More stuff about the music and stories on this week’s Melodica.
It’s gone all relaxed and Balearic this week, I think it’s something to do with the change in the weather, there’s a sense of nostalgia and the breath of autumn in the air. That’s reflected in the music.

A new logo is unveiled this week. To coincide with the launch of the Melodica record label, this adapted logo, designed by renowned artist She One, puts the familar letters inside the label on a vinyl record.

All the shows are archived on the Chris Coco page at Mixcloud.

Melodica chart on Juno Download: here.

THAT FUZZY FEELING: POOLSIDE – HARVEST MOON

A no brainer, this one. New music from Poolside who brought us the wonderful Do You Believe earlier this year. I found this excellent new tune on their Soundcloud page. It’s a cover of a Neil Young song, turning it from a lilting country smooch into a typical Poolside daytime disco groove with a very deep bassline. They’re giving it away too, so go download.

MORE POOLSIDE…

This rather tasty re-edit of Sade’s When Am I Going To Make A Living is on the Poolside Soundcloud page too.

MARIUS VARIED – TELEMARK

An excellent new album of electronic, Balearic, slow disco instrumentals on Prins Thomas’s Full Pupp label. Marius is a super-busy producer from Norway. He describes his work as everything from Balearic disco to tropical jazz. This is simple, solid, listenable, quality electronic disco.

LAGOS ALL ROUTES

A fine compilation of music from what many consider the golden age of Nigerian music, the mid 60s to the early 80s, from the ever reliable Honest Jon’s record label. Here are a couple of quotes from a detailed and interesting description of the album on the Honest Jon’s website.

“Symbolically, the challenge was for musicians not only to entertain, but to provide a uniquely African inflection of concepts such as the nation state, modernity, the city, and technology. Stylistically, the challenge was twofold — to modernize folk, classical and traditional genres on one hand, and to Africanize foreign genres on the other. Out of these two intertwined projects emerged African popular music.”
“‘Lagos All Routes’ refers to the fact that while the music on these collection originates from various parts of Nigeria, it is inevitably filtered through the urban prism of Lagos, which literally exploded with music during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.”

ANOTHER SUMMER WITH SEAHAWKS

Thanks to my almost total conversion to digital downloads I have only just discovered Seahawks, who only release on vinyl and CD. But what a discovery. They make really fine, floaty Balearic music that is perfect for beaches or memories of beaches, and, of course, they package it very nicely. I did get a little consumerist flutter when their latest CD and 7″ single arrived from Phonica, and the music is very good, now I just need to get the record player out of the cupboard and plug it in…

LET ‘EM IN

There’s another track from Justus Kohncke’s covers album, Spiralen der Erinerung, on this week’s show. His cover of Wing’s 1976 hit Let ‘Em In is as dry as a slice of sandpaper. Real trainspotters will notice how Phil & Don from the original become Vielen Dank (thank you in German)in this version.