarita
(1985) Will Sanders – Secret Love
(2024) Sakura Murakami – Fruits of Life
(2024) Santino Surfers – Moondancing
(1977) Pleasure – Sassafras Girl
(1979) Linda Williams – Elevate Our Minds
(2024) Monsieur Van Pratt – No Te Perderé
(2022) Wrekin Havoc – Oh La Lover
(1987) Serge Gainsbourg – You’re Under Arrest
(2022) Patrice Rushen – Music of the Earth (Danny Krivit Re-Edit)
(2024) The Perpetual Singers – Father Father
(TBR 2025) Andromeda Orchestra – Magic Light Connection
(2019) Man Friday – Love Honey, Love Heartache (Larry Levan Mix)
(2024) Radio Slave – Strobe Queen
(2024) Ichisan – Saturnus
(2024) Crazy P – Any Signs of Love
THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE
It always amases me what an artist is capable of, wherever it is a writer, a composer, a singer, a philosopher, a sculpter... Listening to September Fifteenth, a composition dedicated to Jazz musician Bill Evans, I was floored because I felt the beauty of Pat Metheny's style blending into Bill Evan's musical and sonic delicacy... This track so perfectly depicts the duality of this time of the year where autumn slowly leaves the place to winter, which will ultimately arrive in a few days now, on the 21st December...
Speaking of duality, which will be today's show "Breadcrumb Trail" (if I can put it that way), I found a very interesting quote from an interview Pat Metheny gave, saying "You know... the frustrating thing is every now and then you actually do get it right. It might be every 4th night or every 10th night or every six months or once a year but every now and then you do it. And that makes it worse almost because it's like you KNOW you can do it, you KNOW that you're not crazy. It's there. There is a truth there that can be found. And I think each year that you play you become more consistent or you get closer to that truth that you establish in your mind. But as you get closer to it, it also moves at the same rate higher away from where you are." There you go, only one track brings out today's show equilibrium and the associated picture! If that's not Balearic, nothing will ever be (btw, to join Classic Album Sundays, become a Patron and take part to the Album Club with Colleen on December 18th, click here) 😊
Colleen then plays Elastic (Phase II) – whose constant running rhythm allows you to picture the windy falling snow – keeping our imagination alive and well, beautifully followed by Judie Tzuke's Sukarita (an invented name meant to sound romantic and faraway) and leading to the even stronger Secret Love by Will Sanders (which you can find on "The Other Sound Of Music" Vinyl compilation although it seems to have been released around 1985 as a 45). This first windy mix ends with Sakura Murakami's Fruits of Life (for an interview with Strong Island Recording's label founder Brad Sked, click here) and Santino Surfers' Moondancing (the Moondancing LP will be released in 2025 on Music For Dreams – For an interview Colleen did with Kenneth Bager, click here).
Slowly taking us towards the end of the first hour of today's episode, Colleen proposes us here an incredible mix (winning the first WOW Moment of today's episode), beautifully blending Sassafras Girl to Linda Williams' Elevate Our Minds, letting the snowy (yet solid) groove take the Whole Family away with Monsieur Van Pratt's No Te Perderé! Oh come on, you Know the song!
Colleen then ends this mini mix by playing a French track, Wrekin Havoc's Oh La Lover, whose Lyrics made me laugh so much! The version we heard was issued in 2022 but the original track is from Alan Brice (L'amour King Size) and was originally issued in 1984. Alain Brice was not only a great singer but also a composer, he wrote the music for the song "Ma Gonzesse" sung by his close friend, the French singer/composer Renaud. He was also cast for the great sounding double LP "La révolution Française", playing Danton's role, (to which the band Martin Circus and other great french singers and composers, including Alain Bashung, also participated 😉). Alain, who met and worked with a lot of the well-known French singers and composers of the 70s, died accidentally in 2002.
As I said, while writing the first line of today's post, this episode's requests were Off the Hook! When I saw Rob's request, I almost fell from my chair, laughs! Often considered a provoker, Serge Gainsbourg was everything but that. His sensitivity and his Intelligence always shined through, showing itself to those who Knew Exactly what to Look at (for instance, when you take the time to learn about Gainsbourg's philosophy based on his precise musical knowledge, it is obvious that his "Marseillaise" was all but a Provocation)... By the way, did you know that Billy Obam, the singer who danced around him onstage and in the clip on You're under arrest (a very close friend of Serge), did a tribute by releasing his own version of the song? (you can hear it here from 1h12min).
The album You're under arrest was considered by Gainsbourg his toughest: "It's a very strong album. Sometimes when I'm depressed I despise it... but when I feel better, I find it absolutely beautiful...". And, on many levels, we can clearly understand why:
Gainsbourg worked hard on the track "Mon Legionnaire" (both on the vocals and on the mixing);
the album's story – of love and hate towards the yound Samantha which ultimately fails, leading Serge to reach out to eternity, remembering a youg male legionnaire he once Loved and depicting here a tremendously beautiful ode to Childhood (without eluding, in a second video clip, a delicate hint towards homosexuality, a subject he approached in the song "Kiss Me Hardy") – is closely linked to his relationship with the delicate Bambou he met in 1980 and who was a yound junkie (Hence the song "Aux enfants de la chance" which advocates children against the use of drugs) is indeed not a happpy one and can be felt in the global tonality of the songs and their order;
the album dvelved into new musical genre at the time, mixing elements of rap, funk, and perfectly reproducing 90's New-York's musical groove with Serge working with renowned musicians of the scene...
What's interesting in today's episode is that even though the last part of today's show is funkier, the music still allows you to see the Balearic Breakfast Family walking/dancing under the falling snow, it is very much the case when Colleen plays Music of the Earth, followed by The Perpetual Singers' Father Father!
The last part of today's episode keeps the freezing funkiness beautifully present, with songs like Magic Light Connection / Love Honey, Love Heartache (Larry Levan Mix) / Strobe Queen, Colleen then ending this spacy mix with the incredible track that Saturnus is, and paying, as a Closure, a well-deserved tribute to Crazy P's singer Danielle Moore, with Any Signs of Love!
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