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I met Gez Dewar, member of the Random House Project, who crafted a beautiful tribute to the Late musical legend Roy Ayers. Let's dive into his musical world! 1) Hi Gez! Thank you so much for being here with us! I must say your remix of Roy Ayers’ “Everybody” took us all by storm. We really love the work you did on that one! First thing first, can you present yourself and talk about your musical journey ? Thanks Artur, glad you all dug the remix, it was a sad loss of a great musical legend, I was lucky enough to work with Roy Ayers and his band many years ago at a Soul Weekender where he played on my keyboards during an interview, such a humble and generous soul. I began my musical journey in bands in Birmingham then moved to London in the late 80's to go to Art College where I first got into clubbing and the music scene. I started working at MTV when it launched in 1987 and the following year the Acid House Summer of Love started and I got swept up in those clubs like the Wag, Spectrum, Bagleys, The Cross, Turmills and also Ibiza's clubs like Pacha where I was exposed to Dj's like Alfredo and Pipi. I started making records in 1990 with Doi-oing and got signed to Sean Mckluskey's Brainiak Records, we made a track called "Good Feeling" which sampled etta james and got us noticed , from there we were the first band to get signed to Ministry of Sound's Open label with the likes of Mr Monday , Green Velvet and Paperclip People. We then formed many other groups like Heliotropic, Tenth Planet, The Experiment, Thee Earls with Justin Robertson and Finally formed Random House Project with Mr Monday and made tracks with Robert Owens which was our first record for Darren Emerson's Underwater Imprint. I continue to work under that name on my own imprint Transmitter Recordings and mainly focus on Reworks and Edits these days as I seem to enjoy the process of reimagining classic tracks in new ways. 2) One of the first thing I noticed while listening to your remix is its delicacy, its precision, and of course its imagery which perfectly fit the 215th episode of BB! How did you end up creating such a kaleidoscopic track from that funky number and why did you choose that song, what did you want to achieve with it? Thanks glad you enjoyed the rework! I'm colourblind so maybe to compensate for this I have a very colourful musical palette and enjoy the process of creating detailed musical pictures and landscapes with my work. In a way I see the reworks as a new frame around the Artist much like the Pop Art work of Warhol and Lichtenstein; how they created those pictures of Celebrities. I grew up listening to producers like Trevor Horn, Steven Lillywhite, Peter Walsh, Flood, Ian Tregoning and Zuess B Held who created these incredible soundscapes that went far beyond just the reproduction and recording of musicians and songs and created new sonic landscapes that I felt were artistic statements in themselves.  I chose that track in particular because I loved the very simple answer and call Vibe part and the "Everybody" vocal, the track seems so inclusive to me and fits my ethos, I took a sample of an interview with Roy about his philosophy of life and how he would like to be remembered and that fitted perfectly with the sentiment of the track. I wanted to mark his death with a Portrait and that seemed the best way I could say Thanks. 3) Generally speaking, when remixing, do you have pictures that come meeting you and helping you during the mixing process or do you already have a clear idea you simply execute? When I approach an Artists work I'm generally looking for a new way to present the song which hasn't been tried before, this is the challenge. I always like to keep the vocal fairly intact and generally at the same tempo, but everything else is up for changing. I will often write in a completely different key and use chords and parts that are from completely different genres and I try not to limit or box myself into a particular or style genre from the start. I'm looking to surprise myself first and foremost by presenting the song in a totally new way if possible. The end result being the familiar presented in a way not heard before, which I think folks really Dig. 4) Was there a tougher part while working on “Everybody” (be it in the mixing or in the mastering process)?  Different songs require different approaches, not only in the palette of sounds you choose to put around them but also the structure of the track; Everybody was and interesting journey because it's primarily a Jazz track without the usual tropes of verse, chorus and lyrics or very little, so you have to create a structure which is sympathetic to the original parts you start off with, primarily Roy Ayers Vibes. Being Jazz there's a lot of crazy chord shapes and progressions in there and for me the challenge was to create a blend of Disco & Jazz that supported the Vibes but gave it that disco flavour, so many different progressions where ditched along the way to find the best fit. Tracks like jazz and funk are often less structured than Pop and rely more on the players constantly changing their patterns throughout, so injecting a more structured dynamic into the original, while retaining the overall feel of the original was the challenge.  This one is another killer, listen to how Gez has been able to slightly change the tonality of the track, especially in the verses. A True Masterpiece... BANDCAMP Page here 5) Are you already working on new tracks? What’s ahead for 2025 in your musical world? I never stop writing, it's a constant learning process. I've been lucky enough to have been asked to remix a couple of tracks for the Music for Dreams label which will be out soon and continue to explore new possibilities of reworks. I would love to be able to present my work live in the next year and create something to bring my work to a wider audience, like most artists I suppose. Thank you so much Gez for this! Thanks so much for taking an interest in my work and thanks for listening! Big Love

DJ, Presenter & Music Writer Maria Hanlon, interviews Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy on the London based Voices Radio Breakfast show. About Maria Hanlon. – London-based DJ, presenter, and music writer Maria Hanlon hosts The Voices Breakfast Show on Voices Radio every Friday from 9-11am . Working as a producer for BBC Introducing in London since moving back there in 2021, she has been actively performing ever since, her signature sound blending Soulful House, Deep House, and Garage. Despite only starting her DJing career about two years ago, Maria has quickly made a name for herself in the industry and has performed at notable events such as Secret Garden Party, Queens Yard Summer Party, and Cross The Tracks. In addition to her DJing work, Maria also contributes as a freelance writer for UD, an organization focused on music industry education and development (her article about structuring a radio show is a Must Read). You can find more about her on her Instagram . Her shows are uploaded both on her Soundcloud page and on her Mixcloud page . Listen back to Colleen's interview with Maria Hanlon: COLLEEN'S INTERVIEW WITH MARIA [Maria] Okay, so welcome back to The Voices Breakfast Show. This one here is Maytez and Pinty called Loosen Your Bones and my special guest is loving this one actually. I love it.   [Colleen] It's fantastic, really jazzy. I love the vocals on there. Fantastic. Thanks for turning me on to it.   [Maria] Of course. We were just sort of speaking about playing stuff in the morning for our breakfast shows and not taking it super heavy but still vibing. So this is like hitting the spot.   [Colleen] It really hits the sweet spot.   [Maria] Definitely. It's the one. So I want to start by there's a lot that I want to get through in this next sort of 45 minutes or so. But let's start at the very beginning. So could you talk me through your earliest memories of radio and music?   [Colleen] Sure. Yeah, I started. I think my first memory was my first real deep musical memory was when I was about six years old. And I was in my Uncle John's of a bedroom. He was a teenager. He was only 10 years older than me. And everybody was out and like the ultraviolet Blu-ray lights were on lighting up the Easy Rider poster. This is the early 70s. And there was a transistor radio. And I turned it on. I'm sitting there in this really moody atmosphere by myself in this really cool teenagers room. And all of a sudden the opening notes to David Essex rock on comes on like this baseline. And this is at a time when I really thought there were still little people in the radio. I didn't know how it all worked. And that was such a transformative moment for me. I always call it my first psychedelic drug experience without drugs because I was only six but it was like such a seminal moment. I think the radio the power of the radio you have to understand in the 1970s. This is how we discovered music. There's no streaming. There's music isn't accessible at your fingertips at all times. The only way to discover music is through other people and their record collections or mixtapes or the radio. That was it.   [Maria] Yeah.   [Colleen] And so it was hugely important and luckily I grew up outside of Boston and Boston had some great radio because a lot of the radio in the US was pretty dire. So being a big college town they had a lot of more variety and went a little bit deeper on many levels not just you know college rock but also like funk and things like that as well. So I was really really lucky. And that's kind of the way I kind of discovered you know music and I also became really obsessed. I got my own transistor radio like the following year and you know I go to sleep with it on and it's just I would I knew all the radio stations and all the top 40. I knew all the classic rock. I just became really obsessed at a very early age.   [Maria] Yeah. That's amazing. And because you had your first show at 14. Right.   [Colleen] Yeah.   [Maria] It's really a show.   [Colleen] Yeah.   [Maria] And it was called Punk, Funk and Junk.   [Colleen] That was a different one. I had four shows in the high school. So high school is four years. Freshman, sophomore, junior and senior. So each year I did a different show Punk, Funk and Junk I think was my junior year. So the first year I did I don't think you even had a radio a name but I was playing more 60s rock which is a big passion of mine. Then the following year I was doing a show with a guy named Andy and we were playing more punk and new wave and hardcore. Then the third year was Punk, Funk and Junk and that was with my friend Mary Caruso and she named herself Remix and I was Cosmo. We also played electro and hip hop.   [Maria] Is that where Cosmo came from?   [Colleen] That's where Cosmo came from because it was and I was a band called Nucleus and they had this big song called Jam on It at the time and their DJ's name was Cosmo with a Z. And yeah, we thought we were really cool. We made these sweatshirts that said Punk, Funk and Junk with our names on the back and rocks around our high school like no one really got it, you know, but yeah, it was a lot of fun. And then my last year I did a morning show. I was working at a record shop called Strawberries Records and Tapes. Again, I was obsessed with 60s psychedelia and there was an old band, pop band named Strawberry Alarm Clock. So I did a radio show called The Strawberry Alarm Clock and that was very, very eclectic. That was my most eclectic show. It just was like everything that I was into. It could even be Sade, into Black Flag, into New Order, into Run DMC. I mean, it was just all over the place.   [Maria] So would you say your taste has always been very eclectic?   [Colleen] Always, yeah. I mean, I just have, I just love music and I can find great music. I love country. I mean, there's great country music. You know, people laugh like, oh, you wouldn't play country? Yeah, I would play country. Yeah, I, you know, I have actually, I've played Willie Nelson on the show. He does a great version of Heart of the Come. But yeah, so it's, I do, I just love all kinds of music. I've always had an open ear.  [Maria] Yeah, because I think in your bio it said, you quoted, there's only good and bad music. That's what I think.   [Colleen] Yeah, I agree. That's your opinion anyways. Yeah, it's all taste. You know what I mean? There's no objective. It's all subjective.   [Maria] Yeah, agreed.   [Colleen] And you know, there's music there for everybody.   [Maria] 100%. And then let's fast forward to 1986. So that's when you relocated to New York, right?   [Colleen] Yes, yeah.   [Maria] To study sound and radio at NYU Film School. And whilst there, I love this, you became the first female program director at WNYU, one of the most significant college radio stations in the country at that time. So what was it like there at that time?   [Colleen] Oh my gosh, I mean, I might even get teary eyed thinking about it. Basically, I was just up at that same building two weeks ago, because I had, the head of the department was a woman named Lynn McVeigh. And I hadn't seen her in 35, 36 years.  And I just saw her for the first time, went back up to that floor where I practically lived. WNYU, especially the time that I went and we were reminiscing about this, it was its heyday. College radio in the 1980s was so hugely important for breaking massive bounds from Depeche Mode to REM to U2. And we were really on a mission at the time I was there, we were breaking bounds like Nirvana and you know, all sorts of bounds like that. And being in New York City, of course, all these bounds would come through. So they'd come up to our radio station for interviews, or sometimes live sets. So we were hugely, you know, privileged in the sense of our location. And we also had a really a transmitter in the Bronx. So our signal went all over the tri-state area. So it wasn't just so many colleges just broadcast to the campus. Our listenership was people just like all over, all over. And it was such a family atmosphere, like we would just hang out together all the time. We're all different types of people. You know, from like the my friend Marlene, who was like, you know, shorter than me. And she did the Hardcore Punk show and her name was Spermicide. To my friend Hugh, who was another one of my mentors, who's this tall guy with long red hair from Oklahoma who loved country. I mean, we just had all different kinds of people. We all got along. We were on this mission. We were this family. We would like sleep overnight at the radio station. It was like really an incredible atmosphere. And I am so lucky and privileged to have been part of it at that time. Because it's since changed. It's in a basement somewhere. It's not a community anymore. It doesn't have the same kind of recognition. I think also terrestrial radio was very different than online radio. You know, people could discover you in ways just like sitting in their car, you know, using the tuner and like, oh, what's below here? 88 to 92, those frequencies on the FM dial were for non-commercial radio. That's what the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission designated those frequencies for. So you'd find all the interesting stuff down there. And people, you know, later told me when I was doing house shows in the 90s, that's the first time they heard house music. So it's not like I think online radio, you kind of look for it.   [Maria] Yes.   [Colleen] Whereas if you're in your car, just flipping through the dials, you know, you can just come upon something that you never even knew existed.   [Maria] Yeah, for sure. Something more intriguing or different. Yeah. Talking about sort of cars and radio. I always tell the story of my dad who was in the car on his way to work. He was in the car park and Nights Over Egypt by the Jones Girls came out for the first time. And when you hear it for the first time in the car and the radio, you don't know when you're going to hear that again. Right. So he hid under his car because his boss was walking through the car park and he had to hear every second of it! So he hid in the car and his boss walked past and he got in a lot of trouble for being late, but he was like, it was worth it because I just had to hear the whole track.   [Colleen] You had to hear the whole track. I mean, it's so true. I remember, actually, I did that not so long ago, maybe five or six years ago. I was listening to a community radio station in the car on the FM dial and this long, unreleased Eddie Grant song came on that he did with The Equals and I had to pull over and listen to the whole thing. You know, yeah, it's magical.   [Maria] It's something really special about that. Yeah. So Colleen, I've asked you to bring a few tracks today just to sort of pepper in between the interview. So what have you got that you want to play first?   [Colleen] I've been doing a lot of remixes and sadly, I can't play you any of the new stuff. I've actually worked on my third remix so far this year. But this next one is one I did last year for a really cool artist named Bryony Jarman Pinto for a very cool label named True Thoughts, which I really like. And I really like it because it's a down-tempo kind of soul groover. Hum. But I've been working on a lot of different remixes this year and I'm just even working on one right now. And there's a lot coming out this year, but I can't I can't play into it yet. Actually, in one of the bands, I can't even mention who it is yet. So I thought I'd start.   [Maria] You'll have to send it to us after. Yeah, that sounds good.   [Colleen] This is my Cosmodelica remix of Moving Forward.   [Maria] Amazing. Great.   [Maria] Welcome back to The Voices Breakfast Show with the one and only Colleen Cosmo Murphy joins me. Thank you so much for sharing that tune. That was gorgeous.   [Colleen] Oh, thank you. Thank you.   [Maria] And we've got some of your longtime listeners locked in, actually. I see. We've got Prit Pal, John John, Poppy.   [Colleen] Yeah, hello.   [Maria] It's lovely to see everyone locked in on the chat. So thanks for joining us, guys. So we've got about half an hour left. And I was saying off mic that you are the dream guest to interview because there's just so much to talk about. Well, that's what happens when you're old. I don't know if it's... I don't think it's old. I think it's just had an incredible career so far.   [Colleen] Thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, it's been a long one. That's for sure. I realized last year was my... Gosh, I started on the radio in 82, started working in record shops in 84. So it's been over 40 years. Wow. Which is kind of crazy.   [Maria] Yeah.   [Colleen] You know, when I think about it, I didn't do any big anniversary things. I always forget what my anniversaries are.   [Maria] So it's always ongoing stuff.   [Colleen] It's just ongoing. But yeah, always. There's nothing like the present, right?   [Maria] We need like a list of all your stations at some point. I bet that is such a long list of all the shows and stations.   [Colleen] Yeah, absolutely. I've almost always had a show.   [Maria] That would be incredible. So look, we have to talk about the loft party. Yes. So we spoke a bit about New York. So while still on the topic of that, how did you first sort of get to know David who put on the parties at first?   [Colleen] You know, I was... I've never been one who kind of bum rushes the DJ booth. I'm terrible at conventions and things like that. I don't go and I just kind of cold call on people. So I had a radio show at the time, believe it or not. And I wanted to have him as a guest. So I asked a mutual friend. I mean, I was going and hanging out, but I would kind of sit around and I wouldn't really intrude. I could tell he was an enigmatic private person. I think we had shared a couple taxis after the after the party because I live near the bus station where he would go to to go to Woodstock after the party. But he said, I want to go out with her and have some drinks. And so we went out for some drinks, the two of us. And we just connected. We really clicked for a lot of different reasons. On my side, it seemed quite obvious why it would click, but I wasn't sure why it did on his. And I did ask him about this because he came up to my radio show and then really soon after. And it's nothing I had ever considered because being a woman, especially at that time, you didn't have that sense of entitlement that, oh, he's going to ask me to play. It would never even have occurred in my head that that would be even a remote possibility. And he said, you know, why don't you come play some records with me? And I was like, what? You know, I couldn't believe it. And so I did. And I played just, you know, then we became more friendly and just started hanging out with him more, going over to his place during the week, playing some new records. He kind of, I think, also looked to me to bring in a lot of new music because I had a good ear, you know, and I knew some of the newer tunes that would really work. I felt on the floor of being a dancer first, you know. And yeah, we just got tighter and tighter. And then when I said I was, you know, I had thought of an idea for him. I mean, he was really suffering. I think people don't realize how bad it was for him in the 90s. He was betrayed a lot. And, you know, he's a very trusting man. He was a very trusting man and, you know, quite open. And the whole loft ideal is quite open. And there have been people that have taken advantage of it for their own purposes. And he was very protective over it. And but he got taken advantage of a few times like everybody does, but quite badly. And in the 90s, it was difficult. So I think there was me and another guy named Goshi who really, really helped him. We were kind of like young blood, really, that we're just trying to help him kind of get through. And that's when I came up with the idea for the compilations. We did those compilations, which were really groundbreaking at the time. I mean, now you might look at those and say, oh, I know that song. I know that song. But at the time in the late 1990s, it wasn't as popular and well known. And people didn't know David's story. And what better way to do it than through music? So that was really a big thing. And then we started parties over here. And he and I played in different parties around the around Europe and even in Russia, believe it or not, you know, smoking pot out of the hotel room. And we also saw Condoleezza Rice, you know, march through our hotel. It was crazy. We had such a crazy time. And we had just we just worked a lot together. It just became closer and closer until. Yeah, amazing.   [Maria] And for those that are listening and don't know, David Mancuso was an incredible. He calls himself a selector, right, rather than a DJ. And he put on these amazing loft parties in New York. But how did they actually start? Because I was listening to another interview of yours. And he was saying that they started in his home, right?   [Colleen] They were always in his home. Up until the last the first the last party I played at New York before I moved here was in 1999. And it was Valentine's Day. It was the day before I moved here as my going away. And that was the first time he rented a space.   [Maria] OK.   [Colleen] But in the 90s, there were three different places in the East Village. Gentrification was happening. It was really hard, you know, when he started his parties, you know, you know, New York, you know, even Ford said, you know, that he wasn't going to help, you know, President Ford said he wasn't going to help New York. It was a really difficult place to live in. It wasn't like it was in the mid 80s when stockbrokers and people started moving in and they wanted to bring the suburbs to New York City. It was difficult, but the rents were cheap. And so it was a very different kind of terrain, a different landscape. So you could have parties in your loft until whatever time. So he had started doing parties actually in the 60s, just having friends over. He was really into audio. He loves music. He just put some records on. People would start dancing. But then he formalized it on Valentine's Day 1970 with a party called Love Saves the Day. Still private. He wanted to know who was coming into his home. It wasn't like a sign up membership where you paid like the Paradise Garage. That was always a bone of contention with him. Any paid membership was a real bone of contention. But you would have a contribution. You'd make a contribution. It was based on the rent parties in Harlem because, you know, all these people, these African-Americans had moved from the South to the North and they weren't really allowed or really welcome at a lot of the white establishments. So they did their own thing and they would do their own thing in their own homes. And they'd have bands and DJs in their own homes. And you would pay, you know, for I hate to say a fee, but that's what it is, I guess. A contribution, as David would call it, you know, to attend and to help out the people. And that's kind of what he based it on. And it ended up becoming hugely popular. And it ended up influencing so many other clubs from the very commercial clubs uptown like Studio 54 actually was also influenced by The Loft to a degree. Even though it had a very different principle to other parties and clubs like the Paradise Garage.   [Maria] I love that. That's so iconic. And you two had such a deep musical connection. You touched on a little bit there. But why do you think there was such synergy between you?   [Colleen] I think there's a few things. I think David was very in touch with his feminine side. He was a gay man who really promoted women. He did so at a time when it wasn't as fashionable. You know, I would say women's rights has never been hugely fashionable. And he lived it and supported it right from the start in so many different ways. Whether he would invite single mothers to come along and bring their children to he is the one who would ask women to play. Now, I was a third woman he asked to play. There was a woman, Freddie Taylor, in the 70s. It was my friend, Elise Tifanyshyn, in the 80s and me in the 90s. And even when he chose his board, he chose three women and only one guy. So I think the women thing is massive, was massive for David. And he even said when he asked me to chair his board, he said, one of the reasons is you're a woman. He was very clear about that. So I think that was one of the connections. He was really in touch with his feminine side. He used to call us Yin and Yang, me and him. And I asked him, why did he try? I was younger than 25 when I started playing records with him. I'm like, how did he even trust me? The equipment, the cartridge cost $2,000 30 years ago. Yeah. And he said, it just starts with a vibe long before one hits the turntable. I think also we had a shared sense of what music meant and sound. I had already studied sound, obviously. And then also a kind of basis in music. I think we shared some of the same favorite albums, Astral Weeks. As I said to you, I was really a 60s music aficionado. And that's his background as well. So I think also there was a certain openness of spirit and also a spiritual connection, which is something that sounds corny talking about it, but it was there. I had already lived in Japan, studied Zen Buddhism, and done all sorts of work on myself before I even met David. And he had gone through the same thing in the late 1960s. So you meet your tribe.   [Maria] Yeah, for sure. It sounds like you two had the most wonderful friendship.   [Colleen] We did.   [Maria] And a little quote here that he said about you, she's one of the only people I would trust both with the music and with the equipment to fill in for me.   [Colleen] Yeah, I know. I mean, it's quite something, especially because I was so young.   [Maria] But he saw it right then. And obviously he was right.   [Colleen] That's what he said. I was surprised. So yeah, he called me his daughter, which is beautiful.   [Maria] And then still sort of sticking to New York, I know that you presented one of New York's most important house music shows, Club 89. And as someone that loves my kind of soulful house stuff, I'd love to know more about kind of the format of the show and the types of guests you had on.   [Colleen] Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So basically on WNYU, we had two anchor shows that went five days a week. One was called the New Afternoon Show, which was four to 730 evening drive. And that was more of the alternative show. And that's the show I hosted in the 1980s. Then the station asked me back and I had gotten into all this dance music. That's when I used the name Cosmo again, because I thought I would confuse my listeners. Like she was the one that did the 60s psychedelic show and the alternative show. What's she doing now? I did a show called Soul School that was playing all these, this music I was hearing at the loft and other clubs like The Shelter, House Nation, Afterlife, went out to a lot of different clubs. And then they asked me to do the Club 89 on Tuesday nights, which was again, five nights a week, 1030 to one. And this one you could mix. We only had turntables. There was no CD players. And we had, you know, you have brought in a DJ mixer. And I kind of learned to mix as well on the radio, which was kind of crazy because you're using a radio board, which is completely different to a mixing board. There's a buffer and a delay between the cue and the program. And especially your monitors might be, you might have the air signal, which has another delay. So it's really difficult. Plus I was mixing disco, which is not like to the beat. It's live bands. So I can't even believe I did that because I listened back to a couple of some of them like, Jesus, that was a terrible mix. Oh my God. And what was I doing? But there were some good ones too. And I was really proud of them. But then Club 89 was great because, you know, I played lots of new music. I was really the only DJ in New York to really be playing imports as well because I worked at a record shop. So it wasn't just the kind of soulful house tunes from New Jersey and New York. I was playing French stuff, the stuff from the UK, a lot of Idja boys, phase action, the new phonics stuff. I was playing Japanese stuff as well. So it's kind of playing a lot of different imports. And I had a lot of guests. I had Little Lewis. I had Rome Anthony. I had Francois K, Joe Clausell, Danny Krivett. David, of course, came up to my other show, Soul School. I had Joy Cardwell, Sable Jeffries, Kenny Bobian. So many legends, yeah. Global Communications. Yeah, a lot of legends. And, you know, it was interesting because I didn't know Louis Vega, even though he came into the radio show. I mean, he came into dance tracks where I worked. I didn't know him well, and I'm not one of those people that goes up and introduces myself. Hi, hi. You know, I'm not like that. A bit shyer, believe it or not. And I thought from my last show when I announced I was leaving, this one person I really want to get up, and that's Louis Vega. He's massive, you know, massive legend. And this is 1999. He jumped at the chance. He brought up his own sound system. Wow. Three turntables. They did an installation. He thanked me. And we've been friends ever since. And I couldn't believe it. I honestly could not believe it. I didn't realize how important the show was until I announced my departure. And I got all these letters. And I have even from listeners who still follow me today. We saw that earlier. It's incredible. And it just really meant something to a lot of people. That's how they had discovered house music or whatever. And I always had a connection with my listeners. We would do shout outs, you know, and I'd have someone doing the phones and we'd shout out to everyone listening who called in. And I don't know. It was a really magical time. And I'm just so thankful that I was able to be part of that and to have those shows. They were just so incredible.   [Maria] That's amazing to hear. I love that. I got the chance to chat to Louis out here last year. And yeah, he is just so nice. Just his sets as well that we out here were incredible with elements of life. And then in Love Dancing, which we'll touch on. Yeah, that's a whole nother thing. We'll play a song and then we'll talk about that because I'd love to know more. But which song would you like to play next, Colleen?   [Colleen] Well, as we were talking about David, I thought we would play a song that David turned me on to. And that is a loft classic. And it's something that's really beautiful. And it's something I really agree with the sentiment. It's brass construction. Music makes you feel like dancing. [Maria] So we are vibing out in the studio to this one. It's sounding so good. And we're loving the female energy in the room.   [Colleen] Absolutely. Five of us.   [Maria] Go on, girls. Go on, girls. Loving it. Starting the weekend the right way. So, Colleen, next I wanted to chat about Love Dancing and also we out here. So Love Dancing is always such a highlight of we out here. And last year was no different. I mean, that 10, just next level. So I want to know, how did you and Giles first meet? And how did that come about?   [Colleen] I think Giles, I can't remember how we first met. I mean, I used to go to Bar Roomba when I moved over. And I think the first time we properly hung out, we did a classic album Sundays together on Sun Ra. And after that, when he started Worldwide FM, he got in touch, said, I want you to be one of the DJs here. And believe it or not, at that time, I was considering to stop DJing for various reasons. I found that after having a child 20 years ago, it was very difficult and not having a child. Well, of course it is. But, you know, wonderful. But yeah, I mean, you know, I wasn't getting booked. A lot of people had forgotten about me and stuff. So I had started Classic Album Sundays. And I dove into that. And I really just, that's all I wanted to do. And so when he asked me to join the station, I said, I just want to do Classic Album Sundays. I don't really want to do anything else. I don't know if I want to DJ anymore. He kind of made me. I finally started doing it, kicking and screaming. And then he booked me for Worldwide Festival down the south of France. And I played with him. And it was great. We just had a great time. So when he started we out here, he said, you know, I'd love you to bring your sound system and to host a tent. And so we did. And it's just become, as you said, you know, thankfully a highlight of the festival. We have great, you know, we have Trojan sound system. The Thursday. Mr. Scruff programs the Friday. Saturday is the Cosmodelica takeover. And Sunday is Dingwalls. And our sound system is just, you know, we have Danley sound on the speakers. We have a lot of audio partners like Audio Technica, Master Sounds, Core, DCS, and Loud and Clear. And they all kind of help us put together this amazing system that we are, you know, we're going to looking to tour it as well now. But it's not just the sound system is part of it. But it's also the people that we have playing. They bring all different kinds of people to the tent. And there's all different ages, genders, backgrounds. And it's a really unifying experience. And it's just, it's like the hangout at the festival, you know, backstage in our tent. That's where everyone hangs out. Even the people who are DJing at other places come and hang out in our tent. And it's just a really, really great vibe. And I'm just, I'm really proud of it. Hugely proud of it. People really love the energy in there. And the sound, I think because the sound is so great, that that affects people more than they really think. I mean, when you are just listening to things like distortion, it's not good for you. I mean, some music has distortion in it. But I'm just saying when you're listening to a distorted sound system, it's going to affect your whole demeanor. And people don't even realize it. But when it's really great sound, they can listen for hours. So yeah, and there's a wooden dance floor. Yes. So people can properly dance, you know? I mean, try to dance on grass or sand. It's terrible. It's really difficult. So yeah, people go for it. So we get some of the old school dancers and the newer dancers.   [Maria] And there was amazing improvised dance this side of Louie's set.   [Colleen] Oh my gosh.   [Maria] Honestly, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't move. I was like, I'm staying here all day. I just sat there like, I need to go.   [Colleen] It was incredible. Absolutely incredible. I love having those dancers there with us.   [Maria] People just really do. Like you said, they let loose. Like everyone around me wasn't just like two-stepping and trying to act cool. They were fully going for it, sweating, like just loving it. It was just electric energy in there.   [Colleen] It was nice. And this year as well, I felt there was more of a queer energy on my night. It was really great. These two guys kind of got up. One was in a veil and his pants and just dancing. It was just really fun. I really liked that they felt safe enough to kind of jump up on the speaker stacks. I'm not encouraging everybody to do that. They were very good in terms of, it was just really great to see that.   [Maria] Yeah, 100%. And I saw Muscle Car sat in there.   [Colleen] Yes, because I had wanted them. I asked for them to come right after the year before because I've been following their stuff and they're great guys. You know, they're friends now. Yeah. And I think it's really important to help the younger generations. I had that help. I mean, especially as a woman at a time when it really wasn't that popular for women to be doing this. I had a lot of people looking out for me to help me. Not just David, but Francois K, Joe Clossel got me a dance tracks. People got me on the radio. There's always people that help you. And if I'm in a position to help others, then I'm going to do that. And so that's another thing I really like about it. I try to book younger people, but also people like my age and also all genders and just really try to make sure that, you know, people are getting support. You know.   [Maria] I love that. That's amazing. And then I wanted to talk about, we've got about 10 minutes, but we need to talk about Balearic Breakfast.   [Colleen] Oh, yes. Yeah.   [Maria] Of course. Of course. So that began on Worldwide FM during the first lockdown, right?   [Colleen] 2020.   [Maria] And that was when you filled in for Giles Peterson. And then he loved it so much that he asked you to take over the slot, which is incredible.   [Colleen] It really is incredible. It started as a show with a terrible name called Summer's Vacation. You know, because he was going away for the summer. And, you know, I wasn't going anywhere. I know some people are flying off to places. I never got on a plane for like a year and a half. I never went anywhere. And many of us weren't. And so we were having a summer's vacation. And I also did it as a request show because during the pandemic, I felt like people needed community and musical conversation. And it was also more fun for me to do request shows because, you know, I was doing so many shows. It kind of made me rediscover my music collection. Plus it also turned me on to new artists. I mean, I loved that. I loved how there was like a family and a community that was evolving with this. That was really hugely important to me. And, you know, I had a captive audience, obviously it was a pandemic. And I was broadcasting from my front room, which I still do from the record room, which I think kind of gives a more natural feeling. You know, whether it's my emotional state at the time or how relaxed I am, it's very different just broadcasting from your house, like just going downstairs and, you know, broadcasting. But yeah, it really, I think it just, you know, it's a show that doesn't really have one musical style. I think that's another reason why it appeals to people. There's a lot of different things on there. It could go from spiritual jazz to even techno sometimes. I mean, it's kind of gone the gamut, you know. But I think there's a musical flow and it's just such a joy. It's really such a joy to host. And this year, the fourth Balearic Breakfast compilation is coming out as well. So it's been really great. And we're doing parties and I'm doing some parties at NT's loft.   [Maria] I mean, I love it there, yeah.   [Colleen] Yeah.   [Maria] That's so cool. Yeah, you can tell that you definitely love doing it. Yeah, you can tell it's so joyful. And I think a word that a lot of people have used with the show is kind of healing, especially in lockdown. It got a lot of people through. Why do you think that people resonated so much with that and still listen to it today?   [Colleen] I think live radio is really important. There's a lot of radio shows where people just like give a mix or whatever and they don't really communicate. And I'm a communicator first. I started on the radio before I started as a DJ. So it's all about communication and making people feel part of something. And I think the fact that it was live in real time was one of those aspects that really made it connect with people. They knew. And then I think even now when I stream live on Mixcloud, the family gathers. It's like all these people from all over the world, Asia, South America, I mean, all over. It's incredible. All different time zones. So I think it's the fact that they feel part of something and there's that live connection. And I think also if you put your passion into something and it's real and authentic, the right people pick up on that.   [Maria] Definitely. And we've seen that today. I think something so nice about all your shows and everything you do, even like guesting on my show today, you've got such like the same listeners are tuned in today, supporting them all in the chat. We just had the next show come in and she's a big fan. And it's so special. It seems like what you do really does resonate with so many people. And you can see it in the chat, the way they come to your parties, the way that, yeah, are we out here? You really like, you mean a lot to people and your passion for music is incredible. So, yeah.   [Colleen] Well, they mean a lot to me because without them, I wouldn't be able to do this. I mean, having to be able to, you know, support myself in music nearly in my entire life, actually my entire life, that's a privilege. And I don't take it lightly. I've worked, I've worked hard for it. And I've put up with a lot more than people will ever know. But at the end of the day, it's still a privilege. I mean, the fact that I have this life, that I can play music for a living and talk about music for a living, you know, I never forget how lucky I am. And it's the truth. You know, there's a lot of suffering out there and I'm really, really, really lucky.   [Maria] Yeah, that's amazing. We've got only a few minutes left and I do want to play one last track, Colleen. But before we do that, could we also hear when your next party is? Because it's in March, it's coming up. So tell us in detail.   [Colleen] Yeah, our next London Loft party's on the 9th of March. And we do have a mailing list. If anyone wants to come along or join, you just email thelondonloft at loftparty.org . And we're doing four parties a year. The next one will be June, then September, then December again. So we have that going on, which is really great. And yeah, so other things happening, you know, I have the next compilations coming out this summer, a bunch of remixes. I just remixed Saint Etienne. And that's coming out on my compilation as well. And then I just remixed, I just wish I could say if I can, one of my favorite bands from the age of 14 on. Oh, wow, okay. And I got a call from the head of this band to ask me to remix one of their songs. And I am like, just, I literally cried in the studio. I mean, I don't even, I can't wait to announce it. But, and then right now I'm remixing a band called The Street People from the 70s, a great New Jersey soul act. And then I'm remixing another band called Santino Surfers from Music for Dreams. There's been a lot of studio work this year, which has been great. You know, I love it. I love it.   [Maria] Well, thank you so much, Colleen, for coming on the show. It's been such a pleasure to have you. And thank you for everything you do. I know at Voices, we've got so many fans of yours. So this was a super special show to have you on. And yeah, tell us what you're going to end on today.   [Colleen] I'm going to end with this song, Glory Ann Taylor, Love is a Hurtin' Thing. It's a beautiful old soul song. And it's coming out on the next Balearic Breakfast compilation. And it's just a beautiful groover for a morning show. Perfect. Let's do it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 206th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on January 07th 2025. About this episode. – There's no better way to start a new year than listening to Balearic Breakfast with Colleen behind the decks and the Balearic Breakfast Family on the Mixcloud chat. When Colleen streamed the last episode on December 24th, 2024, we were all sad to hear that there would be no show on December, 31st! Even with the best of efforts, Colleen could not have streamed the show as she was playing that very night at Lafayette London alongside other great acts, such as Dimitri From Paris, Bill Brewster etc. Sadened, we said to ourselves that the pleasure would be even greater on January 7th and we thus eagerly waited for the request line to open, which ultimately happened this Saturday when Colleen wrote on her socials " Good morning! On the brink of a new dawn - or at least we hope! What would you like to hear this Tuesday on Balearic Breakfast? Which song will set us up for the new year ahead? Please join in the live stream this Tuesday from 10am to 12 pm on my Mixcloud Live for the show and family chat. I look forward to your suggestions and enjoy your weekend " Today's episode was a peaceful musical trip with a beautifully rhythmically evolving soul, always keeping an open and relaxed spirit! We were all so happy to be together again, sharing bits of happiness and sadness of our lives, supporting one another, and the chat was bouncing from hapîness indeed! We'll discover more of that in the listening experience part of this post but for now, let's give Colleen the final word: "This morning’s Balearic Breakfast is now archived on my Mixcloud at https://tinyurl.com/5nwxny8v (and please give me a follow while you’re over there). It was lovely to see so many members of the BB family from all corners of the globe on the chat group this morning and thank you for sharing your new year’s resolutions. This week’s show is mainly your requests for songs that will help us start the new year on the right foot. Once again, thank you for sharing your musical discoveries. And of course we close the show with a tribute to the DJ Alfredo as our friend Uncool jag said of the late Argentian DJ who made his name in Ibiza: “Without this beautiful human being none of us would be here today celebrating the beat that is balearic.” Word. And please excuse my proud mum moment, but the latest edition of my daughter Ariana Dewhurst’s Pirate Material radio show on The Boatpod is up on Mixcloud: I’ll be back streaming live on my Mixcloud next Tuesday and will get to more of your requests – as always there were so many great ones that I was unable to squeeze them all into one show. Here’s to another year of shared musical discoveries with the Balearic Breakfast community. Thanks for being part of it and thanks for listening." THE PLAYLIST ( 1959 ) Bill Evans – Peace Piece ( 2009 ) Jonathan Jeremiah   – Happiness (Morgan Geist’s Port Authority Remix) ( 1985 ) Sheila Chandra   – The Awakening ( 2024 ) God Colony ft Roy   – Loss is Not Infinite ( 1978 ) Sonya Spence   – Peace and Unity ( 1980 ) Dennis Brown   – Sitting and Watching ( 1991 ) Ryuichi Sakamoto & David Sylvian  – Heartbeat (Tainai Kaiki II) ( 1984 ) Everything But the Girl   – Each and Every One ( 1973 ) Marlena Shaw   – The Feeling’s Good ( 1981 ) Marti Caine   – The Way You Love Me ( 1980 ) Rockie Robbins   – You and Me ( 1993 ) Paris   – Assata’s Song (Remix) ( 1983 ) June Millington   – Don’t Be Careless with Your Love ( 1976 ) Ananda Shankar   – Cyrus ( 2007 ) Uyama Hiroto   – Windspeaks ( 1980 ) MFSB   – Mysteries of the World ( 1992 ) Cajmere ft Dajae   – Brighter Days (Masters at Work Remix / Kai Alcé Edit) ( 2022 ) The Style Council  – Promised Land (Juan Atkins Remix) ( 1973 ) First Choice   – Love and Happiness ( 2022 ) Deniece Williams   – Free (Dave Lee Rework) ( 1981 ) Mike Post ft Larry Carlton   – Theme from Hill Street Blues THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE Starting the show with Bill Evan 's " Peace Piece " , as always, Colleen perfectly set the tone for today's show, but, for me, this episode shines even more than some of her best ones because this feeling of Belonging There, in the calm moment, will linger on throughout the rest of the show. Also, Colleen will allow the Balearicans to share with her a few of their resolutions for the new year, something she didn't do for quite some time during the last episodes, and something I missed as it is another example of how greatly she's able to craft that intellectual unity with us, her listeners... As you can see, today's show is all about enjoying the calm moment, both musically and Intellectually, the sense of unity is here immaculate and bringing the warmth we all need in these frozen times... The peaceful musical moment will accompany us for quite a long time during this episode, with tracks like Happiness / The Awakening / Loss is Not Infinite . Even with the rhythm slightly stepping up with Sonya Spence 's Peace and Unity perfectly followed by Dennis Brown 's Sitting and Watching , the feeling is very relaxed because of the time Colleen took to let the music sink into our souls... Of Course, with Colleen behind the decks, there's never anything you can take for granted, and ending the second mix of today's episode with the great Heartbeat (Tainai Kaiki II) , tends to show you how much crafting a vibe is always about the Intention... Colleen ends the first hour of the show with a groovy/sexy little mix, letting the sunshine in our brains, it's all about those "Peaceful Grooves" , ain't it? 😉 Listen to how Colleen gradually steps up the rhythm today, still keeping the open and free spirit alive and well, Assata's Song (along with Ananda Shankar 's Cyrus ) being a wonderful example of that and also perfectly fitting to today's post title! Today's show is such a musical wave! The last 40 minutes of today's episode made us all lose our minds, both because of Colleen's selections and because of Colleen's mixing, winning undoubtedly the Wow Moment ! COLLEEN'S PRESENTATION I Peace Piece from the album " Everybody Digs Bill Evans " . And that may actually be true. The late pianist, composer, and arranger is beloved due to his unique use of harmony and melody, block chords, chord voicing. He influenced so many musicians and many of his songs have become jazz standards, including the one we just heard, Peace Piece . In fact, you've probably heard the motif in the opening notes to Flamenco Sketch's Miles Davis's album Kind of Blue, the seminal jazz LP on which Bill Evans also performed. Miles certainly had an ear for the best collaborators. And I really feel the sentiment of "Peace Piece" , and it was a great way, I feel it's a great way to launch Balearic Breakfast in 2025. And thank you to Artur in Paris for that request. Good morning, I'm Colleen Cosmo Murphy hosting your weekly Balearic Breakfast on my MixCloud Live until high noon, and greetings to all of the fam over in the chat group. It's great to be together as we embark upon a new year and a new journey. I hope you had a restful and restorative holiday season. I certainly did. Catching up with my nearest and dearest, taking some forest walks, baking an array of Italian goods and sweets, reading, listening to music, watching films, eating and drinking too much. I even had an uninterrupted eight-hour sleep last week, which is rather astonishing as that only happens a couple times a year. So my manifestation, what I want to manifest this year is to make an effort to not overschedule myself and to get more sleep as I've really overscheduled myself for most of my life. So I'm going to try to make a change this year in 2025. And if any of you in the chat group have a New Year's resolution you would like to share, please write it out and please post. Now today's show is all of your requests and most of them are songs that are pertinent to new beginnings. And of course, I couldn't get to all of them. So many will spill over onto next week's show. And in fact, some of them are from last month anyways, as I felt they were more relevant to listen to in the new year, like this next one, which is a request from Dalfredo for London singer-songwriter Jonathan Jeremiah , who has five studio albums under his belt. And this is a remix of the title track of his debut 2009 LP, Jonathan Jeremiah with the Morgan Geist Port Authority remix of Happiness . II Well, I think that may be my new favorite song. Love that one. London Liverpool duo God Colony . They founded the label Crack Copies and that featured Liverpool writer Roy , who released his debut collection of short stories, Algorithm Party , which is a view of Liverpool through different characters' eyes. And Loss is Not Infinite , which is the song that we just heard. It's also a short story from that collection. And we just heard the production by God Colony and all digital sales of that song in 2024, or in 2024, maybe still 2025, I hope, go to Damien John Kelly House , which is a center in Liverpool for men recovering from addiction. I absolutely love that one. And thank you to Matt Raistrick for that request. Ahead of that, former Monsoon frontwoman and celebrated solo artist Sheila Chandra with The Awakening from her 1985 LP Nada Brahma, Sound is God . And it's also found on the Naya Beat Vol. 1 compilation . And if you don't know Naya Beat , you should. It's a great label that's reissuing and releasing music from the South Asian subcontinent and diaspora. And this is the label that were behind all of the recent Asha Putli remixes. That was a request from Gareth Bratman, who wrote " Thanks, Colleen and everyone for all the great music I've discovered via this community in 2024. And this song, The Awakening by Sheila Chandra, seems appropriate for a New Year suggestion. And wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2025 ". Also, Ana Sancho in Barcelona resolves to "listen to more music in 2025" . Very worthy, Ana, I'm with you. And Terry Fincham, we send condolences to you. He lost a dear friend this past weekend, totally unexpected. And his resolution is "to not take anything for granted and to appreciate everything I've got" . And that... those are definitely amazing words and something we should always, always remember, no matter how tough things may seem to be, try to look for the beauty in life. Name three things that happened good today. That's what we try to do before we go to sleep. Okay, this next one is a request from our friend Kieran McCann up in Glasgow, who hosts the Coorie Doon parties. He requested this one. It's a great message. Peace and Unity by Sonya Spence on Balearic Breakfast. III Wow, thank you to Carl Banatov in Canada for that request. I just absolutely love that song. Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Silvian with Heartbeat , Tanai Kaiki 2 from Sakamoto's 1991 LP Heartbeat . And that was a very poignant request for me because I actually interviewed Sakamoto for that album that year when I was hosting and producing syndicated radio shows in the USA. And I had been a huge fan of Sakamoto since seeing him on Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, because I was a huge Bowie fan. And then I went down that hole and went through all of his solo work and down the rabbit hole of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Such a beautiful song. And David Silvian was formerly of the band Japan. And in fact, while David was working on the single, he met Ingrid Chavez, who is also on the album. And she's a singer and actress who had been a member of Prince's inner circle. And that same year, Silvian and Chavez married and moved to Minneapolis where they had some children. So a beautiful, beautiful song. Ahead of that, the 1979 single from my favorite Jamaican singer, Dennis Brown , the song Sitting and Watching , as requested by Josh Halsell, who said he discovered the song on the show. And he says it brings him joy and happiness every time, but it also makes his loudspeakers dislike him. So I think I can understand that sentiment. Nice, heavy, heavy bass there. We have a few more resolutions from the family on the chat group. Dancing James's resolution is "to keep clearing up while he cooks and to declutter the kitchen" . My husband, Adam, you might want to take a few... No, just joking! I just got the finger! Ha ha ha ha!! And Poppy Shepard says her New Year's resolution. This is a really good one! As well as decluttering the kitchen, James. But this is another good one! Poppy Shepard's is "to pick up the phone and make phone calls, not WhatsApp messaging, actual speaking conversations. It's much more personal" . And I have to say, as a Gen Xer, I do that quite a bit. And every time I suggest this to a Gen Zer or a millennial, they look like it's shock and it's like, no, pick up the phone, have a conversation. It's so much nicer. Okay, now a lovely request from Paolo Corsalini for the English duo comprised of Tracy Thorne and Ben Watt , Everything But The Girl . And this is their second single, which came out a staggering 40 years ago. And the couple are still going strong today, having released their 11th album, Fuse , in 2023. And of course, Tracy Thorne has written four books. I absolutely love Bedsit, Disco Queen, how I grew up and tried to be a pop star . And next on my list is My rock and roll friend , which focuses on her relationship and friendship with Lindy Morrison of The Go-Betweens , and reflects upon the experiences of female musicians in the male-dominated music scene. And speaking for myself as a DJ for nearly four decades, I'm sure I'll find some shared experiences there. In any case, let's get on with the music, Everything But The Girl with Each and Every One. IV Oh my goodness, I'm getting into a blue light mood, Bert. That's Minneapolis soul singer Rockie Robbins with his biggest hit, You and Me , the title track of his 1980 LP. And it was the singer's only big hit, and it reached the R&B Top 10. It was produced by Bobby Martin, who worked with Billy Paul on Me and Mrs. Jones. And thanks to our friend Bert Francois in Brooklyn for that blue light special request. Ahead of that, the late English singer, writer, comedian, actress, and presenter Margie Kane with her 1981 single, The Way You Love Me . And that's a Balearic Breakfast favorite. And yes, I've played that one before. But Emily Pictures Paradise wooed me with her request, stating, "Thank you for a great Christmas Balearic Breakfast show. So wonderful and uplifting. I hope you play in the Northwest this year, Colleen. The Golden Lion in Todmorden is a wonderful intimate venue. Crazy P and Richard Senn did some great DJ sets there. And maybe we'll be lucky enough to have you play there one day." So let's try to manifest that, okay? Ahead of that, we had The Feeling's Good as performed by the late American singer Marlena Shaw , who sadly passed away at the beginning of 2024. It's from her 1973 LP, From the Depths of My Soul . Shaw launched her career in the jazz clubs of New York City and Chicago. And it was there where she was discovered by Chess and Cadet Records , and her career really began to take off, especially with her version of the Ashford and Simpson penned California Soul. And thank you to Sue Forrest for that contribution. Okay, we have a few more New Year's resolutions from the fam. Matt Raistrick says he "resolves to listen and to make time to listen to more albums" . And that's probably what he tries to do every year, though. But just keep trying, Matt. Just keep trying. Ahead of that, Terrence the DJ says his or her "New Year's resolution is to re-record a mixtape I had back in 1993. I've tracked most of the records down and need to record them as I lost that tape years ago." Well, good luck with that. And Dancing James, along with Trying to Clean Up the Kitchen Atom, he also says "he wants to take some dance classes" . And I think that's a really great idea. I've always wanted to do that as well. I tried taking one dance class once. I lasted for one class because I'm left-handed. And every time I just kept getting the directions, you know, wrong. They'd go right, I'd go left, because that's my natural way to go. You know, just, you know, always contrary, what can I say? So I like that resolution. Okay, let's move on with the music. This is a request from Luca Ospitone in Sardinia for the San Francisco socio-political rapper Paris . It's his 1992 single, Assata's Song , from the LP Sleeping with the Enemy . And Paris, aka Oscar Jerome Jackson , is also the founder of Gorilla Funk Recordings and Scarface Records . And he also mentored artists such as DJ Shadow and the Conscious Daughters. And here he is with Assata's Song. V Ananda Shankar with Cyrus , and that's from the LP Ananda Shankar and His Music , released on Mr. Bongo. And that's the Indian sitarist, composer, and musician, who was the nephew of Ravi Shankar . And Ananda's musical family was very, very prestigious, and his upbringing led to a deep respect and love of the wealth of music that emanated from his birthplace. And his travels to the West Coast of America in the late 1960s saw Shankar immerse in the full swing of psychedelic rock. So there's a lot of different covers on this album. Highly recommended, and I hope you like that one here on Balearic Breakfast. Ahead of that, we had the Filipina-American guitarist, songwriter, producer, and educator, June Millington , with her 1983 single, Don't Be Careless With Your Love . Good advice for the year ahead from our friend Christina Da Souza. And Millington was the founder of the groups Svelt and Wild Honey , before becoming co-founder and lead guitarist of the early 1970s all-female rock band Fanny . Millington has been called a godmother of women's music, and she's also the co-founder and artistic director of the Institute for the Musical Arts in my native Massachusetts. And I look forward to investigating her more, because she sounds like a really incredible woman. Ahead of that, we have Paris with Assata's song , the remix, as requested by Luca Ospitone. Okay, this next one is a great request from our friend Ralph Odafred in New York. It's for Japanese saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Uyama Hiroto , and the song is Wind Speaks . It's from the compilation Hideout Productions' second collection , which is mainly a hip-hop compilation featuring mainly the late Japanese hip-hop artist Nujabes , with whom Hiroto and Uyama collaborated. And Uyama also has four solo albums, which I look forward to researching further. And thank you again to Ralph Odafred for this one, Wind Speaks . VI MFSB , or Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, with Mysteries of the World . Absolutely love that song. And gosh, what a lineup with MFSB. I guess they were kind of like the studio band for Sigma Sound Studios, and put together by Gamble & Huff for their Philly International to back a lot of the different artists they had performing on the label. But gosh, if you take a look and see who performed, it's incredible. You have Ronnie Baker, Tom Bell, Bobby Eli, John Davis, Norman Harris, Leon Huff. Good God. Vince Montana, Dexter Wenzel, Earl Young, you know, the drummer from The Tramps. So just an all-star lineup. And that was a request from Steve Wakley , who said he just absolutely loves that song, the title track to their 1980 LP. He said, it's been going around his head these past few days, and it's as exciting to his ears as when he first heard it. Always great to dance with its relentless bassline, floaty keys, layers of guitars and strings, and that spooky opening and gentle strings into the bass, a superb track. Ahead of that, we had a great tune from Yama Hiroto , Wind Speaks , and that's a request from Ralph Odafred. Okay, this next one is a request from our friend Barry Zerr, or Bear Nitz, in Washington, D.C. And I'm really excited as I'm heading to Washington, D.C. Well, I'm not excited for who's going to be in the office at that point in time, let me just say. But I'm very excited to actually be DJing there. It's the first time, I think it's the first time I'm DJing there ever. It's going to be on Valentine's Day, the 14th of February, and I'm playing for For Your Pleasure at 618 D.C. And I'm going to meet Barry for the first time. And he has this request here. First of all, I should say he has a resolution, is "to save as much money as possible to cover the cost of shipping all the amazing records I buy, thanks to all of the great selections Colleen and the Balearic Breakfast community shares" . So yeah, maybe I can bring some records over for you, if I have room in my record bag. Also, I should say James Bilderguy has a really good one too. His resolution is "to try and see more live music. We have a lot of fantastic clubs here in Glasgow, but I'm ashamed to say I can probably count on one hand the amount of live events I've been to, and I need to do more exploring" , and I share that sentiment. But back to the clubs, this is a request from Barry Berenitz for a club classic, Cajmere , featuring Daje with Brighter Days , the Masters at Work remix, and it's the Kai Alsay edit on Balearic Breakfast. VII Deniece Williams with the song Free , the Dave Lee rework, as requested by Real Trini Food, which is Franka Phillips . She's a food writer in Trinidad and Tobago, and gosh, the food from Trinidad and Tobago is top-notch. And such a beautiful song. I played that as my last tune at Coorie Doon Party , Kieran McCann 's party up in Glasgow, and somebody took a little video, and I posted it up, and that Reel got some traction, so that really encouraged Franca to request that song. She said she watched that Reel over and over and over again. Ahead of that, we had a request from David Stoddard for First Choice , Love and Happiness , and that's from their debut LP, 1973's Armed and Extremely Dangerous , and they began singing in high school as the Debonettes, and then performed in clubs after school in Philadelphia, and then they were introduced to Norman Harris, who produced that song. Just absolutely love that one. A great way to start the year. As was the song before, Paul Weller 's Style Council's cover of the 1988 Joe Smooth classic, with a remix by Juan Atkins, and that was requested by Love Vigilantes, and Smooth got the idea for the original song, Promised Land, while he was on tour in Europe with Farley Jack Master Funk, and he saw how house music was doing here in Europe, and he wrote that song with inspiration from classic Motown songs, and he had a hit. He had a classic song, and he had a hit over here in the UK, at least. And starting it off with Cajmere , featuring Daje, Brighter Days , the Masters at Work remix, and the Kai Alce edit. All right, this is Colleen Cosmo Murphy signing off another week's show of Balearic Breakfast. I will be back next Tuesday, finishing up some more requests. There were so many great ones, I couldn't get to all of them, but I had to leave this song for last, in memory of the late DJ Alfredo , who passed in the next realm in December, just before Christmas. This is a song he was known for playing. The Argentinian-born DJ made his name in Ibiza, especially at his residency at Amnesia, where people from all over the world gathered, and he had to please so many different ears, and he did so with aplomb. A really eclectic mix of music, everything from new wave to all different things, movie soundtracks and dance songs, all different things that he wove together into a great journey, a musical journey for his dancers, and this is one that he's really known for. It was requested by both Steve Clark and Uncle Jag. And Uncle Jag said, "without this beautiful human being, none of us would be here today, celebrating the beat that is Balearic" . And I was very lucky and privileged to meet him, and play with him, actually, back to back at the Beat Hotel in 2021. And you can find that mix, I think it's on Worldwide FM, I had it on a Baleric Breakfast show. He was a lovely human being. We had dinner before we played. It was the only time I got to meet him, and he was so humble, such a wonderful man. And it was just kind of interesting, all these different DJs that he inspired, you know, some went on to become global phenomenons. And he was just a, you know, lesser known, but we and the Balearic community celebrate him and his legacy, and we thank him. And this is just a beautiful way to remember him. You know the song. And remember, if you're feeling down this week, just be Balearic.

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 213th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on February 25th 2025. About this show. – With a somehow disconnected soul, unexpected yet rooted in its own free and somehow worried spirit, this 213th episode of Balearic Breakfast is another great example of Colleen's ability to share the spur of Life's moments... For various reasons, this show was deep, on many levels, and musicaly of course, too... But we'll dig a bit deeer about that in the listening section of this post... This morning’s Balearic Breakfast is now archived on my Mixcloud (and please give me a follow while you’re over there). On this week’s show we pay tribute to two greats: Gwen McCrae and Roberta Flack, both of whom have passed to the next realm. Thank you for your song suggestions and for celebrating their life through music. I love seeing that ‘Sounds’ sticker on the Gwen McCrae record – purchased at the St Marks shop decades ago. Old record shop stickers give a sense of time and place and bring back to many memories. And on the memories front, I also pay tribute to a late friend of mine and colleague from my WNYU days, Philip Smart. The Jamaican born producer/engineer and radio DJ hosted the Get Smart! Show on WNYU and for many years I was on after him with my Soul School show on Friday nights. It was great going up to the studio and seeing Stone Love Sound System or Bobby Konders hanging out. Those were the days indeed. Today’s show also features your requests and music from#gwenmccrae #robertaflack #themonkees #wnyu #yachtrock @favoriterec @ubiquityrecords @timecapsulesounds @farout_recordings @joeclaussellsplaygroundd @djsaucylady @doctorsoul1 #yellowmagicorchestra @mimistgkobayashi @bbemusic @masters_at_work_official @claremont56 @furebymusic @folkfunkandtrippytroubadour @kennylattimore Thans for listening! PLAYLIST ( 1989 ) Sheila Chandra – One ( 1993 ) Better Daze – Golden Brown ( 1968 ) The Monkees  – The Porpoise Song ( NOL ) Philip Smart  – Drifter Dub Part 4 ( 1974 ) Gwen McCrae  – 90% of Me is You ( 1978 ) Jonathon Hansen  – What It Meant to Me ( 1982 ) Kenny Loggins  – Heart to Heart ( 1978 ) Izumi ‘Mimi’ Kobayashi  – Angel Sky ( 2024 ) Fureby, Moscoco & Faber  – Halcyon ( 1993 ) Yellow Magic Orchestra  – Pocketful of Rainbows (Heavy Rainbow Mix) ( 1971 ) Roberta Flack  – Go Up Moses ( 1969 ) Roberta Flack  – Compared to What ( 1980 ) Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway  – Back Together Again ( 1979 ) Gwen McCrae  – All This Love That I'm Givin' ( 1975 ) Hank Crawford  – Madison (Spirit, The Power) ( NOL ) The Jones Girls  – Nights Over Egypt (DoctorSoul Giza Dancefloor Re-Therapy) ( 2025 ) Saucy Lady – Falling in Love ( 1998 ) Kenny Lattimore  – Days Like This (Lattimaw Soul House Mixx) ( 2025 ) Far Out Monster Disco Orchestra  – Black Sun (Joe Claussell’s Classic Mix) ( 1982 ) Gwen McCrae  – Keep the Fire Burnin' THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE Presentation. – Disconnected from reality, you're shifting from one place to another, but you don't know where you are, you don't know what time it is, you don't know what you should do, what you have to do, nothing make sense, you wish you would not have to be here, now, you wish you were elsewhere, yet the pain reminds you that you're stuck in this inexistent now you know nothing about, and the sickness doesn't stop. Disconnected, you're just a ghost passing there, to another somewhere, another tangible somewhere, one day, in a few years, it's a detachment, an active phase, a hideous phase of losing someone you loved with all your soul, and nothing can bring that person back, everything is Beyond, Beyond your grif, Beyond your sorrow, Beyond today, Beyond Tomorrow... Disconnected, you're Beyond, already... But you don't know it, Yet... To Rick (and to everyone grieving over a loved one) Today's episode is all about that feeling of being absent from yourself. This happens in a moment where you face loss, but also in a moment where, tired, you don't have the strength to pull yourself out of the maze surrounding you. Still, you try to keep moving on, because, after all, there's nothing else you can really do. A Vast Majority of the songs selected by Colleen in this 213th episode of Balearic Breakfast have that disconnection at the very Core of their musical existence, and this feeling is of course reinforced by Colleen's immaculate mix, one of the finest she ever did. We can take for example the way Colleen mixes Better Daze's Golden Brown with The Monkees' The Porpoise Song , nicely followed by Philip Smart's dubby Drifter Dub Part 4 , leading the way to Gwen McCrae's trippy 90% of Me is You , perfectly ending this Beyond moment with Jonathon Hansen's What It Meant to Me ... Colleen pushes this feeling in the second mini mix of the show's first hour, reaching rhythmic perfection with the way  Izumi ‘Mimi’ Kobayashi's Angel Sky follows Kenny Loggins' Heart to Heart , not speaking of Fureby, Moscoco & Faber's Halcyon nor of, for instance, Go Mosses ! One last thing that struck me, when thinking about it, is that Colleen ends the show positively with Gwen McCrae's Keep the Fire Burnin' . Now, don't you find that this ending perfectly reflects today's post title? Going beyond pain and keeping the Fire Burning in one loving and intellectual unity... Is it me or is there a beautiful circle right there?... The Wow Moment. – For the disconnected feeling, the drunken wavy spirit leaving you lost in a place you can't disguise, for the cohesive, delicate mix, and the musical flow that truly reinforces your drunken feeling, I must say today's show's first hour wins The Wow Moment! If you want to get high, do it and listen to this show, you'll meet your new self walking somewhere, there... Beyond... This first part is so Mean... One of the meanest Colleen ever did, like really! I also must add that I love how, starting the second hour, Colleen takes a direct turn, leaving the lost, drunky and blurred-out feeling towards a more concrete and happier musical place yet keeping that estranged feeling intact... Once again, her musical choices from our requests is astoundingly precise! PS: Thank you so much Ana for your help in correcting this post! Fluffy hugs from the Lioncub!! COLLEEN'S PRESENTATION Sheila Chandra with One from Paul Hillary's Folk, Funk and Trippie Troubadour's volume 3 compilation on BBE. And that was requested by our friend Rick Van Veen in the Netherlands who very recently lost his mother. He said the show Balearic Breakfast was a huge support in difficult times for him, and it still is. He said, my mother's lung disease and taking care of her, which became more and more intensive, made life difficult, and he had little time for himself and to relax. And he said, but Balearic Breakfast and the community, and he said Ana and Artur have become good friends, help enormously. Everything is still very unreal. Her death in the past few years have gone through my mind as he wrote to me. I've planned to keep listening to music a lot but that does not always work. Recently, I heard the song One by Sheila Chandra for the first time, and somehow the song suits me perfectly at this moment and is constantly on repeat. I like to believe we are all one and if we are all one we will never be separated... I'm so sorry for your loss Rick, and thank you for sharing those beautiful words with us. Good morning Balearicans, I'm Colleen Cosmo Murphy hosting your weekly Balearic Breakfast live from my record room until high noon, and greetings to all over on my Mixcloud Live and thank you for joining me as always. Well, it's been a while since we've had a request show, and I won't be able to get to most of them again this week, so those songs will stretch over to upcoming weeks as always. We recently lost two major artists: Gwen McCrae and yesterday Roberta Flack, and we will pay our tributes to them and their music later in the show, and I'll also pay tribute to one of my former WNYU compatriots, the late reggae dancehall dub DJ producer and engineer Phillip Smart. But first, let's get in some of your requests, and this next one is from David Puzzi for a song by Better Days the duo of Andrew Jervis and Paul Scriver who released one album on Ubiquiti in 1996 called One Street Over and a year later they did an album of remixes from that album. The album melds together all different genres folk, funk, Bill Laswell style dub and more. David asked for the opening song to the album Here Are Better Days with Golden Brown. What It's Meant to Me by Jonathan Hanson , self-produced and self-released in 1978 by Jonathan, and it's a perfect recipe of the AOR soulful style lovingly reissued by Favorite Recordings. And they spoke with Jonathan and he said What it's meant to me was a song I wrote about the breakup of a band as with a lot of my songs I always write them to be more about more than one thing, primarily relationships and you can find that on Favorite Records Bandcamp. Ahead of that 90% of Me is You by the Queen of Rare Groove the recently departed Gwen McRae and that song is from her debut self-titled album released in 1974. The Florida-born singer, where she performed in clubs as a teen and then in 1963, she met and married a sailor by the name of George McRae who went on to have a massive hit with Rock Your Baby which was released the same year as Gwen's debut. And George also does backing vocals on the album. Prior to that, in the 1960s, they recorded together as a duo, and they signed the label TK Records which in the next decade was the leading southern disco label, and Gwen had success as a solo artist on TK subsidiary Cat Records with a cover of Bobby Bland's Lead Me On , and then Ed Townsend's For Your Love , and then she had a big hit with her own song Rockin' chair . The song we heard 90% of Me is You is much beloved on the Rare Groove scene, it was also featured on that great BBE compilation Strange Games and Things , and thank you to Bert Francois in Brooklyn for that request, and we'll have more Gwen McRae later in the show. Okay, the one before that is an old friend of mine Philip Smart we heard Drifter Dub Part 4, and Rob that primitive sound put this on my radar. Today is the 11th anniversary of Philip Smart's passing, and Philip Smart was on WNYU when I was on in the 1980s and 1990s, in fact I think he had the longest-running show it went from like 1979, I think to about 2004. And when I did the soul school show it was so much fun, because I was on right after him, and I come up to the studio and there would be like Bobby Condors hanging out, or a Stone Love sound system fresh from Jamaica, and I got to hang out with these guys, and they were just really cool because I was really into dancehall and reggae and dub at that time. In fact, I used to spin it you know and I was spinning house parties back in the late 80s, and early 90s, and I was a regular over at Sticky Mike's which was a great dancehall night. Well Philip, I mean, he was such a great guy. I used to write for a fanzine called Dub Catcher and I obviously interviewed Philip. He was a total legend and he also took me record shopping at the VIP records distribution, I think it was in Queens. Anyways, Smart's steadfast championing of local reggae acts and could be heard on his popular Friday night show Get Smart, and that was on WNYU 89.1 FM. And he says a Stan Evans Smith who used to to work with him I think he was a digital, I think he used to call himself, I can't remember his name, it wasn't Bobby digital but he used the word digital in his name. He said Philip Smart changed the radio landscape by using New York as a marketplace for New York-based artists. He helped establish dancehall reggae in New York so artists could have careers competitive with their Jamaica-based counterparts, and he was also a really fun personality, very strategic with his on-air approach. And he compelled other New York reggae jocks to allocate slots on their Jamaica-centric playlists for New York area artists, you know Philip had his own studio. He was an engineer and producer himself, and he had very very deep roots on reggae's earliest days with connections to Kingston's finest talents, and Get Smart was also a preeminent vehicle for Jamaica-based artists and producers seeking international exposure for their releases. And he also shared the tracks he played, and his vast musical knowledge with other radio hosts he broke records like Shabba Ranks he wrote I think he broke also Dawn Penn No No No No as well so he was just such a great great person and thank you to Rob That Primitive Sound for honoring him on today's show. Ahead of that we had The Monkeys with The Porpoise Song which is written by Carole King and Jerry Goffin, if you can believe it. And it was performed as a theme song of the monkeys 1968 film Head definitely a trip and we're seeing if you love 60s psychedelia and experimental filmmaking like I do. And the song mainly features Mickey Dolenz on vocals and thanks to Tim of Puerto Montt City Orchestra for that request. Okay, now did anyone see the Yacht Rock documentary now out on Sky Arts? Well, I did and I've been listening to Yacht Rock playlists ever since all weekend, and Questlove has one that's 51 hours. Anyways when our friend Victor Olteanu in Romania requested this song I just had to play it, and it doesn't need a lot of elaboration as it's a pretty well-known song by one of the best from the genre, and it also has Michael McDonald on backing vocal. Here is Kenny Loggins with Heart to Heart . The Heavy rainbow remix of Yellow Magic Orchestra 's Pocketful of Rainbows from YMO's eighth and final studio album Techno Dawn , released in 1993 when all three members Tsuruchi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi had concurrent strong solo careers. And in fact both Sakamoto and Hosono were folding in world music sounds in their solo albums around this time, and it can be heard on this final YMO release, and thank you to Virginia Tsioti in Athens for putting that one on our radar. Ahead of that, we had Furby, Moskoko and Faber with Halcyon from the Claremont edition series, and that series has been going on since 2020 on Paul Mudd Murphy's Claremont 56 label. It was requested by our friend Tom Torres in Vienna, and the song we heard was Halcyon and that's Danish producer Furby, a close friend of fellow Danes Mike Salta and Peter Visti joining forces with Guy Moskoko and Brian Faber for a gorgeously kaleidoscopic balearic groove for rich and fluttering flute solos simmering disco strings and sun bright electronics. Ahead of that we had Angel Sky by Izumi Mimi Kobayashi who is one of Japan's leading jazz funk pianists, and she wrote and recorded cult albums with fusion legends at home and abroad, obsessed with new electronic instruments. She penned some of the country's most well-known TV themes. She also pioneered the use of drum machines in anime soundtracks. A star in Japan, Kobayashi moved to Europe to record global hits with Depeche Mode and Swing Out Sister . She toured the world with the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra , and she also made beats with my friend Tony Mwachukwu from Attica Blues . She's now based in London and she fronts Tokyo Rhythm Band, and Time Capsule Records have lovingly curated an album with some of her most significant tunes called Choice Cuts 1978 to 1983 and you can find out more on their Bandcamp. Well, we lost another great just yesterday, the American singer-songwriter and pianist Roberta Flack . As a great balladeer, she significantly contributed to the quiet storm radio sound which had a smooth romantic and jazzy sound, in which I've always been a sucker for. She was born in North Carolina and grew up in a large musical family and she used to go to the Baptist Church down the street where she would hear Mahalia Jackson and Sam Cooke singing. She started playing piano at 9 and got a full scholarship to Howard University at the age of 15, and she eventually changed from piano to voice, she became a teacher herself, and whilst performing in clubs in Washington DC, she was discovered by pianist singer Les McCann. He arranged an audition with Atlantic Records and the rest is history. As a great interpretive singer, her early albums mainly featured covers or songs written by others, and she had number-one hits, but this is one of my personal favourites of hers, and it's one she co-wrote and it's incredibly funky. This is Roberta Flack from her third album Quiet Fire here she is with Go Up Moses . Roberta Flack with Back Together Again a song she originally did with Donny Hathaway for the second album they did together. And Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway did two albums one in 1972, and the second in 1980 right after Hathaway's passing, in fact he fatally fell from his 15th-floor window after having dinner with Flack. The two were great great friends and professional colleagues, they did so many great songs together including the smash 1972 hit Where is the Love and 1978's The Closer I Get to You and Flack was a great collaborator she also had hits of Peebo Bryson and Maxie Priest , and she was celebrated with the Grammy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. She also won several Grammys as well. Ahead of that we had Roberta Flack once again with Compared to What. It's an overtly political song that highlights women's rights and the concerns of the second wave feminist movement, and also an anti-war sentiment, and that's from her debut album First Take which I believe was probably named because she probably performed everything in one take. She recorded the entire album in 10 hours and she won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, not the only time she's done that and right from the starting point Flack had hits. Her debut featured The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face . In fact that was written by folky Ewan McCall for Peggy Seeger , and Roberta's voice also had that kind of folk like quality a pure tonality found in artists like Judy Collins , but Flack also had that elegant soul stylings of you know singers like Dionne Warwick , and you can really hear that on her number one hit Killing Me Softly with this song . And we started it all off with Roberta Flack's Go Up Moses such a funky tune, and that's from her LP Quiet Fire and Bert Francois is over on the chat group and he said: "Her passing really touched me. My uncle who recently passed was her professor at Howard University and he told me she invited him to hear her perform at a nightclub, and he really enjoyed her performance, and after the show he encouraged her to pursue her singing career" . So there you go and also, Roberta Flack also encouraged Luther Vandross to do the same thing, and that just reminds me I watched the Luther Vandross documentary finally Luther: Never Too Much , shed tears, it's absolutely amazing. I mean he did things I didn't even know about like he was on Sesame Street when I was a kid. I can't even believe it's incredible and there's also a documentary about Roberta Flack which Bert told us about I believe it's a PBS documentary as well. Okay, back to another recently departed American soul great, Gwen McCrae and this next song was requested by Thanos Quatronis, and I'm also sending this one out to David Stoddard and for some of you it may evoke memories of Cassius's French touch classic Feeling For You which sampled it very heavily. It remains a killer record in its own right though, and this time has also been recently reissued. Originally released in 1979, it sees McCrae at her powerful best delivering a potent message to an errant lover over a killer low-slung disco-funk groove, and I should also say DJs and dancers here in the UK really supported McCrae who had hits on the northern soul scene, and she also performed over here and in Europe quite a lot. She recorded for the UK's Rhythm King Records in the late 80s and then recorded an album for British label Homegrown Records in 1996 here is Gwen McCrae with All This Love That I'm Given . I love love love the original version of Nights Over Egypt by the Jones Girls , but I have to say for a long time I refused to play it, because I heard it so much when I was DJing in the 1990s, we had this like lounge scene you know in downtown Lower East Side in the East Village where me and my friends would DJ, and I would always hear this song, so I just wouldn't play it. But I have to say I absolutely love it. Dexter Wansel of course there, and this is a really great rework by Dr. Soul called the Dr. Soul Giza Dance Floor Re-Therapy, and that was requested by Sue Forrest. I think it's fantastic. Ahead of that we had an album that's often in my record bag. Hank Crawford 's 16th studio album, I Hear a Symphony , released back in 1975 and I usually play sugar-free but Anthony Nabbit asked for Madison Spirit the Power, and that was certainly a very funky offering from the late Memphis Tennessee born saxophonist, pianist, arranger and songwriter. And Crawford goes way back appearing on a B.B. King record back in 1952, and he was also the music director for Ray Charles before he embarked upon his own solo career. Okay this is Colleen Cosmo Murphy with you on Balearic Breakfast for another half an hour. I'm still cutting out songs trying to fit in all these great requests and tributes just want to let you know about a few gigs that I'm doing. I'll be DJing over at LA Disco Tech at the Albert Hall in Manchester on the 8th of March, and then the following day it's our London Loft Party. So if you would like to join us here in London on a Sunday for seven hours of dancing and music and fun and food, and if you aren't on our mailing list, please email the London Loft at loftparty.org and we'll get back to you. I'll be at Southport Weekender on the 15th of March, and then I'm heading over to Japan for the second half of March where I'll be playing in Sapporo Nagoya Osaka Guma and Tokyo. So really looking forward to that. And while I'm gone I'm going to have to do a few interviews and mixes, and I'm hoping to get Saucy Lady up. She has a new album called Love Fest on her own label Dippin Records, and is co-produced with her husband Yuki who's a fabulous producer. And she's a real disco sensation, a Japanese woman actually, a Japanese mother, American dad, an American jazz loving dad, and she mainly grew up in Japan but then she moved to Massachusetts where I'm from and stayed there for university, and ended up settling there. And she has done four albums since 2011, and it's really incredible, her new album is again a standout blend of French boogie electro soul, taking fellow producers and performers Derek McKenzie Yam who and Jay Mumford in tow, and it's a slick 40 minutes, so we will have to get her on the show next month. Matt Raystrick requested her up-tempo cover of Surface's Falling In Love , and here it is on Balearic Breakfast. Oh my god, absolutely smoking stuff from Joe Claussell . And I want to send this one out to you Tomohiro Yamada, because you asked for a different Joe Clausel record which I did download. I was going to play it, and then I went through my promos and found this. I just had to play it, it's going to be a special one-off limited edition 12-inch release for Record Store Day 2025 , so you definitely want to queue up for this one. It's the Far-Out Monster Disco Orchestra with a Heidi Vogel on vocals, they're beautiful beautiful song, and it's called Black Sun , and that's Joe Clausel's classic mix. And the far-out monster disco orchestra have been going for over a decade, and they've hosted esteemed members like as a miss Jose Roberto Bertrami and Alex Malheros, and it's an enlisted and an illustrious roster of remixes over the years including John Morales, Theo Parrish, Al Kent, DJ Spinner, and I just love that one from Joe. And gosh that is just absolutely smoking. Ahead of that we had American soul singer Kenny Lattimore with his 1998 single remix by Masters at work called the Lattimaw soul house remix, and requested by Ana Sancho in Barcelona. And that was a little bit of Virgo musical synchronicity as I've had that record pulled aside for weeks now getting ready for a play. And I just also found out that Lattimore was also married to another great singer Shante Moore for a while, and he is still releasing records and the latest is 2021's here to stay. Well this is Colleen Cosmo Murphy, and you know I'm here to stay with the show but not on today's show, we only have one more song. I just want to say I just found out that sadly Donald Fagen has just passed away, and we will definitely pay tribute to him on next week's show. Seems like there's a lot of tributes, I guess must be must be my age it's just kind of part of human, the human condition part of life, I'm afraid. And, but yes very very sad news. Again he is featured on the Yacht Rock documentary which is which is excellent you must see it, it's both you know, it also has a lot of fun, but it's also quite serious too and Christopher Cross is quite a fellow. Oh my gosh you know he, he was tripping when he wrote Ride Like The Wind, I always knew why I liked that song but now I know why. Anyways, um yeah, really good documentary, and next week we will pay tribute to Donald Fagen, but we have one more tribute left, and again this is the last one for Gwen McRae. This one's going out to Chris Lee Steve Wakley and Alex Elliott now. After TK Records collapsed, Gwen McRae moved to New Jersey and she signed with Atlantic Records, and she had a hit with Funky Sensation, and then she later had a minor hit with this next song, so I just love this song. I think it's a beautiful way to end the show and yes, rest in paradise both Roberta Flack and Gwen McRae, also of course Donald Fagen as well. This is Gwen McRae with Keep The Fire Burning and have a wonderful week, and I'll see you next Tuesday.

In the latest episode of the KWYS show, Brian Lowery talks with Colleen about her career and how she shares Music on the dancefloor. About this interview. – Colleen met Professor of Organizational Behavior and social psychologist by training Brian Lowery (he received his doctorate from UCLA in 2001 with a minor in statistical methods) for a great interview, which stands out from the other ones she did in the past as she dvelves into What music brings to her and How she shares it on the dancefloor. We also learn here that our dear Captain is working on a Memoir 😊 LIstening to this nice and relatively short interview, you'll discover how, with her 35-year Career, Colleen works her way through her sets and the philosophy which allows her to take the dancers onto a real musical journey where music is able to transmit pure feelings. The interview is transcribed below and you can listen to it here: Music, Movement, and Meaning: Hanging Out with DJ Cosmo - Know What You See with Brian Lowery PS: Coming back from the USA, where she played the Horse Meat Disco Party, Colleen shared this on her socials on Sunday, 16th February: " Heading back to London after a wonderful trip to the USA and after a night of very little sleep after playing Horse Meat Disco at Knockdown Centre last night. I just love playing there not only because I love Luke, Severino, James and Jim but also because of the on-point staff and the amazing crowd - they are just so much fun and I absolutely adore playing there. And the night before I also had a blast playing in Washington DC for the first time at For Your Pleasure - a fabulous party hosted by Martin and Chelle and a great, eclectic mix of dancers. I have only been to DC less than a handful of times (half of which were for marches) and it was definitely a bit strange to be in the same vicinity as you-know-who but I managed to have a spectacular time. One of the highlights of my trip was reconnecting with a dear old friend from high school, Michele. We went to so many shows together - slam dancing at Black Flag, dancing on stage at The Smiths, witnessing a riot at New Order and staying up all night in a parking lot to snag tickets for the Purple Rain tour. Now she is a curator at The National Museum of African American History and Culture and I got to see her for the first time in over 3 decades. It is so life-affirming to reconnect with old friends and to be able to pick up just where you left off. I also caught up with my old WNYU friend Jocelyn Gonzales. She and I have worked together on podcasts and she is one of the best in her field. She and host Brian Lowery, PhD recently invited me up to their program ‘Know What You See’ for ‘Music, Movement, and Meaning with DJ Cosmo’ (link in comments) and I finally had the chance to listen. Somehow I seemed to make some sense (LOL!). And through Jocelyn I also reconnected with my first woman mentor - Lynne McVeigh. She was the Radio Advisor for WNYU and the Head of the Sound Department when I was in university in the 80’s and she had my back. She even got me a broadcasting scholarship which was very much needed at the time." Music, Movement, and Meaning: Hanging Out with DJ Cosmo Part I [Brian] I'm Brian Lowry, professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Know What You See. In this season of the podcast, I'm diving into a big question. What's the point? In conversations with people who have committed themselves to a range of pursuits, we'll learn answers to that question that might surprise and inspire us all. Music has always been one of my biggest passions. Certain songs and albums are like mile markers in my life, and I'm sure the same is probably true for you. For me, Funkadelic, One Nation Under Groove, is my earliest music memory. And growing up in Chicago, arguably the birthplace of house music, with iconic spots like The Warehouse, I spent many hours tuned into WBMX. With Friday Night Jams, we are now into the mix with Frankie Knuckles.   [Brian] The station that played and still plays house music today. And in college, house music lived alongside rap as the soundtrack of my life. The DJs I listened to on the radio and at house parties, they weren't just playing music. They were curators of an experience. They knew more, obsessed more, and introduced me to sounds I didn't know I needed. But back then, I didn't think much about the experience of being behind the turntables.   What does it mean to bring people together through music like that? That's where DJ Colleen Cosmo Murphy comes in. She's been called the audio connoisseur you want in charge of your party. Colleen has been decades mastering the art of sharing music. She's a broadcaster, a club DJ, a festival performer, and the creator of Classic Album Sundays, a global listening series for music lovers and audiophiles. With thousands of records in her personal collection, and a deep knowledge of vinyl and sound systems, Colleen has built her career and life around sharing music.   [Brian] Colleen, first of all, can I start with the name, the story behind your name? Sure, yeah. I hosted radio shows on my 10 Watt High School radio station from 1982 to 1986. [Colleen] And I did a show called Punk, Funk and Junk. And that included early hip hop and electro and also punk. And there was a band named Nucleus and their DJ's name was Cosmo. And that's how I got the name Cosmo and I started to use it. And my friend, who was the other DJ, she called herself Remix. And we made these sweatshirts and have our names on the back and walk around our high school like we were really cool.   And that's how I got the name Cosmo. So when I started DJing in the 1990s, people knew my name is Colleen Murphy. But then I started to get into dance music. And I was really changing the format of what I was playing. And I thought it'd be too confusing for people to hear Colleen Murphy not playing 60s psychedelic music or post punk, but now playing dance classics, disco, house. So I just took the name Cosmo back, having no idea it was going to be part of my career. [Brian]   So what about music attracted you to it? I mean, that's kind of a funny question, because I think if you're a normal human being, you love music, but not many people do it as their career. So how did that happen for you? [Colleen] Well, it's interesting you ask this, because this is something I'm trying to research in a memoir, trying to figure out what it is that drew me to music, because I grew up in a small New England town. None of my family had any connections with people in the music business. And nobody was as obsessed as I was. But I think it came initially from the radio. The radio in Boston was really quite good. And when I was growing up in the 1970s, I was given a transistor radio for my seventh Christmas when I was seven years old. And I remember running upstairs and turning it on and hearing Fly Robin Fly by Silver Convention. And I was really hooked. I listened to the radio all the time. And I think there were a few reasons. One, I just naturally gravitate towards music. I can sing on pitch. I started playing piano when I was five years old. It's something that's always been able to get under my skin and really move me in a very deep way. And that's just my personality. And I can't explain why that is. But the experience of having these great radio stations around me and exposing me to all different kinds of music, we had so many college radio stations, we had black radio stations, we had gray AOR radio stations like WBCN, some of the most progressive in the country, and a really varied radio format. I was very lucky to be raised where I was in the 1970s. I had access to all different kinds of music. And I think that's really one of the things that made me gravitate towards a career in it. Because I started doing radio when I was 14 years old.   Then I started collecting records when I was 15. And my first job was in a record shop when I was 16. [Brian] What was your first record? [Colleen] Well, the first record that was given to me was by my very cool aunt, who was only eight years older than me. And I think I was about eight years old when she gave it to me. It was Elton John's Greatest Hits. [Brian] You said you started on radio at 14. How did that happen? [Colleen] I had another cousin who was doing a radio show on our high school radio station. And then she and her friend Eric invited me up because they knew I loved music. And so I went along to their radio show, brought some records with me. And I remember they turned the microphone on. And I literally ran out of the room and across the library. And it took me a while to start talking. So you ran out, they turned on the microphone. [Brian] Did you come back? [Colleen] I did come back, but I don't think I really spoke. I think I stayed away from the microphone. I was a bit intimidated by that. I wanted to sort of be a silent DJ. And even when I have one radio show on cassette, and I don't talk that much in high school. It was really when I went to NYU and started working on WNYU and had a lot of people who actually trained me where I became more comfortable. It took some time. And so how did you end up going from radio to live events? [Brian] How did that happen? And when did that happen? [Colleen] At WNYU, we did host some live events as well. And we also had connections with different venues throughout the city. So the first time I really started DJing in public was in the 1980s for CBGB's record canteen, their record shop, because they had a bunch of WNYU DJs there. And we would host different WNYU nights. I remember playing on the roof of Mars in the late 1980s. Which was a really cool club in New York. I started going out to a lot of clubs in about 1991, in the early days of house in New York City. And I went to one party in particular that really changed my life. And that party was called The Loft. And it was hosted by a man named David Mancuso, who became a very good friend of mine afterwards. And a friend of mine brought me to this party. And I didn't know anything about it. It was on East Third Street between Avenues B and C. There's no sign out outside the door. You just walk through these doors. And there was somebody there collecting money to get in. And when I went through the next set of doors, it was this beautiful big space that had these huge clip-shorn loudspeakers dotted around the dance floor. And it looked like somebody's home because it was somebody's home, even though it was a converted former theater. And there was a very enigmatic, mysterious man behind the turntables playing music that I hadn't really heard before. And the music sounded incredible. It was on a beautiful sound system. And it just gave so much more emotion and nuance to the music. I had never heard a playback system like that before. I just fell in love. And I started going back week after week. And I had to seek out what records he was playing. I was asked to come back to WNYU around that time, because I had already graduated. And I came back and I said, but I want to do a different kind of show. I want to do a show that plays dance music as opposed to the other stuff I've been known for. And I started a show called Soul School. And from there, people started tuning in. I started to build a really great community. And from there is when I started to be asked to play out in different places. [Brian] So what's the difference between radio and live events for you? [Colleen] Well, radio, you have a connection with your audience, but you can't see them. A lot of the times, you're not necessarily responding to what they're doing at that moment in time, because your radio shows can be pre-programmed. You know what you're going to play, usually, not all the time, but usually. Whereas on a dance floor, you are responding to the moment, to everything that is happening, whether it's the mood of the room, the temperature, the acoustics, where you are, who is there, how they're feeling at that point in time, what the sound system is like, what's sounding good on that sound system, what's not sounding good on that sound system. There's so many different outside elements to process. And if you are what I call a proper DJ, you aren't going and rocking up with a playlist and just playing a set one to 20 or whatever. That to me isn't a DJ set. A DJ set, you are actually interacting in real-time with the people on the dance floor and everything going on around you. [Brian] So I grew up in Chicago in the 80s. As you know, there was a big house scene. [Colleen] Yeah, the warehouse. Yeah. [Brian] The best DJs are taking the crowd on like a journey. That was my experience of it, right? There's a kind of a ebb and flow, like you move up, there's like a crescendo, and then there's a moment of kind of bringing it back down and just kind of the DJ is making sense of where the crowd is and kind of moving them in different directions. And the best experiences I've had, it was almost meditative or trance-like when it was like, you're just in there dancing, there's very little light, everybody is kind of moving. It's just a very communal, almost ritualistic kind of experience. And I'm curious, as a DJ, what that feels like? Like when you're the person managing that experience? [Colleen] Well, it's interesting. I started on the dance floor, like many DJs do. So that is something that you're trying to tap into when you're actually on the other side of the turntables. It's like a call and response. That's the way I would describe it.   It's a lot of responsibility. You have this sense of experience that obviously comes into play. And knowing how to move people or when they're getting, when it's time to bring it back down, and when it's time to bring it back up, and when it's time to play that peak song. And as you said, I also do play in an arc. I played for seven hours on Sunday. And the first two hours, I mean, I start with ambient, built it up, built up the tempo, built up the tempo, get everybody kind of moving and then bring them down and up and down and up and down and up and then bring them down for kind of a re-entry into the world. It works best when you don't think about it too much and you use your intuition. The experience comes into play when you're observing the room and you're seeing what's going on and you're starting to feel what they're needing at that time. And it's a silent conversation. I mean, there might be whoops and cheers and whatever, but it feels like you're helming a ship. You're responding to all the outside elements as well. And you have your crew with you or the sound system and all the other things that are really important to make this experience really crystallize and to really move people. But the best times when I know it's all working is when I'm not even really thinking. And it almost, without trying to sound silly, it's almost like channeling. So the experience comes through when you know your music, you've played for dance floors as I have for 35 years, that all comes into play. But it's almost, I guess, like being a concert pianist. You practice and you practice and you practice, but when the moment actually comes, it should be somewhat effortless. You should not be overthinking it. And it really becomes quite an instinctual process. So you're really opening yourself up to what is coming back at you. [Brian] What does that bring up for you? How does it feel for you? [Colleen] And it feels very cathartic. I mean, music is a way that I've been able to connect with my own feelings. It can bring up incredible joy and also incredible sadness. In fact, on Sunday, when I was doing my seven-hour set, some of it was in tribute to a friend who recently passed away. And a lot of friends that were in attendance were a friend of this person as well. Of course, I would play songs that we shared together and I'd be crying. It just comes out. Music tends to allow me to not retreat from my own feelings, but confront and process them. So it's quite emotional going through this. There's moments of euphoria. There's moments of oneness. And at the end, it just feels cathartic. Like I've been on a whole journey with a whole group of people. We've gone from A to B and share this incredible experience together. I feel a sense of solidarity with the dance floor. I feel that music and movement brings us together. It makes us feel part of something that's bigger than us. And I also wonder if that really taps into some kind of primordial need to connect with others through movement that may even predate language. I'm not an anthropological biologist, but I wouldn't be surprised if Homo sapiens were communicating through movement first before language and finding ways to connect through movement. I also just feel that while it allows me to process feelings, it also allows me to tap into something that's bigger than myself. It could be that sense of unity, that sense of oneness, that sense of communal euphoria when you actually drop your own personality and you drop your own ego and you're able to kind of be part of something bigger. [Brian] Yeah, I really like that. It makes me think about the kind of tension between being you, like the individual, and being a part of something larger, like losing yourself in something larger. And I guess I wonder how much of you is retained when you're doing this. I'm curious how you think about that tension between you, the individual, and being part of and losing yourself in the larger experience in the group. [Colleen] I guess being the individual is all in the preparation and the experience and everything I bring to the table. So, for instance, before I do a seven-hour set, I'm putting together records for over two days, really understanding what I'm bringing with me. I know that music inside and out, especially then there's some newer songs, of course. So that's the part of being an individual. But that's the part I want to let go of once the party's in play. I don't want to be thinking about me as an individual. And really, it all becomes about being part of this kind of process and becoming part of the whole spirit of the dance floor. And I've done all that work, but in the moment, I just want to be in the moment. I just want to be in the moment of the music and the dance. [Brian] I'm with Colleen that music and the collective vibration of all those bodies on the dance floor is a way of drawing me into something bigger, something more mysterious. When I'm lost in the sound, it's not just about me anymore. It's about the connection, the release, and the sense of being a part of something greater. We feel that kinship with other listeners. Isn't music a universal way of reaching out for something transcendent or even divine? We'll get into that next on Know What You See. Part II [Brian] We're back with DJ Khalil Cosmo Murphy. This is a random question. Have you ever been to the church of Coltrane? [Colleen] I'd like to go. That's in San Francisco, isn't it? Yeah, I need to go. I haven't been to California in like 25 years. So I'm hoping to go back at some point soon. But no, I haven't. And I'd like to go to his home in Long Island, because that's where he wrote A Love Supreme. So I just want to go and be there, you know, just feel it. [Brian] I wonder how you connect a religious experience or spiritual experience in music, because Coltrane was very explicit in making that connection. I just wonder if you think about that as a point of connection, religion or it doesn't have to be organized religion, but a religious spiritual experience in music. How do you think about those two things? [Colleen] Well, I do. I had a double major at NYU. One was film, radio and sound, and the other one was comparative religions. And so it's something that really, really does interest me. And every religion has music and dance associated with it. It allows us to free ourselves from our own brain, our own personality, our own ego, our own individuality, and to connect with a greater spirit and something that is bigger than ourselves. And that allows us to transcend our everyday lives. And it's how people thought they could communicate with the gods. And I still think you can, whether it's gods or the universal being or whatever you want to call it. I do feel that music is the way that I've been able to tap into spirituality. [Brian] I think of music maybe as kind of a proto storytelling, right? So it's a way to create a communal understanding, right? And we think once you have literature and language, you can write those stories down, or you can tell oral stories, you can tell your histories, but there's something maybe about music that connects us all in a story that maybe strips away the individual and lets us see the reality of our communal existence, or it lets us experience maybe the reality of our communal existence. And I mean, I hear that in the way you're describing like music, maybe. [Colleen] Yeah, also dancing too. I don't think we've spoken specifically about dancing, but really dancing and sinking into your own body and into movement. It allows yourself to free yourself from your brain. And it allows you to let go of the embarrassment of movement or your body and lets you let go of pride. You become vulnerable and you give yourself over to something bigger. And it can also unite you with everybody else around you on a dance floor. There's a certain sense of solidarity. There's a unity of feeling. There's a unity of movement. And I felt that a lot with house music when house music first started. I think because house music is kind of easy to dance to, you know, this four to the floor, it's easier to say than dancing to salsa or Brazilian music where there's so many different intricate rhythms. House music, anybody can dance to it. And I think it let down a lot of people's guards and united them in that way where they just felt they could let loose and just be themselves and be part of something bigger. Also, dancing releases endorphins as well. So it enhances your mood. And that can be whether you're watching other people on a dance floor or it's you yourself dancing. It's incredible, like how good you feel dancing. And I remember during the pandemic, and I'm a DJ, you know, people don't necessarily think of me as a dancer. They see me behind the turntables. And what I missed more than DJing out was dancing. I missed the communal sense of dancing with other people on the dance floor way more than I miss playing records in front of people. [Brian] And you were nervous about going back to DJing in front of people. Why the nervousness? [Colleen] I was so nervous. I felt so vulnerable. I wasn't sure if I could still do it. I didn't know how people would respond. And I think a lot of DJs are actually a lot shyer than people think. There's some people that gravitate towards DJing because they want to be a performer. They want to be the focal point or the old rock and roll reasons, drugs and partners and, you know, whatever, sex, drugs and rock and roll. That could be one motivation for people to become DJs. But for a lot of us, it's because we're actually more introverted. We'd be the ones going to a party and everyone's talking and socializing and we'd be looking through the record collection and maybe popping a record on. I'm not very good at huge crowds and being the focal point of attention, although I've learned to do so because of what I do. But it's not that I'm very talkative in that way either. I tend to express myself best through music rather than words. And when you're DJing, you're kind of in this isolated area that sort of protects you as well. And you're able to communicate through music rather than through your own words. Going back after the pandemic, it was just really nerve wracking. Your insecurities rise up and you don't know how people respond and you get stage fright. Whereas in my own record room, it was a lot different. I couldn't see everybody. [Brian] So people can't see your record room. I'm curious to estimate, how many records do you think you have? [Colleen] About 10,000. [Brian] And by the way, I'm surprised it hasn't collapsed your home. [Colleen] I know. [Brian] It's quite heavy. [Colleen] We're on a ground floor. I have had friends that had to move records from their second, third floors because the floors started to sag. [Brian] All right, so here's a hard question. You ready? [Colleen] Yeah. [Brian] You're on a desert island. You only get one album. Which album is it? [Colleen] Ooooooh. I can't answer that. But it changes all the time. [Brian] Today. [Colleen] Today. Okay. I know what I'd pick today. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme. And I think for me, I'd have to pick music that taps into some kind of spirituality if I'm going to be listening to it over and over again. Plus he did so much in terms of technique and exploring the lexicon of music and the language of music. And so that type of music is something I can listen to over and over and over again because I can always hear something new. I don't think I could... There's so many great albums. I could say Songs in the Key of Life, of course. And it's a double album. So that'd be more fun than bringing a single album on a desert island because it's longer and there's more variety. But I think sometimes instrumental music can free your mind even more because there isn't a lyric to dictate what the narrative is. [Brian] In 2010, Colleen figured out a way to combine the communal energy of her club events with the more personal experience of listening to a favorite record. At her Classic Album Sunday events, crowds gather at a live venue to listen to a full album all the way through on a very sophisticated sound system. At these listening sessions, the story behind the making of the music is as important as the song sequence itself. [Colleen] I felt Classic Album Sundays really hearkened back more to my teenage years. Like in the 1980s, when I would get a new album, I'd go home and invite friends over and we would listen to it. And what I noticed in the 21st century, at least the early part of the 21st century, is that our listening habits had changed. And people were listening to music in very isolated situations, usually on their own, you know, personal stereos, on headphones. And that's all great. I still do that too. But it seemed we had lost the art of listening to music together in terms of pre-recorded music. I'm not talking about in a club or a live venue, but just listening to an album together. I also felt people had stopped listening to albums, that they were listening to this single there and not sitting down with a whole body of work and listening to it in the way in which the artist intended, from like A to Z, every single chapter of the book as opposed to a single chapter. People really come out transformed after they've been to a Classic Album Sunday session, especially people that have been there for the first time, that don't know what to expect. And some people thought they wouldn't like it because they had to turn their phones off and they couldn't talk throughout the album and they just had to sit there and they weren't sure what to do with themselves. Because we're not used to turning ourselves off. We're not used to turning our devices off. So it took them maybe a song or two to let down their guard. But once they did, they felt transformed. Some people cry, some people laugh at certain parts of songs they hadn't heard before. But they all came out probably with lower blood pressure levels, number one, more relaxed, just less frantic, less pulled in every different direction. [Brian] You know, I remember I read the liner notes to Gil Scott Heron's album, I'll Take Care of You. And in those liner notes, he's very explicit like this, the album was designed for you to sit down, turn off everything and just listen to it from beginning to end. And then listen to it again. And he's just almost adamant that is the way the music was designed and what it was designed for. And he talked about it as respecting the intention of the artist. Like the work I've put into this experience for you deserves attention and you will get the most out of it. You leave something on the table if you don't experience it in this way. [Colleen] I agree. I agree. And also in the order that they put it together. And, you know, it'd be like me picking up a book and say, I'm just going to read chapter three. [Brian] And then maybe chapter eight, maybe chapter eight two. [Colleen] I'll go back to two. And then maybe I won't even listen to chapter... When I said people sometimes laugh, I mean, Gil Scott Heron is a perfect example because he had such a turn of phrase. It was so freaking funny. When you're really just sitting there listening, you know, a lyric, he'll say something and you just start laughing out loud. And it just brings people together. In a sense, Classic Album Sundays probably brought a lot of different aspects of my career together. We have had a few people dance at Classic Album Sundays, I have to say. I did one with Sister Sledge and I was dancing with two of the sisters in the back while the album was playing and then everyone got up and started dancing. So it does happen every now and then. [Brian] Yeah, well, I really appreciate it. I really appreciate the time and it's fun to talk to you. I hope I get a chance to see you DJ live. [Colleen] Yes, I hope we get to meet. If I'm ever out on the West Coast, I'll let you know. Yeah. [Brian] Music isn't just sound or the words of a song. It's connection, it's emotion and energy. For DJ Cosmo, it's about creating moments where people let go and come together, whether through epic DJ sets or kicking back to enjoy a classic album. Sharing music can heal, inspire and unite. In a world that feels more divided than ever, isn't that what we all need? Know What You See is produced by PRX in collaboration with the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Our production team is Jocelyn Gonzalez, Emi Chan, Jonathan Cabral and Emmanuel Desarme from PRX Productions. For more about me or the show, go to knowwhatyousee.com , created and masterminded by Will Danger Robinson. Follow me on socials at knowwhatyouseepod or drop me a line on my website, brianlowryphd.com . Follow the show on your favorite podcast app and if you like what you hear, leave us a positive review. It really helps to get the word out. Thanks for listening.

I interviewed Martin Palm, a member of the Balearic Breakfast Family, who works with adult SIB autistic patients in Estonia, about Music's healing powers. Hi Martin! Thanks for joining us here on the Balearic Breakfast blog! Can you present to us your professional work history and the patients you work with? Hi Artur, thanks for having me! I live in Estonia and have been working in the field of mental health for some time. In 2023, I started working with adult SIB autistics. This specialized care service is new and unique in Estonia and is considered the most challenging in this field. SIB autism refers to a form of autism that involves extremely self-injurious behavior. Our team works with adults diagnosed with this form of autism, who also have pervasive developmental and speech disorders. This means we work with individuals who are, in a sense, trapped in their own bodies and minds—unable to speak or express themselves, and, due to their developmental disorder, unable to do many things that most people take for granted, such as reading, writing, or clearly communicating their needs. Since our clients have speech impairments, we cannot rely heavily on words and spoken language in our work. Instead of speech, we use pictogram symbol cards to guide and support them in their daily activities. You may have read the interview I did with our friend, Douglas noble in which he shared how his work helped elederly people, and also people with diseases like dementia.Were the listenning sessions part of the initial program or did you introduce them? How did it all start? The right and suitable music can have an incredibly powerful healing effect on a person. Music can set a positive mood for the entire day, and a person in a positive mood is much more likely to achieve better results in any aspect of life—be it work, studies, or treatment. That is why I believe that the use of music and music therapy in medicine is still highly underestimated and underutilized. I firmly believe that treating any severe illness could be much more effective if it incorporated music tailored to the individual—music that lifts their mood and helps dispel negative thoughts. Why, for example, shouldn’t hospitals have music therapists to create a personalized and supportive musical atmosphere for patients? In my opinion, this would have both a direct and indirect impact on producing better treatment outcomes. In my work, the clients’ day is structured, and it includes a time we call sensory time, which means the client engages in their favorite pastime—one that is also developmental according to their unique traits and abilities. People with autism can have sensory perceptions that develop in very different ways. One person might be less sensitive to temperature or smell but have an extremely heightened sense of hearing. Another might have weak hearing but an exceptionally sharp sense of vision. I often work with a 29-year-old client who has an extremely sensitive sense of hearing (Initially, we started these music sessions with two clients, but one preferred listening to calming nature sounds (tropical rain, bird calls, rustling trees, flowing water) instead of music.) For that client, who has heightened auditory perception, I began playing different types of music during sensory time to understand his preferences. As a person with an extraordinarily developed sense of hearing, he perceives every sound with remarkable precision—every nuance and vibration is distinguishable to him. When listening to music, he can pick up all the hidden layers, details, and undertones that subtly weave into the rhythm and melody. If he enjoyed a particular piece, he would close his eyes, immerse himself deeply in the sounds, sway to the rhythm, and sometimes vocalize his excitement—especially when the melody took an unexpected turn or included sounds he had never encountered before. In short, music took him on a journey. You briefly explained the type of music you select in the playlist you use during these sessions, saying you mainly chose instrumental music (Zimmer, Oldfield, but also Enya or Coldplay). Does the Tonality of the music come into play too or is it just about the frequencies and the purity (simplicity) of the music played (as you said your patients liked high and pure sounds)? How do you select the songs? We started the first sessions with Estonian lullabies, which worked extremely well and put the client into a meditative state where he was happy to stay. In the following months, we moved towards new compositions and styles. By that time, I had realized that instrumental music was easier for him to follow, as songs with lyrics—whose meaning he didn’t understand and which were therefore harder for him to process— were not as effective as instrumental pieces. However, tracks featuring chanting, wailing, or moaning, where the vocals functioned more like an instrument, worked exceptionally well. It became also clear that he enjoyed high notes and a pure, clean sound. During this phase, we listened to a lot of Mike Oldfield (Ommadawn, Tubular Bells), Air (Moon Safari), Deep Forest, and Hans Zimmer. One of his absolute favorites turned out to be Clocks by Coldplay. I started experimenting with different styles to see what worked and what didn’t—ranging from classical music (Chopin, Vivaldi) to modern electronic genres. Vocal house, for instance, left him indifferent, but deep house in the style of Larry Heard and Ron Trent resonated with him a lot. The same happened with drum and bass—tracks with overly intense rhythms were more disturbing than enjoyable, but Peshay mixes, with their slightly softer and gentler beats, were very much to his liking. Reggae also suited him very well due to its rhythmic structure and repetitive patterns. He also responded extremely well to tracks by Galaxy II Galaxy, Los Hermanos, and Rolando. Did you actually made your patients listen to a full Balearic Breakfast episode or to just snipets of the show (I presume the listenning sessions don't last too long)? Did you notice any reactions to Colleen's voice (as it is both friendly, calm and in a way soothing)? How do the patients react to Balearic Breakfast? Yes, Actually. At one point, in the listening process with the patient, I dedicated an entire session to listening to Manuel Göttsching’s E2-E4 album in full, and it worked absolutely perfectly. I realized that the ideal music for these sessions might be something in the Balearic style—dreamy, meditative, filled with layers, nuances, and vibrations. I initially considered moving on to José Padilla’s compilations, but then I remembered the existence of Colleen and her Balearic Breakfast. In December, we listened to a fresh episode of Balearic Breakfast, and it worked instantly. After that, I abandoned my own playlists, opened the Balearic Breakfast archive, and we started listening to the episodes from the very beginning. We try to listen to a full episode or at least as much as the session time limit (1 to 1.5 hours) allows us. It is interesting that you asked about Colleen's voice, as I thought about its effect during one of our listening sessions. Yes, there is an extremely positive and soothing effect in it, and although my client does not understand English, he does not disengage or show signs of disinterest, as the soothing sound of Colleen's voice works as a pleasant bridge between different tracks. The reception of BB has been excellent, as Colleen's music selection largely matches what suits this client. Perhaps he doesn’t fully engage with some tracks that have a lot of vocals, but most of the songs are exactly his cup of tea. Usually, the selection is really eclectic, and every song feels like a gateway to a new world for him, so he remains very attentive and focused. However, some songs work better than others. Here are some examples that he really liked: The Durutti Column's Otis with Vini Reilly's meditative guitar riffs is a really good example. Despite the intensive vocals, Quincy Jones's and Donna Summer's State of Independence with all its chanting and high-tone details worked really well (I actually think that Chrissie Hynde's 15-minute-long version of that track would work extremely well too). What also works really well for him is music with an oriental influence, like Jhalib – Mysteries of the East, where the rhythm with a different structure and the combination of flute and sitar was extremely captivating for him. Marcel – On The Beach worked really well, and so did Sueno Latino – Sueno Latino. And so on... What do you like the most about our beloved show? I love the show's eclecticism and Colleen's boundless knowledge and passion for music. The fact that Colleen is able to find so many different styles within those two hours, yet everything is extremely balanced and works in harmonious unity. I think José Padilla once said that Balearic can be any music that elevates you. And the music selection in the Balearic Breakfast show is a living proof of that.

I met Pritpal Ajimal (Swayoftheverses) for a very nice little interview. I've been deeply touched by both his graphical and musical skills. Let's chat! I thought I’d be happy with a couple of people tuning in, at least that would have been a nice start and then I could develop and become really professional by, you know, 10 episodes or something. But it’s almost been a crash course for me because I’ve had to do really well in just two episodes and the amount of attention that it’s received has been absolutely amazing and not just from friends and family, from colleagues and people in the music industry too. To get comments from people like Mr Scruff, Charlie Dark and Coco Maria is just like, wow, this is really mad. Pritpal Ajimal, Fad Magazine interview, 29/03/2022 The first Balearic Breakfast Show of 2023 started with a beautiful mix by Pritpal Ajimal (also known in our Family as swayoftheverses - click here to see his page on beehivv ). Digital Artist (designer) and Radio Show Host, Pritpal is well-known in the South Asian Arts sector. Apart from creating promotional materials, he has also been involved in photography assignments and has been working with Manasamitra since the inception of the company, designing the website, branding, and promotional materials. Listen to Pritpal's mix here during the first 2023 Balearic Breakfast show : Also, if you want to discover Pritpal's creative talent, head over to Fadmagazin's website as he talks with Radio Presenter, DJ & Writer, Maria Hanlon about his exhibition Lines #1 , which took place at Above the clouds. His mixes are available here . 1) Dear Pritpal , thank you so much for being here with us on the Balearic Breakfast Blog! 2023 was a beautiful musical year for the Balearicans, starting with your guest mix during the year's first show! Can you tell us a little bit more about your childhood? What did you listen to when growing up? My parents always had music on, either traditional sikh hymns, north Indian Film Music or Radio 1 or Radio 2, so I had a very broad range of music to listen to. At the age of 13 I got the opportunity to learn Raga Based Music when Dharambir Singh came to teach at the Leeds College of Music.   2) You have quite an incredible professional life! You are an independent and Professional Graphic Designer. Can you tell us more about it? I completed a degree in Software Development and was working as a programmer; but always felt the urge to do something creative, I had the chance to do a leaflet for south asian arts organisation and did an illustration for the amazing tabla player Pandit Sharda Sahai - head of the Benares style of tabla - as a part of the commission. My journery into graphic design started from that one job.   3) I saw some of your stunning graphic realisations, which I shared back then on the blog. How do you approach that part of your creative Journey? I needed a creative outlet that wasn't anything to do with client work, so I decided to explore the journey of creativity, of learning, that act of repetition, using introspection and understanding of each step, that then allows implementation in the next iteration; taking you from simple first steps into an understanding and mastery of much more complex skills. For the medium I decided to depict a graphical representation of concepts, phrases and movements within different ragas, using a limited palette of colours within Adobe Illustrator.   4) We also know that you're a DJ (a member of the Melomaniacs; you played at the last and previous We Out Here festival in the "Love Dancin' tent" alongside Colleen and other great DJs we know and profoundly love). How did that part of your journey start, and do you approach a DJ set the same way when working on a graphic design? I think like most people I've always made mixtapes, but with digital music files it became infinitely easier to curate a mixtape and burn it onto a CD, but I had never really thought to become a DJ. Charlie Dark was djing at a space outside the O2 Arena in North Greenwich and it was an opportunity to meet him in real life after listening to him and many other DJs on WorldwideFM throughout lockdown. Whilst I was speaking to someone else, my wife told him 'I should be on the radio', and he asked me if I'd like to try out with a station - RunDemRadio - he had set up and was running every weekend. The seed was planted there and then. I was very fortunate to meet many, many people along this journey who have helped me realise this dream of first presenting a radio show, to eventually DJing at the We Out Here festival. Having the opportunity to ask questions and observe other amazing djs craft a set together has been like going to DJ school!   5) A strange but very Balearic question for you: when creating, do you feel like "losing your mind", meaning being disconnected for a moment from the world around you? Do you feel like ideas are pouring out of your soul, or do you have a more rational way of working things out? I always use a combination of an outline of a plan, with intuition, to have a basic understanding of what I'd like to achieve and then leave the rest to the universe to guide me.   6) Lastly, what does Colleen's sentence "And remember, just be Balearic" evoke to you? To have the ability to appreciate the beauty and magic of nature, from which everything we do originates.

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 210th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on February 04th 2025. About this episode. – Following Marianne Faithfull’s passing, and shortly after returning from vacation, Colleen launched the request line last Saturday, February 1st 2025. As we shall see later in the Listening experience part of this post, today’s episode was a moving musical experience, allowing the listener to experience what the last exodus might feel like. Enhanced by the passing of Family members’ loved ones, today’s musical trip was a deep dive into sorrow and strangeness, allowing us all to find in the music an airy and floating path to the next realm… "This morning’s Balearic Breakfast is now up on my Mixcloud and includes tributes to the late Marianne Faithfull, music from Wally Badarou (I’m hosting a event with him in London on the 19th February - reserve your free tickets on the @classicalbumsundays  website), some Loft classics (London Loft party on the 9th March and our website at loftparty.org  is going live soon!), italo, soul, dub and more. Thank you to the Balearicans who joined me on the live stream this morning - it was great chatting with all of you. I’m streaming remotely next week and have an interview and mix from @gregwilson who is not only a DJ and producer extraordinaire but a great music journalist and has also edited James Hamilton’s Disco Pages. We also have a mix from British born Ibiza based DJ @SAM and we chat about her new comp Suenos de Ibiza. Until then, kick back and enjoy the music…" By the way, we also learned today that Colleen spent some time in the studio lately, working on a very special remix which she can't wait to share with us, so stay tuned 😊 Listen back to the 210th episode of Balearic Breakfast: THE PLAYLIST ( 1986 ) Marianne Faithfull – The Hawk (El Gavilan) ( 2005 ) Richard Hawley   – The Ocean ( 1997 ) Bob Marley   – Exodus (Bill Laswell Ambient Translation) ( 1995 ) Marianne Faithfull   – Love in the Afternoon ( NOL ) Cymande   – Coltrane (Crooked Man Remix) ( 1984 ) Wally Badarou   – Mambo ( 1983 ) Marianne Faithfull   – The Blue Millionaire ( 1983 ) Al Jarreau   – I Keep Callin’ ( 1976 ) Flowers   – For Real ( 1984 ) World Premiere   – Share the Night ( 2021 ) 122 North   – Drive ( 1980 ) Marianne Faithfull   – Broken English (Special 12” Single) ( 2025 ) Pellegrino & Zodyaco   – Mario ( 1992 ) Mission Control   – Outta Limits ( 2025 ) Electric Wire Hustle   – If These Are the Last Days (Eliphino Remix) ( 1992 ) Liquid Variety   – The Edge (New Dimensions) ( 1986 ) Enzo Avitabile   – Black Out ( 2024 ) Surya Botofasina (ft Radha Botofasina)   – Your Soul Is Perfect (Supreme Uniter) THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE Destiny lies there, where we, in our humility, accept receiving it... (The Lioncub) Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again! Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918 As I started working on this post, I saw this picture on Luke Una 's Instagram... Of course, it brought tears to my eyes. Death is just another part of life as they say. I wish it didn't Hurt That Much though... Whenever I hear The Hawk , I always have Richie Haven's version in mind, but also Kris Kristofferson 's music video (he initially composed the song)... The Hawk is about transmission, about hope, about letting things go and moving forward... What else can we do in the face of adversity... There's a lot of it in our world today, violence almost everywhere, death on every side of our stories, less and less joy... We got to have peace one day soon... And The Hawk brings that hope, even if it does so with an unbearable amount of sadness... Today's episode is exactly about that peculiar mood The Hawk presented: a long, somewhat uncertain and worried yet constant march in an undisclosed space towards a heavenly destination... All the songs have that incredible eerie feeling, letting you go, unaware, to a place you know nothing about. This feeling is perfectly represented in the first 44 minutes of the show, where the ambience is calm, yet uncertain as with Richard Hawley's The Ocean which seems to be about " returning to a place of familiarity and comfort with someone you’ve shared a wealth of experiences and feelings with ". Colleen's ability to pick up the songs dealing with the same subject (even if on separate intellectual levels) is just mindblowing. I mean, starting the show with these two purely sets the message clear: yes, you'll lose me one day, but you'll have to keep moving on, and you'll remember the places where we were happy. I'll always be there, with you . After all, we don't know if the man in the song speaks to a real woman... it may just be his imagination.... you see me coming, don't you...? In any case, the tone is perfectly set here. And there's more to come. Colleen's delicate mixing helps us see the path, gently leading us to Bob Marley's Exodus ( btw, thanks to davstod for recomenting David Rodigan's biography! ). If you're not walking towards heaven with us right now you'll never do it again in your entire life, this I can tell you. As Bob Marley shared it in his own words "After the shooting, me never want to just think about shooting,” Marley told Vivien Goldman of Sounds. “So me just ease up me mind and go in a different bag. What me stand for me always stand for. Jah [God] is my strength.” " The album is Marley’s most political and religious work but it also features beautiful, vivacious and downright funky and sexy jams. As a committed Rastafarian, Marley would often quote from The Bible, so it was no surprise that he chose to name his album after The Old Testament’s second book which portrays the exodus of the Israelites. However, there is another reason for the title choice as ‘Exodus’ also portrays a man experiencing his own personal exodus " ( Classic Album Sundays ). If you listen closely to today's episode, you will undoubtedly share with me the feelings I felt, and the following song in Colleen's mix, Marianne Faithfull's Love in the Afternoon keeps the pace to an unmatched perfection... We clearly feel the "marching force", we still have the lost feeling, we're searching for something, is this path the right one, is a secret love affair meaning to last... At this point of the show, we could almost refer here to those of us believing secretly in god without speaking about it openly... Once again, you see me coming, don't you...? After all, what do you think about when transitioning to the next realm?... These thoughts are so aligned with Marianne Faithfull's dark-sounding, and oh so lost album, A secret Life ... With Cymande's Coltrane , an open-hearted tribute to the Jazz Saxophonist, and generally speaking to music, the message is now plain to see. Think about what I Just wrote earlier, and also to a few of older posts where I explained how Colleen constructs the show, you might feel we reached here a transitioning point as Wally Badarou's Mambo starts... Think about it and try to see why... 😉 With Marianne Faithfull's The Blue Millionaire , a strange song, undefined, the music still keeps us moving forward... The "marching feeling" that accompanies us throughout the show can be explained by Colleen's choice to put Marianne Faithfull's songs along with the other songs she selected for this episode, creating a beautiful musical unity with Colleen always taking great care of the cohesivity of the whole mix. There's an intention here... (even if unconscious) confirmed by the first hour's last two tracks which are I Keep Callin ’ and Flowers' For Real and also by the fact that a song like Broken English has been inspired by Terrorism, and you know how much, according to some of these extremists, these barbarian acts are supposedly linked to Faith... Another way of seeing today's theme, don't you think?... The second hour of today's episode is also all bout this journey, with Colleen's mixing being perfect and transmitting the phases of the journey like it was a painting... I mean, listen to what she does during the mini mix ( Outta Limits / If These Are the Last Days (Eliphino Remix) / The Edge (New Dimensions) / Black Out ), it's astounding and this one wins the Wow Moment of today's episode! We were all on our knees while listening to it, perfection on our marching journey! Do I need to say more as the last song comes onto your mental screen? Your Soul Is Perfect ... “The question of our individual purpose as we traverse on Earth is often one we are scared to meet. The intention of this song is to acknowledge the truth about us all- we are beautiful for the beings that we are, with a Light that can never be extinguished. Having courage to be content and happy is no small feat when mental health is involved… The Supreme Uniter is not only a nod to this, but to Meghan Stabile as she dances to this one from stars back to down to us. All of this is only possible due to Magnificent Shakti of Swamini Turiyasangitananda.” (Surya Botofasina) COLLEEN'S PRESENTATION Marianne Faithfull with El Galivan , arranged and accompanied by Mark Isham. And she recorded this song in 1985 for the film Trouble in Mind , directed by Alan Rudolph. And it's a beautiful song, and I'm kind of picturing her as an El Galivan, or a hawk. And I have this image of her flying off into the sunset as she transitions into the next realm after a life filled with beauty, joy, and a lot of pain and suffering as well. She was an incredibly resilient person, having been on top of the world in the 1960s with a successful recording career, acting in several films. She was also a style icon and Mick Jagger's girlfriend. But her life soon spiraled out of control when she became addicted to heroin. And she also ended up homeless and also tragically without custody of her son. But after a successful comeback in the late 1970s, she found a new voice, both literally as she suffered from a severe bout of laryngitis and her voice changed forever. But she also found a new voice figuratively, and that she found and wrote songs that suited her next stage of life. Torch songs, chanson, also she kind of dipped into the kind of whole new wave sound. And she also acted on television and did about 20 films. She also wrote an autobiography in the mid-1990s . And when it came out, I interviewed her for a radio show I was hosting at the time. And we did an interview at her friend's apartment. I think it was on Fifth Avenue. It was very posh, very flash. But she was delightful. And I was just absolutely mesmerized as a young 20-something-year-old woman. What a life. Thank you to Rick Shearman and David Puzzi for that request. And we'll have some more Marianne later in the show. Good morning, Balearicans. I'm Colleen Cosmo Murphy, hosting your weekly Balearic Breakfast. And greetings to all over on my MixCloud Live. It's great to be back hosting the show live from the record room, although we had a great two weeks off in Lanzarote, which is just such a weird and wonderful place. You have the artwork of Cesar Manrique, like in roundabouts. And it's dotted around the island, this volcanic, rocky, black-sanded island that sometimes looks like a moonscape. It's like 80 miles, I think, west of the Western Sahara. It's just really different. And I absolutely love it. And thank you to our special guests, Phil Meissen and Tiger Balm and our Balearic Breakfast family members, Christine DeSouza and David Stoddard, for the mixes they contributed while I was away. I know you all love them. I'm away again next week, so I have Greg Wilson and Sam from Ibiza taking over the reins while I stream remotely. But on today's show, we have mainly your requests and some new tunes. And this next one is quite a poignant one for me, as it's a song and an album I listened to over and over again when my father was dying about 15 years ago. And he lived near the ocean in North Carolina. And every day I would drive his truck to the hospital and I would play this song. Matt Raistrick requested this from the classic album, Cole's Corner, released 20 years ago. This is Sheffield's Richard Hawley with The Ocean . A request from Christine D'Souza for Love in the Afternoon . From Marianne Faithfull's 1995 LP, A Secret Life , which mainly featured songs she had written or co-written rather than covers. And it was a collaboration with American composer Angelo Battalamenti after his work on Twin Peaks. And it was influenced more by Faithfull's passion for classical music. And it was released just after her biography came out. And that's when I had the chance to meet and interview her. And you got the sense that the book was both a relief, but also a weight and that now her personal life was public, which is why I love the name of the album, A Secret Life . And we'll have some more Marianne Faithfull later in the show. Now, this Thursday would have been the 80th birthday of Bob Marley. And it's not an exaggeration to say that he single handedly brought reggae to new heights around the world. I remember when I was a teenager and in university, everybody had the Legend compilation , including myself. It was just one of those records you have like Dark Side of the Moon or What's Going On. And it's really incredible how Marley globally popularized Jamaican music and sent many people digging deeper into the sounds from that island. We heard Bill Laswell's fabulous ambient translation of Bob Marley's Exodus from the 1997 LP Dreams of Freedom , which featured ambient dub reworks of Marley's songs. And that must have been a lot of fun in the studio and sending that one out to A.J. Elliott. And ahead of that, a request from Matt Raystrick for Richard Hawley's The Ocean . And I'm sending that out to my late father, Roger Murphy, who was a boat captain, a scuba diver and an amazing swimmer and just absolutely loved the ocean. And he gave me my love for the ocean as well. Now, some of you may have seen the recent documentary Getting It Back , the story of Cymande, the British funk band that had been had a lot more success, actually, in America, switched around with their debut album, which featured some great tracks, including Bra and Dove. Well, they are back with a new album and it's great. It's called Renascence and it's really a spiritual and sonic successor to their 70s output. And it also features guests Celeste and Jazzy B. Ana Sancho in Barcelona asked for a cut from the new LP, but I was just sent a new remix by Crooked Man and it's an advanced copy as well. So I wanted to share it with you. So I hope you don't mind, Ana, that I'm taking some creative license. Here is Simon Bay with the Crooked Man remix of Coltrane . Blue Millionaire from Marianne Faithfull's ninth studio album, A Child's Adventure , released in 1983 on Island Records. And it features some of the amazing talent that was featured on loads of records from that era on Island Records. Mikey Chung on guitar, Barry Reynolds , who also wrote and collaborated with Grace Jones when she was on Island, and also Wally Batteru, who co-wrote and produced that song and a few others on the album. And they were all, of course, part of the Compass Point All Stars, a group kind of put together, a session group kind of really put together by Chris Blackwell for the Compass Point Studios in Nassau in the Bahamas. So some people on the chat were saying, oh, that sounds like Talking Heads or Tom Tom Club. Yeah, because it's some of the same crew of musicians there. But that one was co-written and produced by Wally Badarou , who was the song before. Now, perhaps when the previous song started, you may have thought it was Daydreaming by Massive Attack. Well, that's because they sampled it. We heard Mambo by French African musician, songwriter, producer and all-around amazing talent, Wally Badarou . And that's from his 1984 LP Echoes . And that also has Chief Inspector on it as well. That's a balearic classic. Badarou was also a de facto member of Level 42 all throughout the 1980s. He collaborated with and produced Marianne Faithfull, Fela Kuti and Salif Keita. And he was a central figure and part of the Island Records Compass Point All-Stars. He performed on records by Grace Jones, Talking Heads, Mick Jagger, Gwen Guthrie, Robert Palmer, Sly and Robbie, amongst many others. He also scored music for films, including Kiss of the Spider Woman and more recently, the award-winning documentary, Tahomee. And he will be my special guest for our next Classic Album Sunday's event , being held at the KEF Music Lounge in London on Wednesday, the 19th of February. We will explore his illustrious career and we'll have an in-depth look and listen to Echoes. Tickets are free and they've just gone up on the Classic Album Sunday's website. So be quick. And for those on the chat on the Mixcloud Livestream right now, I have put the link into the comments. So there are limited tickets. So please be quick with that. All right, let's slip into something smooth and soulful. And I'm loving this request from our friend Victor Olteanu in Romania. And funny as it's from the same early 80s era as the last two songs I just played, it's by the late American singer-songwriter Al Jarreau , who had a massive album in 1981, Breaking Away . And it spent two years on the Billboard album charts and it hit number one on the jazz and R&B charts. So how does one follow that up? Well, with another hit record. Two years later, he released Jarreau and it did rather well as it became his third consecutive number-one LP on the jazz charts and reached high numbers on the R&B and album charts, too. This is the last cut on the album. It's Al Jarreau with I Keep Calling. Everyone on the chat's loving this one. Going back, World Premiere with Share the Night and it's some more smooth soul and it's kind of a studio assemblage like the Act Change , but this time put together by songwriter-producer Douglas Pittman under the name World Premiere. And they put out a couple of singles on EZ Street Records and we just heard Share the Night , co-produced by the late New York City DJ Jonathan Fearing and requested by Peter Jongenil. I had about a rare soul tune that I sadly used to only have on bootleg, but I sadly think the one I just played is on bootleg. I think it sounds worse. So sad. Sorry. But it's had the vinyl reissue. It's it doesn't sound wonderful, but it's such a great song. And it's called Flowers, which is really Richard Flowers. He only released two singles in 1976 on the label L.A. Expressio, and we heard the song for real. I just love that one. And starting it all off with Al Jarreau , I Keep Callin' as requested by Victor Olteanu. All right, let's send some love to our friends in Canada. Our friend Karl Banitov in Montreal made this next request for Quebec Act 122 North , which was assembled by Danny Provencher , who is also in the band Under the Lights . 122 North released one EP called Night Drive back in 2021, and this is the original version of Drive on Balearic Breakfast. Italian jazz funk producer Pellegrino and his band Zodiaco , they have a new album out and the whole thing is worth a listen. It's called Koine and Leonardo Lau requested that song, Mario. Absolutely love it. In fact, I don't think Pellegrino and Zodiaco put out a bad record. So head on over to their bandcamp and their latest is also out on vinyl as well. Ahead of that, we heard the title track from Marianne Faithfull's 1979 comeback album, and I'm sending that one out to Gemma Bagnell and Artur in Paris, who also made additional Faithfull requests. And after reaching the depths that she probably never thought was imaginable, drug addiction, homelessness, Faithfull tried to stage a comeback in 1976 with an album called Dream in My Dreams , but it didn't really work out. And then Chris Blackwell signed her to Island Records and really encouraged her to forge a new sound, a more modern sound. He brought in people like Steve Winwood and kind of really transformed her career much in the way that he helped transform Bob Marley's career, who we played earlier, encouraging him to fuse more rock and pop sounds. In any case, it worked. Broken English was the album that redefined Faithfull as an edgy, contemporary chanteuse, and it's a great record. And Broken English is also our Classic Album Sunday's album of the month for our online album club , which is open to Classic Album Sunday's Patreon members . And the album club this month will be held on Tuesday, the 25th of February on Zoom. And if you want to find out more about it, head over to the Classic Album Sunday's website and rest in paradise, Marianne Faithfull. OK, this next one is an old Loft classic and one of the records that I heard my friend David Mancuso play quite a bit when I started going to the Loft in 1992. The Loft anniversary is coming up on the 14th of February and we will be doing a Loft special as we do every year on Balearic Breakfast in a couple of weeks. And the London Loft will be launching our new website this month as well and be at Loftparty.org and it will feature a complete interview with David that has never before been published in its entirety. And of course, we also have our next Loft Party in London on the 9th of March . If you would like to join our mailing list, you'll be able to do so on the new website, but you can also message me on the socials until then. This was requested by Ben Oliver, who loves the introduction by Timothy Leary. This is Mission Control with the Shelter Mix of Outta Limits . Oh, caught me unawares. I love that one. Kevin Fleming requested it a few weeks ago and I just thought I got to get this on vinyl. So I did. And that's what you just heard. It's by Neapolitan saxophonist and songwriter Enzo Avitabile , who collaborated with Pino Daniele, James Brown, Afrika Bambaataa, Randy Crawford, Tina Turner, amongst others. And we just heard the club mix of his 1986 single Blackout , the original of which is on his LP SOS Brothers . And you can file that with Pino Daniele, I Know I'm On My Way , or Stop Bajon by Tulio Piscopo. I think it has that same kind of feel on that one. Ahead of that, another Loft classic, also from 1992. I was just I just bought it recently, actually just found a new copy. Liquid Variety , who is JT Irish, Joey Campbell and Joey Gold with The Edge (New Dimensions). It came out in Kaleidoscope and it followed their single The Best Part of the Trip . So I think you know what they're talking about over there. And I just love that one. And again, in a couple of weeks, we'll be doing our Loft anniversary special here on Balearic Breakfast and our London Loft parties on the 9th of March. If you want to join us, you can message me. And we started before that with New Zealand's Electric Wire Hustle , who have released three albums and the original of the song we heard, If These Are the Last Days , can be found on their 2014 LP, Love Can Prevail . We heard the Elefino remix of If These Are the Last Days, quite a relevant title for these challenging times and requested by our friend Barry Zare in Washington, D.C. And I'll be in Washington, D.C. next week, playing at 618 D.C. next Friday on Valentine's Day, the 14th of February . Admittedly, it will be a bit strange to be there at this time, but I'm looking forward to meeting some listeners like Barry and some old friends. And also, I think it's my first gig since New Year's Eve, so I'm ready for you. I'm ready to play. I'm coming over and I'm ready to play some records and really looking forward to that. So as I said, I will be in the States. I'll be streaming next week remotely. So I have two guest mixes. I have one from Greg Wilson . I'll also be talking with him about James Hamilton, who is the late British disco and soul DJ who had a column in Record Mirror from 1975 to 82. And Greg has just edited James Hamilton's disco pages and compiles all of his columns from the Record Mirror. So that will be really interesting. And we also have an interview and mix with DJ S/a/m from Ibiza, and she has a new compilation coming out called Sueños de Ibiza . And I thought you would like a mix like that as well. Well, this is Colleen Cosmo Murphy signing off another edition of Balearic Breakfast. But before I go, I'm going to leave you with a beautiful request by Rick Van Veen in the Netherlands. It's by keyboardist and composer Surya Botafossina , who was taught in the tradition of Alice Coltrane by Swamini Turiya Sangitananda herself on her ashram in California, which is where he grew up. He also recently toured with Andre 3000 . So you may have seen him on stage. Botafossina creates deep listening, spiritual jazz and meditative sounds and is devoted to one love, family and music. I guess that's what we're devoted to here on Balearic Breakfast as well. And this song is from the album Ashram Sun , released last year as a follow up to his acclaimed debut, Everyone's Children . And this one features Radja Botafossina . It's a beautiful, beautiful song and it's called Your Soul is Perfect , Supreme Uniter. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next week.

The Balearic Breakfast blog is the place where you meet Talented Musicians and Djs. Scott Ferguson is undoubtely one of them! Let's discover his journey! 1) Thank you so much for joining us here Scott! Can you take us back to your first years? How did you start your musical journey, who were the artists/DJs who influenced you? Thanks for having me Artur! My musical journey started back in the '70s in Glasgow and The Borders, where I grew up, thanks to my three older brothers, who were big into music. I’d always be digging through their vinyl collections. My oldest brother bought me a six-pack of Madness picture-disc 7” records for my birthday—I couldn’t have been any more than 7, and that probably cemented my lifelong obsession with vinyl. Back then, I loved the sounds of the 2Tone scene—The Specials, The Selecter, and The Beat—before moving on to bands like The Jam and Secret Affair. The first taste of dance music that grabbed me came from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, followed by Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock . That track completely blew my mind and hooked me on the sounds of electronic music. Around that time, a friend’s cousin would bring us tapes from Tim Westwood’s Kiss FM show, which introduced us to the emerging breakdance and electro scene. My mates and I were obsessed—we got into breakdancing, bought records, and were all into music in a big way. My mate Richie was the first DJ in our ‘crew’; I still call him Richie Fresh today. When I was 18 and living in London, I saw my friend Richard Bell DJ for the first time—I knew I wanted to do that. He was so skilled technically and creatively, and a pretty big influence. I had already started collecting records seriously and going to clubs in London, listening to DJs like Andrew Weatherall, Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker, and Trevor Fung. I then moved back up to Scotland, where the likes of DJ Harri and Stuart & Orde from the Sub Club continued to provide me with a priceless musical education. I played my first gig in 1990, and by 1991, I was a resident DJ at the Citrus Club in Edinburgh and other venues across the city. I worked at the legendary Bomba Records in Glasgow, which connected me with other DJs and producers, sparking collaborations and studio experiments. It was at Bomba that I met Colin Gate of Deep sensation, and together, we opened Defunkt Records, also in Glasgow. My first studio session was with my mate Gordon Smith, aka Blackbeard, in 1997. We made a Balearic tune and recorded it at Can Can Studios. I’ve been making music ever since. 2) Colleen played your track "Beats from the far east" during Balearic Breakfast, can you tell us more about the way you composed that song and what you wanted to convey? Beats from the Far East evolved from an ambient track I’d previously produced and released called Dreams From The Far East which was played on Radio 6 and featured on Nightmares on Wax’s Cover Mix for Mixmag magazine a few years back. Sometimes it happens like that—a tune doesn’t just begin and end with itself. If I sense that there’s ‘more legs’in a track, that’s what I like to do: develop it further and bring a new dimension, like a new episode to a story. In the case of BFTFE, I had a clear vision of the Balearic and trip-hop tinged sound I wanted to create while retaining the personality and unique features of the original track. I added some mid-tempo beats and keyboard riffs to the existing ambient elements, blending those chilled vibes with a rhythmic energy to make it feel fresh and dynamic. Small musical changes, but they elevated the tune to something pretty special. I am very proud of it, it’s definitely one of my favourite works, and I’m happy it’s been so well received. 3) Generally speaking, what drives your imagination? Where does the music come from and how do you work when composing? Do you try to draw a general musical line and then perfect it or do you work, on the contrary, bits by bits? My general love of music drives everything. I’m constantly listening to different genres and I find inspiration everywhere. After over 20 years of making music, I’ve got seriously loads of unfinished musical projects sitting on my computer and ideas on paper too. I am always jotting ideas down in my diary so I don’t lose them—it happens more often than I’d like these days! On the whole, my tracks come together in pieces, I start, but then I will take a break and sit on it for a while and come back with a fresh ear, then tweak it until it feels right—there’s always something to return to. Some releases are projects that have been completed over many years. Once there’s a seed of an idea my process starts with sample hunting, and I’ve got a big record and digital music collection so there’s thousands of samples to work with. A track often begins with a few loops, then I layer in beats, vocals, and other elements bit by bit. 4) How do you approach your DJ sets? Do you prepare them in any way or do you rely on the spur of the moment, the vibe you feel when being right there with the dancers? I prepare in as much as I’ll have a rough idea of what I’m bringing to a gig, but it’s all very spontaneous. It’s always about feeding off the crowd, which comes from experience and plain old practice. It’s like give-and-take between yourself as the DJ and the crowd. I’m there to take them on a journey, but they guide the story too. I’ve been DJing for a long time, and mostly that’s meant DJing on vinyl as well as CDs. I was a very late adopter of the digital way and resisted it where I could. But times change, and you evolve your methods. Back in the day, you’d turn up with a box of maybe 100 records. If you ran out of music, you’d play the B-sides or dig deeper into your crate. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t—that was just part of the game. Now, with thousands of tracks at your fingertips, it’s all about being organised, making smart selections and memory. 5) I read in another interview that you suffered a stroke. I am so sorry to hear about this. How are you doing today? Can you share with us a few of your next musical moves for 2025? Thank you for asking. That’s right, yes, I had a serious stroke in 2022 that nearly took my life. I was very lucky, my wife was with me and got help very quickly which is key with a stroke. It’s been a tough recovery, and I’m still dealing with the effects of my brain damage, I have physical difficulties with my left side, some sight and spatial awareness issues. Day-to-day this shows itself in various ways relating to how the brain uses planning and memory. Sadly, one of the ways this has affected me and I still really struggle with is mixing records, trying to get that coordination working together in my brain just doesn’t quite work yet, and that breaks my heart. Over the past two years, however, I’ve overcome many hurdles and I make improvements all the time, so I keep pushing forward. Recovery never stops, and the human brain is pretty amazing, so you never know how much things can improve with time and effort. I’m hoping for 2025 to continue on the strong momentum of the last few years with my production (all of my tracks are availiable on my Bandcamp ). I have a four-track EP — Robot84 Promo vol 5 — coming out on vinyl via Juno Records in February, and the response so far has been brilliant. I’m also releasing a Balearic-fuelled EP on the Magic Wand Special Editions series ; I’m very excited about this one. I’ll continue to put digital releases on Bandcamp, and I’ve started work on Robot84 Promo 6 , which is taking great shape. Beyond that, I’m wondering and hoping 2025 might be the year I DJ again, which would really make it a year to remember. Thank you so much Scott. You are in our thoughts and I'm sure we'll meet all on a dancefloor soon. Take Care and thank you for the Music!!

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 205th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on December 24th 2024. About this episode. – No request line for this episode and no "Best of 2024" either, but a show which is the closest one to Christmas we ever had since this beautiful adventure started in 2019. 2024 has been a beautiful year for Balearic Breakfast as Colleen streamed 46 shows all in all (2021 broke all the records back then with 51 streamed shows)! So Congratulations dear Captain for taking the helm so firmly! You know how much we all love you. I also wanted to thank personally every artist who answered my humble questions and who took part to the blog, not forgetting every member who did the written interviews with me here! You can't imagine how much hapiness this brings me, this place is our safe harbor, I do mu utmost to make everyone happy! And I am ready for 2025... 😍 As far as this episode is concerned, it is a Soulful, Funky and uplifting musical moment! "Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy Kwanza, a peaceful Winter Solstice and overall seasons greetings. Thank you for your continued support of my weekly Balearic Breakfast ‘radio’ show hosted on my Mixcloud Live on Tuesday mornings and today’s show is now archived on my Mixcloud at https://tinyurl.com/mutkat2y The BB family has grown heaps since the show started over four years ago and together we become stronger and stronger. Thank you for supporting Balearric Breakfast, my Cosmodelica remixes and for joining me on discerning dance floors across the planet. I wouldn’t be able to lead a life in music without your support and am truly thankful for each and every one of you. I will not broadast on New Year’s Eve although I will be DJing that night over at @fever105 Midnight Funk New Year’s Eve shindig at Lafayette in Kings Cross in London alongside DJs Dimitri from Paris, Bill Brewster and more. And I’m also squeezing in a trip to Oslo to play at the club @jaegeroslo on the 28th December (they just did a lovely interview with me at https://jaegeroslo.no/obsessions-an-interview-with.../  ). But I will be back on the airwaves on Tuesday, the 7th January 2025. Wishing you peace, health, happiness and great music in 2025 and please enjoy music from… Wah Wah 45s  Scott Ferguson   DJ Terry Hunter   Kerri Chandler   Danny Krivit   Flamingo Pier   Soundway Records   Salsoul Records   Rush Hour  and more..." To everyone... Merry Christmas... Listen back to the 205th episode of Balearic Breakfast: PLAYLIST ( 2003 ) Alison Crockett – Like Rain ( 2000 ) Tabla Beat Science  – Magnetic ( 2025 ) Robot 84  – Beats From the Far East ( 1975 ) Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes (ft Sharon Paige) – You Know How to Love Me So Good ( 2017 ) Jeff Silna  – Its Always Something With You ( 1980 ) Common Sense  – Voices (Instrumental) ( 2024 ) Terry Hunter (ft Raheem DeVaughn)  – Favorite Thing to Do (Mr K Edit) ( 2024 ) Lawne  – Beta Pan ( 2024 ) Maya Blandy  – It’s in You (Puerto Montt City Orchestra) ( NOL ) Erwin Bouterse  – Voglia Disco Party (Belabouche Reshape) ( 2024 ) Phazed Groove  – Sao Paolo ( 1999 ) The Charlie Rouse Band  – Waiting on the Corner ( 2024 ) Orchestre Poly-Rythmo  – Zo Tche Kpo Do Te (Jose Marquez Remix) ( TBR 2025 ) Phenomenal Handclap Band  – Like A Constellation ( 2021 ) Flamingo Pier  – Cosmic Sunset ( 1998 ) Kerri Chandler / The System  – You're In My System ( 1981 ) Salsoul Orchestra ft Jocelyn Brown  – You're All I Want for Christmas ( 2008 ) Alfredo de la Fé & The Latin Jazz Ensemble  – My Favorite Things’ (Live) COLLEEN'S NEWS Colleen will be featured in these forthcoming events: 28th December: Romjulsfestivalen 31st December: Fever105's Midnight Funk 15th February 2025: Horse Meet Disco 8th March 2025: La Discothèque - Albert Hall Mnachester 3rd May 2025: Queen's Park Spring Weekender '25 Also, a few days ago, Colleen shared on her socials she participated to the " Dust and Grooves " book, Vol. 2, stating : "I’ve often thought about why I began collecting records as a young teenager, especially as it wasn’t the norm for adolescent girls in suburban America in the 70’s and 80’s. I suppose the main reason is quite pragmatic in that the only way I could hear the music that I loved was either waiting for it to come onto the radio or owning a physical copy. It is strange to think about, as music is now so ubiquitous and nearly any song be accessed nearly anywhere at anytime. But back then, you had to make it a mission to track down your favourite tunes and to discover new ones. Nuggets and Planet Records in Boston’s Kenmore Square were two of my favourite places to potter around, flicking through the bins, discovering old records by my favourite artists or a checking out a band I just heard Oedipus play on his Sunday night radio show ‘Nocturnal Emissions’ on WBCN (that’s where I first heard Brian Eno - the song was ‘Baby’s On Fire). I had very open ears and surprised the clerk at Nuggets when I bought the record he was playing in the shop - Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s 1965 masterpiece ‘Rip, Rig and Panic’ (such a great name for an album and apparently Neneh Cherry and co agreed :). When you found a record that you loved or would grow to love, it felt like Christmas morning. Colleen in her Record Room with the Chuck Maglione record she's been given by David Mancuso The other big change is that even more women have become serious record collectors and gone are the days i which a record shop would have a placard on a bench that said ‘girlfriends sit here’ (yes, I spotted that at an old record shop in New York City’s East Village now gone). And the new Dust & Grooves Volume 2 features many of us along with a host of diggers into a spectrum of sounds. This afternoon, I’ll be putting on an album and reading the many stories and salivating at the record shelves. Some habits never die. " COLLEEN'S PRESENTATION I Alison Crockett with Like Rain from her 2003 LP, Becoming a Woman , and that was also released as a single on Wah wah 45s which is Dom Servini 's label which celebrated its 25th anniversary this past year. And I was delighted when Matt Raystrick requested this song as I love Alison. I first met her when she was singing for my friend King Britt's Silk 130 album, and I fell in love with her voice. So when Tommy Musto asked me to produce a song for his Suburban Records label back in like the late 90s, I roped in Alison to sing on the first song I ever wrote and produced, so she really holds a really special place in my heart. Good morning, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa and all around season's greetings. I'm Colleen Cosmo Murphy hosting your Balearic Breakfast until high noon, and hello to the BB family joining me in the chat group for the live stream, and it's wonderful to be together, and thank you for your continued support in 2024. Now I won't be broadcasting on New Year's Eve, although I will be DJing that night for Fever 105's Midnight Funk New Year's Eve Shindig at Lafayette in King's Cross in London, and it's alongside DJs Dimitri from Paris, Bill Brewster, Pauly Ritmo and more, and I'm also squeezing in a trip to Oslo to play at the club Jaeger on the 28th of December, but I'm taking New Year's Eve off from Balearic Breakfast, so this is officially the last show of the year. And you may wonder why I'm not doing a countdown of my favorite tunes of 2024, and the reason is over the years I've decided I'm generally not really into charts and top tens and listing my favorite tunes or albums, as I just can't include everything that I really want to, and I inevitably forget things, and of course my own tastes are really ever-shifting and ever-evolving plus there's still so much more music to get to in 2024, so I don't really want to do a review of the past. So there you go no best ofs for me anymore, instead I'm catching up on some requests, some new tunes, and some older songs that deserve some attention like this next one by Tabla Beat Science which is the late tabla player Zakir Hussain and producer and bassist Bill Laswell 's group, and they founded it together in 1999. Sway of the Verses, or Pritpal Ajimal , made this request in light of the amazing Zakir Hussain who recently passed to the next realm, he called Hussain "a musician that's known as one of the greatest Indian classical musicians of his generation, and someone that traversed different genres with ease collaborating with some amazing musicians outside the classical world" . Now, Hussain was recognized as one of the greatest ever tabla players, and he was also a percussionist composer producer and actor and he brought classical Indian music to the world through various collaborations with artists like John McLaughlin , The Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart , Jan Garbarek , and Pharoah Sanders . Here he is with his collaboration with Bill Laswell as Tabla Beat Science with Magnetic . II Jeff Silna with It's Always Something With You , and it was originally only released on a promotional radio compilation recently reissued by French reissue label Favorite Recordings. Actually, they reissued it first in 2017 and have again, and it can be found on their Bandcamp, and it looks like that's the only release by Jeff Silna; he recorded it at TK Studios in Miami, and that label at the time were pumping out disco hits and forging the Miami sound, but that one obviously has a more AOR kind of yacht rock feel to it. Really love that. Ahead of that the Gamble and Huff penned and produced You Know How to Love Me So Good by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes , featuring the gorgeous soulful vocals of Philadelphia natives Teddy Pendergrass and Sharon Paige , and it's featured on the 1975 album Wake Up Everybody , such a great album, and that was requested by Dominic Mesmer. And if like me you're catching up on movies and docs and box sets over the holidays, I urge you to check out the Teddy Pendergrass documentary If you don't know me , what a voice and what a life. Ahead of that we heard Beats from the Far Eas t by Robot 84 . I've been playing his re-edits and reworks quite a lot over the last few years, and he's very creative with them, assembling many different parts into a really unique groove. The one we just heard Beats from the Far East is now out on a vinyl EP with a more up-tempo track called Let's Do It on the flip. Okay, our friend Simon Ellis recently requested Voices Inside My Head by the Police, but Simon, I hope you don't mind, I've taken a bit of creative license, a bit of creative liberty, and rather than play the police version, I'm playing the cover by Common Sense , and I'm actually gonna do the instrumental as well. Begon Cekic was born in Serbia Montenegro and he moved to Brooklyn when he was 17 years old, and he worked in construction during the disco boom. He decided to capitalize upon it by setting up a record store and then a label on which he produced what were perhaps some of the early examples of dance tracks made up of loops and reworked riffs and and hooks from earlier well known hits, along with the help of mixer DJ T Scott and keyboardist Fred Tsar from 1980. This is Common Sense with the instrumental version of Voices. III Erwin Bouterse Voglia Disco Party , and that's from the Kindred Spirits compilation. Kindred Spirits they released Suriname compilation , and with an estimate of half a million inhabitants in Suriname it has a lively music scene, although relatively unknown, but it has a very strong influence on the Netherlands, where many of these Suriname people live, and the music from Suriname is mainly known for its Kaseiko which evolved out of traditional koina music and soul music. But the Surinamese have also been active in other genres, such as pop, funk, and jazz, and just love that one Voglia Disco Party by Erwin Bouterse, and that was a reshape by Italian producer Belabouche . Loving that one. Ahead of that we had the Portuguese and British singer, her name is Maya Blandy with in It's in you (sorry about that), she released her debut album Stardust earlier this year, and it was co-written and produced by Jake Wehrry of the Herbalizer, but the song we heard is more recent. I'm trying to find out a bit more about it in terms of a release, but it's a mix by Puerto Montt City Orchestra and has a real soulful disco vibe on that one, kind of stepping out of their usual ballearic sound. Ahead of that Lawne , which are self-confessed music nerds like them already Joe Nicklin and Joe Martin. They got together in 2019 to forge a sound that melds dub, electronics, hip-hop, psych, jazz, post-punk, Afrobeat, all things that I love, and it's no wonder that I love their debut album Attic which came out on Wawa 45s last year, and the whole LP is great. Matt Raistrick over on the chat group agrees it's really varied; and I've been playing it a lot while I was doing my end of year accounts. How lovely, it really kept me going. We heard Bait Up Pan again from Lawne's debut Attic , and ahead of that we heard the Chicago DJ and producer and label owner, Terry Hunter and the Grammy-nominated Washington DC soul singer Raheem DeVaughn with Favorite Thing to Do . It came out last year on Mirabal Recordings but I played the Danny Krivitt edit. Okay this next one I don't really know too much about, but it really sounded great when I played it in New York City at the Subculture NYC party in which Francois K and I played back-to-back, so I wanted to share this one with you on the show. It's called Phazed Groove with Sao Paolo on Tropical Disco on Balearic Breakfast. IV Zo Tche Kpo Do Te by Orchestre Poli Ritmo the Jose Marquez remix. And that's from the first of a two-part series on Canopy Records documenting the work of the Beninois supergroup T.P. Orchestre Poli Ritmo. They were responsible for an astonishing multitude of records numbering well over 250 releases, and while the group underwent numerous personnel changes over the course of their 40-plus years. The founder, composer, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Clément Melomé remained the constant, and he's the singer on the song we just heard. It's sung in phone by the band leader, and it translates as " my fire will not go out" , and we heard the remix by Los Angeles DJ and producer Jose Marquez. Ahead of that we had the late American saxophonist and flautist and Thelonious Monk collaborator Charlie Rouse with his Charlie Rouse Band with Waiting on the Corner , and it's from the Charlie Rouse Band's only LP Cinnamon Flower released in 1977. Although he released many many albums from the late 1950s through to the late 1980s as band leader, and before his passing, I believe it was 1988 . And I have to thank another saxophonist for that one Scott Towers from Fat Freddy's Drop. They were just touring loads of sellout shows in Europe and he came over and had to offload some of the records that he bought because he couldn't fit them in his luggage going back to New Zealand. So thanks for offloading some of your records here Scott, you might get it back one day, but yeah thank you for that. Another great record he left was by Ahmad Jamal 7 really jonesing and listening to a lot of that recently as well. Okay, Daniel Kala of Phenomenal Handclap Band has sent me a very tasty exclusive, it's not even out as a digital promo yet, so muchas gracias to Daniel, but I'm just loving it. It has a very cosmic vibe and a very cosmic title to match. Here is Phenomenal Handclap Band with Like a Constellation . V Oh... It has to be done, thank you so much to David Sautter for that request. Salsoul Orchestra featuring Jocelyn Brown You're all I want for Christmas , and it's a Patrick Adams production and that's found on the Christmas Jollies volume 2 from Salsoul Orchestra. Had to play a Christmas carol for you. Ahead of that we had Kerri Chandler as The system You're in my system , and when it came out on Ibadan Recordings Jerome Sydenham's label in 1998 and Greca Mac requested it. She said it was "a highlight from the Hacienda night at WHP in Manchester earlier this month" , she said "the night was very unexpectedly epic" and she also sends love to the Balearic Breakfast family. Ahead of that a lovely request from Askush for Cosmic Sunset by Flamingo Pier from New Zealand and one of my best memories of 2024 was, you know, hanging out in New Zealand going to New Zealand for the first time, and to Australia, and we played for Flamingo Pier is really cool cool festival called the Waiheke Festival in February, so thinking about that where I was going. We left I think on the 27th of December, we're gone for six weeksn so it is on my mind. Gotta make our way back down there at some point in the near future. Well it's about time to wrap up another year's worth of Balearic Breakfast. We've been going for over four years now. I can't believe it and I just want to say thank you for listening and for all of your support, thank you for being part of the Balearic Breakfast family. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solstice and Happy New Year's and overall season's greetings, and I'm wishing you all health, happiness and a lot great lot of great music in 2025. I'm going to leave you with one last song which does fit the season's mood. It's not a... It's not a Christmas carol, it's non-secular, but it's often lumped in with Christmas songs. It's a cover of My Favorite Things , a beautiful beautiful song as you know from the Sound of Music and you know, covered by so many different jazz musicians including Alfredo de la Fe who is a really, is a very interesting violinist. He was born in Cuba lived in New York but he also lived in Colombia for a decade and a half, and he adapted the violin to Colombian traditional music, and he was the first solo violinist to play with a salsa orchestra, and he's played with loads of different great artists Latin artists like Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, The Fania all-stars, it goes on and on and on and on. And in 2008 my friend, David Mancuso , started a record label called The Loft Audiophile Library of Music which I helped him out, wich only had one release but this was the release, and it's Alfredo de la Fe and the Latin Jazz Ensemble with a live version of My Favorite Things so here it is, sending you off with this. Thank you again for joining me, and remember, if the holidays get a little bit too much, just be Balearic... Sadly, a few hours after today's episode, we learned about DJ Alfredo's passing. Here is Colleen's tribute to him, she published on December 26th, on her socials. May you rest in peace Alfredo 😢 Rest in paradise DJ Alfredo. I didn’t know Alfredo well but I was lucky enough to DJ back to back with him three years ago in Ibiza for Beat Hotel. Of course, as I host a show named ‘Balearic Breakfast’ I knew a lot about Alfredo, his huge influence on the Balearic and acid house scenes and the musical eclecticism he transmitted at his Amnesia residency. So yes, I was a tad nervous to play alongside him as he is a true legend. Before our set, we had dinner together and what struck me was how humble and gracious he was - soft-spoken but strong. I wondered if he truly understood the extent to which his DJ style and his musical selections had influenced so many people including some who went on to become global superstars. His sweet and gracious manner was the antithesis of the fist-pumping, glory-seeking attitudes that we sometimes see in the upper echelons of commercial dance music. But yet, whether they know it or not, DJ Alfredo influenced them because of his impact on global dance music culture. Alfredo and I had a lovely time DJ-ing together and turning each other onto tunes. I am so thankful for that experience and you can listen back to an hour of our set on an archived Balearic Breakfast at https://tinyurl.com/36ph4afy Sending my condolences to his son, his family and to those who knew him well. Thank you for the music Alfredo.

Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy broadcast the 209th episode of Balearic Breakfast on her Mixcloud on January 28th 2025. About this episode. – While enjoying her last moments in Lanzarote (a small town in the Canary Islands), our dear Captain streamed this beautiful episode that brought us so much hapiness! Although she did everything that could be done to ensure the episode would be streamed flawlessly, Colleen wasn't lucky as Mixcloud stopped working during David's mix! Sigh! This episode was a very joyous one: Tigerbalm 's mix was off the hook (the transcribed interview is here ), David 's mix (read the review here ) was soulfoul as can be (he shared with us the luck he had, meeting Rose Robinson when she did a vinyl set in London), we celebrated Natalie Alleyne 's Birthday and talked everything music on the chat! Our friend Macho Grande summed it all up perfectly by saying "Loving this, makes me wish I was on holiday and not sat in an office" 😂💕👌 And, for your complete information (we're doing our best here 😉) Colleen is heading to Massachussetts and NYC next week and she will be streaming the show at 5am! "It’s the last day I can hang out with my new buddy in Lanzarote. I’m going to miss him! This week’s Balearic Breakfast is now up on my Mixcloud and features a guest mix and interview with @tigerbalmmusic . I have played many of her tunes and remixes on the show - tunes that are spread across labels like @razorntape and @ubiquityrecords . I know you’ll love her mix of global electronic beats. And she was kind of enough to take some time while on the road in Peru to have a chat about her music-making process and her forthcoming second album. After that we have a guest mix from Balearic Breakfast family member @davstod . He has put together a gorgeous mix of orchestrated soul which will hopefully clear away the winter blues for our listeners in the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks for those who joined on the Balearic Breakfast live stream - it was wonderful to be together as always. The ‘Request Line’ is back this Saturday and I look forward to your suggestions for next Tuesday’s Balearic Breakfast (and once again I’ll stream live from my Record Room). Enjoy your week and thanks for listening!" Listen back to the 209th episode of Balearic Breakfast: PLAYLIST Tigerbalm's Mix ( 1969 ) Stevio Cipriani – Mary’s Theme ( 2020 ) Gitkin   – Chicha Nola ( 2024 ) Yuksek, Diogo Strausz, Juveniles (ft Julia-Baptiste)  – Pura Onda (C'est pas I'oiseau Jam Mix) ( NOL ) Tigerbalm (ft Jimena Angel)  – Columbia Calypso ( 1998 ) Aldo Sena   – Cumbia Reggae ( 2024 ) Tigerbalm (ft Joao Selva)  – Vem Ca ( 2023 ) La Jungla   – Salto Palante ( 2025 ) Dennis Liber   – Hidden Island ( 1974 ) Trio Ternura  – Filhos de Zambi (Bernardo Pinheiro edit) ( 2020 ) Super Mama Djombo – Dissan Na M´bera (Suur Di No Pubis) (Daniel Haaksman Edit) ( 2019 ) Maria Bethania  – Eu A Agua (Lov.ini Edit) ( 2023 ) Coati Mundi  – Me No Popeye (Juju Muzik Edits) ( 2024 ) Tigerbalm (ft Joy Tyson)  – Profunda Alma ( 2021 ) Tania Alves  – Fankiando Planador (Aroop Roy Rework) ( 2022 ) Balkan Beat Box  – Adir Adirim (Nickodemus Remix) ( 2024 ) Emperor Machine  – La Cassette (Tigerbalm Remix) ( 2021 ) Mainline Magic Orchestra  – MMO Theme David Stoddard's Mix ( 1971 ) Isaac Hayes  – Early Sunday Morning ( 1978 ) Jeffree  – Mr Fix It ( 1979 ) The Love Unlimited Orchestra  – As Time Goes By ( 1976 ) Leon Ware  – Learning How To Love You ( 1976 ) Diana Ross  – One Love In My Lifetime ( 1970 ) Shirley Bassey  – Spinning Wheel ( 1971 ) Labi Siffre  – The Shadow of Our Love ( 1964 ) Tenorio Jr.  – Nebulosa ( 1978 ) Lemuria  – Hunk of Heaven ( 1978 ) Chaka Khan  – Some Love ( 1978 ) Esther Phillips  – Native New Yorker ( 1977 ) The Originals  – Call On Your Six Million Dollar Man ( 1979 ) Mongo Santamaria  – Watermelon Man (disco promo 12" version) ( 1979 ) Angela Bofill  – People Make the World Go Round TIGERBALM'S INTERVIEW WITH COLLEEN [Colleen] Greetings, I'm Colleen Cosmo Murphy hosting your weekly Balearic Breakfast on my Mixcloud Live until high noon. And hello to the Balearic Breakfast family joining me on the live stream as always. Today we have two special guest mixes. The first is from Tiger Balm, born in South London as Rose Robinson. She DJs and produces a unique sound that gathers African, Latin, and various world influences and somehow makes them work alongside modern electronic music. Her penchant for global music flavors is infectious and peppers her debut album, International Love Affair. She has also done remixes for Nicodemus and Razor and Tape and Emperor's Machine, and she has a new album on the horizon in 2025. After that, we have a special Balearic Breakfast family mix from David Stoddard, who has been wowing us with his requests for the past couple of years. But first, it's over to Tiger Balm. Now I'm here in the studio with Tiger Balm. I've been following her career for the last couple of years. She put out a fantastic album called International Love Affair in 2022 on Ubiquiti. The following year, she had some great remixes on the follow-up album. And then just recently, she put out the Profunda Alma EP. She's put out great music on Ubiquiti, Razor and Tape, and Leng, and she's here in the studio with me now. Hello, how are you? [Tigerbalm] Hi, I'm great, thank you. Thank you for having me. [Colleen] Oh, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. And the fact that you live just on the other side of the park from me and that I see you at the hairdressers is pretty cool as well! We're official neighbors. Official neighbors, exactly. I just wanted you to kind of, if you could kindly recount how you got into music. [Tigerbalm] At uni actually, I just was clubbing a lot in London and would kind of hear the DJs playing and a lot of the West End clubs actually at uni and wanting to like, I'd quite often be that annoying person going, oh, can you play this song? Can you play this song? Or if it was a DJ, can you play that song that I loved last week? And was, yeah, just really into it. And I ended up just buying myself my own CDJs and started learning to mix at home and having little art parties. So that's how my first little DJ moment started. It was during uni in London, but I had always been really into music. My mum and dad are so musical and they had a big record collection and a salsa and yeah, there was always music. My grandma's a singer, opera singer, so music was always like a massive part of me anyway. So it was just like, I loved dancing. I used to do choreographs when I was younger. So it's just music and dancing have always been a big thread. And then it developed, I think like just, I found a couple of like styles of music I really liked. I was playing at Momo's a couple of years after getting quite good. I used to play, you know, there it was this kind of Moroccan world global sound and it was dance music, but more electro. And I found some music I liked and felt really at home there. And then struggled with the shift in genres and I just couldn't find music I liked. And I was sort of like, shall I make music? And then I met a guy called David Baker, actually an old friend of mine who introduced me to new disco, but like more cosmic new disco, like Jaxophilus, really spacious cosmic sounds. And that was like, Ooh, I love this. So then I kind of started going to Hackney Whip, these mental warehouse parties that blew my mind because I was like, what is this music? Oh my God. But it was like sacked off West London completely. I was going to these parties like Colours, it's like Guillaume Ronin. And yeah, the music was like a lot of Afro inspired mixed up with cosmic disco, but not too cheesy. And yeah, from there it was like, I just wanted to be a DJ. Every time I was at those raves, I was just staring to get there. I want to be there in that moment. And that was kind of like a goal. And unfortunately, by the time I'd established myself, all of the awesome raves got shut down, you know, but it was like a big inspiration for me to make music, to like embody those moments. So yeah, I just started learning on 8th of June and worked a bit with my friend Christy Harper. We sort of were learning together. We tried making some music together as well, which was really fun and did some edits. And then yeah, I met my ex-partner, Isaac Gray, who we formed Earth Boogie, which was our production duo. And yeah, after that, after that relationship ended, I went on to do my solo career. So it kind of, it was very organic. [Colleen] Wow. It sounds really interesting. You have such a unique sound, which I love because as you mentioned earlier, it is influenced by global sounds and you're making it and, you know, bringing in this kind of electronic kind of modern dance element, which is really, really great. And it seems to me like when you first started in 2020, you did your first single with Ella Coco, and I see that our friends in New Zealand, Flamingo Pier, also did a remix. Now, were you initially just getting inspired by different places to make music? [Tigerbalm] Like on a psychological level, I've been somewhere in a moment and I want to make a song for that moment. And I'm often making the song I'm thinking about that moment. And I have, as an empath, like a strong ability to recreate feelings and emotions in the form of a memory. So Wacky Key from my first album was made because I played at Weekly Z Festival with Flamingo Pier. So when I was there DJing that set, which was amazing, I was like, I need to make a song that I could have played in that set. [Colleen] Wow. That's a great idea. That's fantastic. I played for them last year. I wish I had done that. They do have a song called Cosmic Sunset though, which I've kind of co-opted to play quite a bit. No, I can't call it my own. But they're great guys. So you got, that's how you got inspired to do your first release. And then after that, you started to get inspired from other cultures like Indonesia and also Brazil. [Tigerbalm] Exactly. [Colleen] Do you travel a lot? [Tigerbalm] Yes. So Ella Coco was started in Indonesia when I was still with Isaac. So we had to split our Erfugi tracks and that one, I was kind of really excited to have it because it was half done and I got to finish it off. And yeah, so that's what the Ella Coco was. And then everything after that has come from a trip. So if you look at the first album and you dissect it, like Labrisa on that album is called Labrisa from Beach Club in Bali. But like each name has a thread to something historically, like a bit like a diary, I guess. And yeah, I'm trying to think of the order of the songs now because so much stuff has come out. But yeah, the album was an amalgamation of my style from Erfugi into Tiger Bomb. So it was more deep electronic, more clubby. And as I've evolved, I've learned to work with session musicians and create more of a live sound. So it's really like when I went to Brazil, I was like, how am I going to make this music, like this style of music? I'm like, OK, I've got to work with people. Who am I going to work with? So I just contact friends of mine I've worked with and say, hey, do you recommend anyone that plays this style of percussion or a really good bass player that could do this vibe? And, you know, all the good people always just go, yeah, yeah, I'm going to introduce to him. Then that person knows the trumpet. And all of a sudden you've gone down the rabbit wheel and you've made all these new tracks. Yeah, I guess. [Colleen] Fantastic. Now, what is what are some of the great things that you've taken away from other cultures in terms of producing music? [Tigerbalm] Mexico is where I've spent the most time. I'm working with the trumpets and kind of creating that. I don't like to use the word tribal so much, but they call it tribal house, you know, the more Afro house sounds. I've always loved that deep Afro house sound. And I was very inspired by my Tulum trips to create Pagoda Dance, which was my one of my singles this year on House Music With Love. I was in Tulum and I was playing in these different venues and I was like, OK, I need to make a big Afro house track. And then, you know, getting big trumpets in it, because all of those tracks have the sound. So finding someone that could record with me. So I sort of take different instruments from different cultures and sounds. Brazil, obviously, you know, I couldn't record the percussion that I bring in amazing percussionists. I worked with Miquel on Trifunda Alma. He is based in Napoli, actually, but he is a composer and he is just a Brazilian guru. So I came up with a concept for a song and was like, OK, here's the different Brazilian songs I love. Can we take these sounds and recreate them? And so you have to go down a rabbit hole with instruments. And in Brazil, there's so many unique instruments to work with. And definitely Ipanema, I went to a music store. I've actually got some different pieces that I bought there, about five or six crazy pieces. And we've used those in some of the songs as well. I like a couple of the shakers, but only little layers, you know, that we can use in the studio. I want to buy more instruments when I travel that I can actually record live. But my new album has got a lot of live recorded instruments that I use from a studio in Portugal. [Colleen] We'll talk more about the new album in a while because I want to stay where we are, because this is so interesting. As you're traveling, are you just going into people's studios as well and recording as you're traveling as well, like local musicians? [Tigerbalm] Recording the new album, yes, in Portugal with a singer and a guitarist that were recommended to me. But in the new album, yes, but that was the first time I'd done it. So far, it's all been remote. But we'll do a Zoom session, we'll chat, and then we'll bounce backwards and forwards quite a few times. And there's also Fiverr, which is a really unusual platform that a friend introduced me to. I'm not allowed to share the name of the people I'm using there because he made sure I wouldn't share them because I like his weapons. But he introduced me to a couple of sick keys players on there and Brazilian musicians and they've recorded on Lacassette and my Mama Chip album, and Mama Chip remix, sorry. So I've got all these little special musicians that I've been starting to work with. But it's always remote, they'll send you a draft, you give them feedback. And it's like two or three rounds of, you know, it's almost like with COVID, you learned to work remotely. [Colleen] Exactly, I had to do the same thing. It was so interesting. Yeah. [Tigerbalm] Yeah. And the singers as well, like there's a new track that I've just sent to a singer called Kemena Angel in Colombia. I met her at a festival in the summer and I had this track and I was like, well, let me send it to her. I was like, babe, what do you think? And she was like, she just sent it back, she'd already recorded on it. Like she didn't even be like, yeah, I like it. Let's work together. Let's have a chat. It was like, boom, she sent me these Insta videos and I was like, whoa, this is amazing. Okay, so I reworked the track and then I sent it to Juksek and he was like, I love it. We'll put on a compilation. So it's just randomly organic. It's like everything is like, yeah, just flowing in some kind of weird way. [Colleen] Well, it certainly sounds like it. Well, why don't we listen to your mix, get back to the mix, and then we'll come back and talk about what's in store for you in 2025 and a new album as well. You're listening to Tiger Balm on Balearic Breakfast. [Colleen] And now we're back with TigerBalm here in the studio on Balearic Breakfast. We've been listening to her fantastic mix and I just want to talk with you about what's going on in 2025. I mean, I just have to say that your enthusiasm is so infectious and your vibes are so positive and strong. It's absolutely a pleasure to speak with you, but also to hang out with you and to listen to your music. And I think because of that, you've had a lot of really fruitful collaborations and I see that you've worked with many different people and two people that I see that you work with quite a bit. One is Jay Kriv from Razor and Tape and the other one is Joy Tyson. I just wanted to speak with you a little bit about that because Jay Kriv is also a very prolific producer and you seemed to start on a journey with him a few years ago. Tell me a little bit about your relationship with with Jason or Jay Kriv from Razor and Tape. [Tigerbalm] Yeah, we met in the Hamptons in New York about, wow, it probably was eight years ago now. It could be even nine. But I was doing a residency at a beach club at the Andre Balazs Hotel on Shelter Island. And I was there for, I think, nearly three months. And I was like, right, I'm here. Like, who do I want to meet that's in New York? And of course, I was a massive fan of Razor and Tape. And pretty much most of my new records have been from the label because they do the disco with a bit of Afro and Brazilian. So I've been really inspired by all of his remixes. I was like, basically his biggest fan. And yeah, I just text him like, you know, I think on Instagram, like, oh, you know, I'm in town for a few months and gonna be doing some different shows. It'd be great to link up if you're free. And he was on Shelter Island that weekend visiting a friend. [Colleen] How funny. That's serendipity. [Tigerbalm] Yeah. And yeah, I remember he was having lobsters at the house. I remember the whole conversation the first time we met and I was playing outside and it was all sunny. And yeah, after that, we just stayed in touch, like music swaps and things like that. And then, yeah, as I sent him, I was sending him music for a while actually, but before they first were like, right, this is the song that we love. So when I send them Nina, he was like, wait, wait, don't send that to anyone else. I was like, okay. I was actually in Margate when I sent him that, I remember the moment. So I was like, oh my god, because it was like a dream to release on Razor and Tape. I mean, they're prolific. [Colleen] Very prolific. [Tigerbalm] And yeah, we're just great friends. [Colleen] Oh, he's a lovely guy. I finally got to meet him the last time I was in New York, because I played at their record shop. And I have been a big supporter of his music as well. Also, I've been a supporter of the label Ubiquity. And that's where you released your album, International Love Affair and the remix album. Can you tell me a little bit about that relationship and how that developed? [Tigerbalm] Yeah, that was also a lockdown moment where I made the album and I was like, who do I want to release it with? And I was researching all my favorite artists at the time that had a similar sound and was just contacting, I think, like Soundway Records, just different people. And I found this album from Bossk that I had on vinyl. I was literally methodically going through my record collection, flipping the back, where was this released, going online, contacting him on Bandcamp. That was my process. And yeah, like they were on that list. And I got a call from Michael, the head of Ubiquity and was like, yeah, we love the album. And I was like, oh my god, like, okay. And then it was like, yeah, it just like, just, again, I was in Margate because it was lockdown. I remember I was on, I've been on like a beachwalk, I was sitting in the car and I was like, screaming out loud. But yeah, it was like such a big moment for me, you know, it was like my first solo album, you know. And it was a struggle for doing Earth Boogie sometimes because it was like, you know, we would work on the projects alone and then together and they'd go in different directions. And it wasn't always your authentic result. You know, you didn't always love it. You had to compromise like a relationship, you know, it was the same with the music and the songs. And then it was like, this is me doing me. And it felt great. [Colleen] That's great. I mean, it sounds great as well. It was like such a cool album. And the whole image you kind of put together is really great as well. I mean, it's, you're controlling all these different aspects of what, of your output, image, music, doing the productions, doing remixes. And I can hear from speaking with you too, that it's, you're very driven. This is something that you're not just sitting around waiting for people to ask you to do things. And I found this with a lot of different women DJs and producers. They go out and create the stuff rather because they know they're probably not going to be asked if they just sit around waiting. I mean, you know, we have to kind of create our own platforms and really be quite disciplined and driven to kind of get out there. And I really admire what you're doing. Now, you also put out some great remixes too, one for Emperor's Machine, which I love them. And I know that they did a remix for you. I guess you're doing some swaps on remixes now, aren't you? [Tigerbalm] Yeah, that was a Lange swap, that one. Yeah. And I actually loved doing that remix. It was really interesting. I kind of wish I'd lowered the BPM now for some reason, because I was umming and ahhing for a long time about the speed. But I end up DJing at lower BPM, which is laughable, because I debated for so long about the BPM. But anyway, you have to laugh. Lange Records are obviously my original baby. I was with Fugi, where all my albums came out with them. And then they released my first single. So Simon from Lange Records has been incredibly supportive all throughout my career and books me at his Philly Brooklyn venue in East London. So yeah. But yeah, we were talking about Ubiquiti there. You'll laugh, because they were like, we want a photo of you on your next album. And I was like, oh, my God, I've got to curate a whole thing now. Because I was like, let's just get Illustrator to do it. Like, just like take it off my hands. And then it was like, oh, my God, I had to create this whole image again. But it's actually really fun. It's a lot of work. And it's a lot of pressure. And it can be a little stressful. But when you actually look at the product at the end, it's like, I just did that. [Colleen] It looks great. Your website looks great. It's fun, as well. Your music is fun. It has energy. It's uplifting. It's different. I love it. So tell us, right now you're in Peru. Are you doing any recording in Peru? Are you doing any music in Peru? [Tigerbalm] I've got my Roland RO7 on me, which just field recording. So I have captured Carnival in Rio on there, as well, which I still need to put into a track. But yeah, I plan on using it a bit more, I think, in the Sacred Valley. There's a lot of amazing artists who live up there. And I'm definitely going to use that. And I might meet people on the way. So I'm remaining very open to whatever comes universally. I just trust the process. I've got one gig there called Discophobia in Lima, which I'm very excited about. Apparently, the vibration in Lima for parties is up there. So I'll be in my full element. But yeah, I think the trip is very action-packed, apart from the Sacred Valley, which is up in Cusco. It's very high altitude. And yeah, I just, the universe just, yeah, I never know what's going to come until it comes. [Colleen] Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You have to be trusting, trusting that it's all going to work out. Just put your faith in it. [Tigerbalm] Yeah, something will come out of it, though, for sure. [Colleen] Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. Now you have a new album coming out. Is it all ready to go? Is it all finished? [Tigerbalm] It's finished. [Colleen] Okay, tell us about that. [Tigerbalm] Yeah, that's definitely, I have to say, really proud of it. Definitely the best thing I've done. I've worked with, I've recorded every singer on there, and there's about three session musicians on each track. And it's 50% women, 50% men. [Colleen] Brilliant. [Tigerbalm] On the vocals, it was really important for me. Also with the remixes, everything needs to be 50-50 and neutral. So there's four Brazilian tracks, four Afro tracks, all inspired by sort of late 70s, early 80s Afro disco bubblegum vibe. So yeah, it's a really new sound for me. And yeah, it evolved the album because I started it. And then I created this new sound. And then I had to drop some tracks out because they weren't fluid with the overall sound of it. But I've sung on two tracks. [Colleen] Oh, fantastic! [Tigerbalm] That was a huge, you know, I had to go, I had to see a voice coach, not for singing, but for like, moving through emotional blockages, because actually using your throat, your throat chakra is like, about not trauma, but like, you know, you've got to release it and work with it vibrationally. So we did a lot of like chanting and vocal work and cleansing. And that actually was what gave me the confidence to sing. [Colleen] That's fantastic. Yeah. I did singing the other night at karaoke on Boxing Day for the first time since 1989 when I was in Japan. I did have a few drinks, but the last time I sang in public, maybe the last time I ever will. No, I'm just joking. But that's fantastic. Because that's you have to really let your guard down to be able to to sing. I think if you're not a, you know, if that's not your usual vocation. [Tigerbalm] Yeah, I used to love singing. I just I had glandular fever a lot when I was younger. And I used to lose my voice and always get sick. And I think I just, that process sort of disengaged me from because my voice just goes a lot. Even after like talking of a loud sound system, it will go more than anyone else's. But I had this sort of fear around using it, especially because I thought if I record something great, I probably can't sing that live because I just find my voice very unreliable. But I just worked through that and I'm sort of finding my sound. I'm gonna keep going and keep trying to make songs. One of them I'm singing in English and it's like a rap, which is the single. And it's it's kind of jungle bookie, but it's it's funny and playful and silly and kind of new canary. And the other one I'm singing in Portuguese. So I had to work with someone to get that. And I wrote the lyrics for that one based on my last Brazilian trip. So yeah, there's a whole story around those tracks, but they're Brazil and Afro. Basically. [Colleen] Fantastic. And when is that coming out? Which label? What's the name of the album? [Tigerbalm] That's Ubiquity Records. And it's called Bubblegum Disgust. It's fun. And so the single should be either the end of March or early April. And then we're going to stream three more singles and then the album will come out June or July. And there will be about one year later a remix as well. And we're just signing off those artists slowly, slowly, you know, looking at budgets and things. But yeah, it's a long process, but it's exciting. [Colleen] Fantastic. Well, I'm really looking forward to it. We'll obviously give it support on Balearic Breakfast. And thank you so much for joining us today, and for taking some time out of your busy schedule in Peru. And we're loving the mix and really good luck with all of your endeavors. I'm really happy for you. And I just absolutely admire you and what you're doing. [Tigerbalm] I'm the same. I'm a huge, huge admirer of yours. And thank you so much. It's been great to be here. [Colleen] Thank you so much, Rose. That was fabulous. And now a special guest mix from one of our family members, David Stoddard. Each week I look forward to a special Soulful Requests, which often send me directly to Discogs. And here's a little note from David himself. The selection is quite eclectic, but definitely soulful string led, which always lifts the heart in the depths of winter. And it's vinyl only, hence the occasional clicks and crackles. Here is David Stoddard. THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE I still keep in my mind that interview Colleen once gave where she said she stopped writing album reviews because she felt it was impossible to write about music in a way that would serve the purpose, with a lot of the reviews being poorly written. On the contrary, I would say this: if you think you love Music, then go ahead, and write about it. But write about it with your soul, with your guts, make that article the music you're listening to. Try to describe everything you feel, everything you see, make the listener listen again to the songs and help him find what you found. If you're able to do this, then your paper was a good one. If you didn't, then, obviously you served no one interests... And as far as I'm concerned, I konw I've not found the best words to perfectly describe a mix yet, one thing I know is that some mixes require a classical writting style whereas other ones require a more creative style, and it all comes down to what I hear and feel... Dave Stod's mix is one of those mixes that you need to listen to again and again. First because the songs selected are off the hook, they're not well-known or overplayed hits. They're reprensentative of what Soul is, they're so groovy you're going to melt. Also, the way Dave presented them, in a relaxed yet precise mix, really puts them into a beautiful spiritual light. Dave changes tempos, sometimes with a lot of audacity, but he keeps the listener awake and he does not lose him along the way by selecting songs that would be too much apart from one another. To the topic, listen to the first three songs, the way tey're mixed together perfectly depicts what I've just written. Jeffree Page 's Mr. Fix it slides in the end of Early Sunday Morning (from Shaft's Soundtrack ), like a bird gently flying away and As Time Goes By 's quicker rhythm ( a musical cover of the 1931 song by Rudy Vallée ) perfectly embraces Mr Fix it luxurious rhythm, with Learning how to love you really starting the party! ( the great Minnie Riperton is among the backing vocalists - more about the 1976 studio album here ) The mixes are short ones, they're not long, they're not complex, they tend to be close to Colleen's way of mixing during the show, so Dave really respects the Vibe that Balearic Breakfast is... The audacity of Dave's mix is well represented with how One Love in My Lifetime enters the mix, Dave is not here to play around, he knows where he wants to take us, and he does that with aplomb. When a DJ knows his craft, you feel it. Of course, the mix can be prepared, but still, if there's a musical soul in there, anything is possible, and the pleasure given drives the listener crazy, lifting his spirits up! Fun fact, the identity of the backing vocalists was never disclosed and even people at Motown kept the secret for a long time, the new release of the album allowed for this information to be released at last: the Jones Girls  were the backing vocalists on Diana's album and on that particular song! I must also add that Dave's setup must be a fine one, there's a nice realism in the sound! Did I saiy a bird flying somewhere? Here he goes again when Spinning Wheel enters the mix ( a cover of the 1968 song by Blood, Sweat & Tears ), if you don't feel the groove here, you will never feel anything, it's delicate, it's precise, it's wild at the same time, it takes you, it grabs you and takes you away, there's nothing more I can say. God, I love that. And listen to that rhythmic guitar sliding on your left and then on your right, with the bass guitar being also so precise, you can hear every note being played, great sounding record!! "Spinning Wheel" was written by vocalist David Clayton-Thomas, arranged by saxophonist Fred Lipsius, and produced by James William Guercio. In our 2015 interview with Clayton-Thomas , he explained: "I came up with the song just picking it away on a guitar when I found some chord changes I liked. As for the lyrics, everybody was getting so serious about 'The Revolution' and everything else in those days. It was just kind of a way to say, 'Lighten up people. Take it easy. It's all going to come full circle.' And it did. Ten years later, we went from 'The Revolution' to Ronald Reagan." Even if Labbi Siffre 's T he shadow of our love 's start is slighthly calmer, the fact it has the same rhythm as the previous track keeps the listener hooked on the groove. With Tenorio Jr. Nebulosa arriving so unexpectedly in the mix, Dave strikes the listener because that song acts like an ending point to Labi Sifre's song! Absolutely mesmerising musical moment! WOW Dave! And what can I say about the way Hunk of Heaven enters the mix? Another stunning moment, there's a beautiful musical momentum here, we're forgetting the mix and we're able to concentrate on the vibe the music brings to the table, that's what a real DJ should be able to do, mix in a way that lets the music speak without barriers! Such an astounding mix here! "The minute you think you're greater than the music, you're finished." - Frankie Knuckles I love the small "décroché" Dave does at the start of Chaka Khan's Some Love (from her groundbreaking 1978 studio album ). Listen again here, you'll hear that the track does not perfectly start on the beat, yet, this creates an uncredible Groove, bringing out Dave's musical message! I am melting here... Mixing is not always about perfection, never forget that 😉 By playing Ester Phillips' Native New Yorker (a cover of the 1977 song, sung by Frankie Valli and made famous by Odyssey later the same year), The Originals' Call On Your Six Million Dollar Man , incredibly followed by Mongo Santamaria 's Watermelon Man , Dave keeps the rhythmic unity intact, keeping our feet on the dancefloor and our spirits high as a duck flying to a new destination (am I going crazy now?!) 😄 Ending his mix with Angela's Bofill's People Make the World Go Round (a cover of the 1971 song by The Stylistics ), Dave Really grooved us all... Out... All in all, Dave's mix is an astounding listening experience , the only thing I'm missing is a bit more dynamics in the sound, maybe by turning the volume knob slightly down on the recording output of his mixer ( just a few dBs down ) will Dave be able to take that sonic groove out and free his listeners even more!

The Balearic Breakfast blog is the home of Colleen's musical friends! When I discovered Sparky's instagram, I knew I had to meet him! Let's talk about that Balearic thing... 1) Hi Marc! Thank you so much for joining us here on the blog! With Musica Balearica you're one of the few accounts I know which actually propose posts on instagram about new Balearic Releases. I feel it's such a great idea since this musical movement is not always well represented outside of its "niche". How did you start that account and how do you manage it? Thanks for having me Artur! I wasn't very social media minded (I had a twitter account to follow football, politics, music and friends). I never had Facebook, but when lockdown happened I was given 5 months off work and thought I'll get into painting again.... So I downloaded Instagram on my phone to connect with other artists and to get inspiration and also to discover what other DJs were digging and promoting. I think I did also want to use Instagram as a means of reaching a wider audience of who would be interested in listening to my mixes and, in addition, to being able to get better gigs once we were out of lockdown. I started doing posts which started with the title... "Recommended Balearic listening" whereby, I would try to promote a new release on a Balearic tip I was digging, or I had recently discovered. I always have intentions to post more (as I feel compelled to promote independent labels and projects which resonate with me), but more and more I try to spend less time on devices (and have gotten so very sidetracked and overwhelmed with the constant flow of quality new releases and reissues!). I also don't post everything I pick up on my Instagram as I want listeners of my mixes ( on Mixcloud ) to be surprised and have that "What on earth is this?" reaction when hearing a killer Balearic melter for the first time on one of my mixes. That's part of being a DJ I suppose! You want to please the crowd with familiarity but you also want your audience to be  mystified and excited from hearing an oddball cover version or a balearic bomb they have never stumbled across. 2) You're also a DJ and you have your own Mixcloud page where you share your shows. Of course, this activity helps you to keep the instagram page up to date! Can you tell us how you got involved in music in the first place and how you started your DJ carreer? I was taken round record shops and vinyl fairs when I was in primary school during the late 80s early 90s by my dad who was focused on collecting certain bands such as Queen, Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash... Proggy type tackle. I think I kind of fell in love with flicking through records and calling my dad over to say "I found one here which I don't think you have!" , my dad would be saying "It's Japanese that one, far too expensive" . Haha, even then I was a sucker for an Obi strip! When I went to secondary school I was opened up to a lot of Rave and Indie music and started following in my dad's footsteps of visiting record shops and fairs, still with a completest type mindset way of digging, but this time for Prodigy and Blur records. Later on, when I was about 12-13 I was really into The Doors, Portishead (I had a Portishead long sleeved T-Shirt when I was 13 which gained me a bit of credibility with the older crew at school), The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack, Daft Punk. The band that really sticks out to me during those days was The Beta Band. All my mates were proper into them too. I suppose we loved their sound and image which was a proper mish-mash of styles such as Indie, hip-hop, chill out, Experimental and library music. Maybe, it was the Beta Band who pushed that eclectic melting pot of sounds onto me, and motivated me to incorporate so many styles into my DJ sets! By the time I arrived at college, I'd met a few people on my Arts course who were into techno, house and that big beat sound which was big back in the late 90s. They were going to Bugged Out at Cream, Voodoo at La' bateau's and various breaks, chill out and garage events above Hannah's on Hardman street (Liverpool). They would come in on a Monday, still on a buzz, telling me about their weekends and being into that type of sound as well. I started dragging my mates to join the cool arty kids at Bugged Out and Voodoo. I absolutely loved the back room in Cream. It was the smallest room, but it had this incredible sound system with a very eclectic mix of music, nu-school breaks, techno, house, disco, weird Latin and soulful stuff. I loved it there, and very rarely ventured out to the courtyard which stuck to techno or the main room which was predominantly house orientated. Jon Carter was the resident in the annex (who was incredible), but I was introduced to all sorts in there. I soon bought a pair of belt-driven decks and started getting into trying to pick up and mixing the type of breakbeat records I was hearing on that system. In those early days I saw Moonboots, James Holroyd, DJ Shadow and James Lavell in the Annex, but it was the first time I saw Gilles Peterson which really blew my socks off. I remember him playing this really floaty mellow jazz record which I think was Michael Garrick and then dropping Aaliyah's Try again right afterwards, which sent the room nuts (which is when I thought I wanna do that)... I wanna play eclectic music which isn't one particular genre as I'm not into any particular genre. I'm into so much that I should express those inspirations in the music I play and take those willing to listen on a journey and introduce them to records they haven't heard before. 3) You took part in a lot of great events lately. Which event of 2024 stayed in your mind like the best moment you had in a long time? Can you tell us why and how you prepared for it? Generally speaking, how do you prepare your sets? I loved my couple of gigs at the Kazimier Gardens in Liverpool last year as they were 6 hour sets which allowed me to bring 3 bags of records and build up the vibe slowly with chilled ambient downtempo records, whereby I can shift gears into a proper Balearic disco party as the space fills up and the crowd are up for dancing. The Kazimier is a great gaff too, a really nice space which you can probably get up to 300 people in. It's kind of like something you'd expect to see at Glastonbury as in terms of the design. I think it's based on the ruin bar culture of Eastern Europe, it's got that bric-a-brac feel too it but also the guys who build it create all these art deco, but also sci-fi lighting decorations and hangings. Plus the disco ball is massive too. The crowd is always top, a proper mix of misfits, hip looking cats and subculture magpies. Also there is a diverse mix of ages willing to let loose and who are open to a plethora of styles and sounds from around the globe. I love that I can play an obscure gypsy disco pumper and segue into a Middle Eastern oddball synth bomb in there and the crowd stay on the floor whether they are familiar with that sound or not. I don't do too many gigs, usually a couple a month which gives me plenty of time to think about what records I'm going to bring. I tend to bring the new records I've picked up over the last couple of months on my travels or from local stores and discogs and focus on them and think about bringing other records from my collection which will compliment the new additions. I try to play new music too, not just reissues and old records as there are plenty of top producers and artists out there making top Balearic orientated music. I also make sure I pack a small amount of Balearic, italo classics to please the crowd. I tend to think about my selections whilst walking or running and make a little Spotify playlist to remember what to take and as a reference. 4) Speaking of Balearic Music, we, of course, share a common love for Balearic Breakfast! Without coming back to the structure of Colleen's show, if you had to chose a part of it, which one would it be? Would it be the slow and reflective start or the groovy side with the splendid mini mixes Colleen crafts each time? I'm into all different tempos, styles and feelings within music and therefore find it difficult to focus on any particular mood for a long periods and that's why I love Coleen's show as you get to hear a proper range of tempos and feelings. The problem with being into music in this way is the bank balance and the desire to own a multitude of records. It's funny I was in Betino's record shop in Paris over the Autumn and I had a bunch of records saved to my Discogs wantlist which I was using as a reference when talking to the guy behind the counter. I asked "Do you reckon you have any of these ?" And he was like (with a Parisian accent) "My, my! man! You are into many styles, very eclectic but very taxing on the pocket!" . I wouldn't have it any other way tho, I couldn't collect just house music or disco music. I try to pick up all sorts and it can be a nightmare but it also gives you variation of where you can play and many options for the ride. 5) What's ahead for you musicallly speaking? This year I've got a vinyl release of edits coming out on my new label Melodies of Love in the spring, which have been put together by Silas (also known as Eclectic Journeys). Silas is an original Balearic spirit who now lives in Palma Mallorca and owns the best digging record shop there "Got Blues Listen to Jazz". These edits he has made are unbelievable, they absolutely blew me away, so much so that I've started a record label for the first time in my life to get them out there (also allowing me to have a copy on vinyl). They aren't your big standard edit with a filter in and a 4 to the 4 beat at the start and end. Silas has been very clever in his production on these and I know DJs are going the appreciate the magic of these killer tracks. Honestly, I can see Harvey digging these, hopefully Colleen will dig them too. Check the socials for when that will be dropping over the next month or so but hoping for an April release. On a DJing tip, I'm hoping to do a couple of festivals in the summer (I was very close to doing We Out Here last year but it didn't happen due to my flight arriving back from a holiday in Vietnam too late, but hoping for a slot there this year), I am also looking into a residency in Liverpool over the summer, but, for the time being, I'll keep on doing the odd gig here and there sporadically (I like it that way sometimes), doing the mixcloud uploads more frequently and also starting my own radio show from my own studio. Of course I'll keep traveling with my lovely wife Lesley (Much love x) whether that be for leisure or accompanying her on her international work schedule, which is very fortunate for me as I'm able to keep searching and discovering the perfect Balearic beat! Thank you once again Marc!