Chris Coco’s weekly radio broadcast. An eclectic selection of brilliant new music starting with house and moving on to electronica, downtempo, acoustic and all sorts of other styles loosely connected to dance and electronic music. Let tastemaker Chris Coco guide you through his selection of the week’s best new music. This episode we’re exploring some kind of soul music. Now, that might be Motown or it might be something inside the machine; it might be a guitar through an amp with reverb; it might be a digital bleep or a sonic squeak. So that’s Alabama Shakes, Ame, Moodymann, Odyssey, Paul Weller and much more. [setlist] 1 Monster Rally – Jaguar – Gold Robot Records 2 Ame – This Is Not The End (Ame Beatless Mix) – Innervisions 3 Moodymann – U Ranaway – Scion 4 Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland – 2 – Hyperdub THAT FUZZY FEELING (TUNE OF THE WEEK) 5 Tennis – Make It Good – Life And Death 6 Joakim – Nothing Gold (Todd Terje Mix) – Tigersushi STRINGS, WOOD AND A BOX OF AIR 7 Paul Weller – Devotion – Island 8 Daniel Rosen – Up On High – Warp 9 Spiritualized – Little Girl – Double Six Records 10 Alabama Shakes – I Found You – Rough Trade 11 Odyssey – Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love – UMC 12 Beaumont – Verona Beach – Hot Flush 13 Sensate Focus – x – Editions Mego 14 Idjut Boys – One For Kenny – Smalltown Supersound 15 Heion – Act One – In The Woods

I’ve been thinking about Record Store Day. As far as retail ‘events’ goes, it is, undeniably, ‘a good thing’. After all, it’s definitely totally indie, there are only independent record stores left now. It gives lovely shops like Rough Trade East, where I chose to go for my retail fix, a massive boost. And, because it’s something to do with music, it’s suffused with this mystical idea that you are in some way doing something more than buying something when you go and buy something. Now, I’ve been attempting to get totally zen about purchasing stuff. Usually, outside of the local green grocers, where I can’t help but be tempted by the purple sprouting broccoli and the buttony vine tomatoes, I can usually sail down a high street or a cool back alleyway, past all the shops, without a blink, without one little pang of the old – oooh, I really NEED that thing, without a tinge of retail regret when I get home. But today, oh today, I found myself slipping, like the alcoholic fallen off the wagon, my little look into the shop turned into a whirl of old style shopping. First, I picked up a Gotan Project single. New tracks, good for the radio show, I heard myself mumble, probably actually out loud, not just in my head. Then the Daphni mix of the new Hot Chip single, because, well, it’s Daphni, and, well, that will be good for the show too. Then, with two shrink wrapped beauties under my arm I headed for the 7″ single counter, a table stocked with little discs of delight, wrapped in coloured paper. Tasty audio macaroons, each one bright and shiny, each promising a different flavour. A copy of the Velvet Undergroud’s Sweet Jane in original picture sleeve slipped into my collection; closely followed by a soul version of a Nirvana song, bought on the strength of the little info label, so courteously attached by one of the RT staff to tempt people like me. Ooh, only 200 copies in the whole world, I gasped. Then, all the old habits coming back, I made one more round of the bits of the shop I had already visited, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, eager to add to the little stack of stuff in my sweaty hands. Once you have bought four things, another one doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal, so I quickly added a 12″ from The Very Best, then, in a moment of clear vision, headed for the till before things got really bad. I think it was the sight of the £22.99 price tag on the reissue of the Velvet Underground’s Loaded album that did it. Though of course on a track by track basis my single, with only two tunes for a whopping £6.99, is actually more ridiculously over priced. So, out of the shop, 45 odd quid poorer and on some sort of high from the queueing and the bustle and the buying and the barging and the general good vibes inside the store, I strode out into the spring sunshine in search of a pub to watch the second half of the Chelsea Arsenal game. Of course it can’t last. Apart from the collectors and the geeks, we will all, inevitably, end up consuming our culture digitally. There really is little point in owning a carrier of music or a film when what you want is the music or the film. It takes up space, it gathers dust and eventually hurts your back when you put it in a box with lots of other carriers and try to move it somewhere. Almost all the music I buy now is digital and unlike the luddites and the product fetishists, I actually like it that way. I have never been that big on stuff. But, despite the fact that I have been parted from some cash, despite the fact that it’s not entirely necessary, I still think it would be a tragedy if Rough Trade and all the other shops like it round the country were to disappear. I will always love looking round them, smelling the smell of slightly damp cardboard, feeling part of some sort of indefinable something that is just so cool and so beautiful, Even if, most of the time, I get some ideas then go home and buy the download.

The next edition of the legendary Cafe Del Mar album series features an exclusive track from Chris Coco called Cape Clear.

This episode we are mostly exploring acid house, new music that sounds old, post dubstep club, and generally up stuff made with machines, made with love. All the shows are archived on the Chris Coco page at Mixcloud. There’s a new Melodica chart on Juno Download: here. Follow Chris Coco on MixcloudTHAT FUZZY FEELING: JOAKIM – NOTHING GOLD Nothing Gold, the title track of Joakim’s 2011 album, is back with an extended 12″ version and a new mix from Todd Terje (here and set for a spin on next week’s show). It’s a gorgeous slice of slo mo old school new school indie disco, so it just has to be tune of the week. ALABAMA SHAKES Boys And Girls is the debut album from Alabama Shakes, a band from Athens in, um, Alabama. This is a proper album of sort of old fashioned garage soul, full of heart and passion and really good sounding guitars. It sounds, live, fresh and really analogue. An album to play over and over, preferably on vinyl. An album to cherish. It’s no surprise that they are supporting Jack White on his next tour. HOT FLUSH GOES HOUSE There are three house tracks from the Hot Flush label on this week’s show, including this fine thing from Lando Kal. Also featured are excellent Scuba album track If You Want To and the a remix of Sepalcure’s Hold On. Exciting times for old house heads. ACID FLASHBACK Forward To The Past 2 – The Acid Flashback is a great collection of new acid house music released by the ever reliable Poker Flat records. It’s inspired by the original jacking house and 303 experiments of the late 80s but with modern production values it feel fresh enough to play without making you feel old if you remember the stuff from the first time around. NU GROOVE Nu Groove, the underground New York based label, had a massive influence on house music in the late 80s and early 90s. Rush Hour have just released a great collection of tracks from the label’s main producers, Rheji and Ronald Burrell. Some of it sounds surprisingly current, despite the fact that it’s blooming vintage. It’s simple, soulful machine music that has stood the test of time (whatever that means).

Chris Coco’s weekly radio broadcast. An eclectic selection of brilliant new music starting with house and moving on to electronica, downtempo, acoustic and all sorts of other styles loosely connected to dance and electronic music. Let tastemaker Chris Coco guide you through his selection of the week’s best new music. This episode we are mostly exploring acid house, new music that sounds old, post dubstep club, and generally up stuff made with machines, made with love. [setlist] 1 Sepalcure – Hold On (Trevino Remix) – Hot Flush 2 Maelstrom – House Music – Sound Pellegrino 3 Scuba – If You Want To – Hot Flush 4 Pearson Sound – Untitled – Pearson Sound THAT FUZZY FEELING (TUNE OF THE WEEK) 5 Joakim – Nothing Gold (12inch Mix) – Tigersushi 6 Addison Groove – Skylight – Fifty Weapons 7 Dimitri From Paris & DJ Rocca – Balearique – Gomma STRINGS, WOOD AND A BOX OF AIR 8 Alabama Shakes – Be Mine – Rough Trade 9 Tech Trax Inc – Feel The Love (Sex Mix) – Nu Groove 10 Lando Kal – Rhythm Section – Hotflush 11 Owain K – Sans Fin – Poker Flat 12 Lone – Vulcan Mill Acid – R&S