Clashing Egos - Aminjig Nebere (I Trusted You) - Joakim's Afrobot Mix

I've posted this one before but today when I was doing the hoovering, no really I swear I was, I was playing an old mix CD of mine from a while back to ease the pain of doing women's work (put the knives down girls, I'm kidding) and this record stood out a mile. Joakim is one of my favourite producers and he rarely disappoints and this is probably the best thing he has ever done, which is saying something. It isn't the most complicated of records, and the best ones usually aren't, but what it does do is groove and when you're playing house music or anything with a 4/4 beat all you really want is a solid groove and this track has it in abundance. This is one of those any time any place records and one that you should hunt down, especially as the Jean Winner remixes on the flip are pretty darn good in their own right. It might cost you a few sheets but it'll be worth each and every piece of hard-earned.

Clashing Egos - Aminjig Nebere (I Trusted You) - Joakim's Afrobot Mix

The Revenge - Cadillac

This is an edit of Hot Chocolate Heaven Is In The Back Seat of My Cadillac and I think it is by Wolverhampton's finest cut-up expert Mark E but don't hold me to that. I know that the Unabombers have been caning this one and its easy to see why as it's definitely one of those records that gets the blood racing and the fists pumping. I don't really have more to say about it as I'm thoroughly engrossed listening to the The Bears Upstairs on Unity Radio (goes out every Thursday at 10pm UK time) and I think the record speaks enough for itself, that and my brother in arms, Paul Hughes, is on the radio and I miss the fella.

The Revenge - Cadillac

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell - California Soul

Tammi Terrell began recording for Scepter/Wand Records at the age of 15, before touring with the James Brown Revue for a year. In 1965, she married heavyweight boxer Ernie Terrell, the brother of future Supreme Jean Terrell. Terrell's warm, sensuous vocals won her a contract with Motown Records later that year, and in 1966 she enjoyed a series of R&B hits, among them a soulful rendition of This Old Heart Of Mine. In 1967, she was selected to replace Kim Weston as Marvin Gaye's recording partner and this inspired teaming produced Gaye's most successful duets, and the pair issued a stream of hit singles between 1967 and 1969.

As Gaye and Terrell wove around each other's voices, creating an aura of romance and eroticism that led to persistent rumours that they were lovers. From the beginning, their partnership was tinged with unhappiness, Terrell collapsing in Gaye's arms during a performance in 1967. She was diagnosed as suffering from a brain tumour, and despite a series of major operations over the next three years, her health steadily weakened. By 1969, she was unable to perform in public, and on several of the duo's final recordings, their producer, Valerie Simpson, controversially claims to have taken her place. Ironically, one of these tracks, The Onion Song, proved to be the most successful of the Gaye/Terrell singles in the UK. Tammi Terrell died on 16 March 1970, her burial service attracting thousands of mourners, including many of her Motown colleagues.

There are many versions of California Soul but to me this is the definitive version, a song that is sung so beautifully and with so much passion that it almost jumps off the record when you listen to it. Marvin Gaye allegedly only sang to 80% of his abilities and I can only imagine what this would've sounded like had he sung to his full capabilities. It is sad that Tammi died before her time but what she has left us with is a legacy that includes some of the great R&B and soul records of all time and for that we should be eternally grateful. This record makes perfect sense in the sun, which after the random snow flurry we had last week is most certainly here and thank goodness for that.

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell - California Soul

Stan Smith

Stan Smith was an American tennis player who won just about everything the game had to offer but were it not for the iconic shoes that adidas made for him then I wouldn't be writing this - it's all about the shoes. Just as firmly as I believe every record collection should have a copy of Pépé Bradock Life I believe that every respectable shoe collector should have a pair of Stan Smiths tucked away somewhere.

The shoe was introduced as the first all leather tennis shoe and interestingly they were never originally intended for Stan Smith but rather the earliest version of the shoe was produced in cooperation with and endorsed by French tennis player, Robert Haillet - this first version of the shoe had a thick outsole and lacked the adidas trefoil logo on the heel. In the mid-60s, an up and coming tennis phenomenon came to the attention of adidas, and the shoes were renamed in 1971 after Stan Smith who went on to win seven Davis Cups, 39 singles titles and 61 doubles crowns in his distinguished career. His shoes have gone on to sell 30 million pairs and counting and the company has just recently released a limited edition Tournament Edition to presumably coincide with Wimbledon this year. There are two versions out, the green heeled one that I stumped for, which is limited to 1000 pairs worldwide and the even harder to get wallet-bursting off-white edition that has the number of the shoe embossed into the heel, I think they're limited to 300 pieces at most. If I see a pair for a decent price I'll probably buy them, I'm mad like that. They also released a t-shirt that proudly proclaims the wearers love for the shoes and it is a t-shirt that I wear with pride, and one that does get me a very extra nerd points along the way.




You can buy these from any of the adidas Originals stores in the US, and I'm assuming worldwide.

Henrik Schwarz/Amampondo - I Exist Because of You - Henrik Schwarz Live Version

Amampondo are, like myself, from Cape Town and were formed in 1978 in Langa, which is a township just on the outskirts of the city and the original aim was to preserve the rich musical traditions of South Africa in general and the Xhosa people in particular. An ethnomusicologist (wouldn't you like that on your business card?) named Andrew Tracey introduced the group to some fast vanishing Southern African instruments like the Kudu horn, the akadinda, a large wooden xylophone and the chopi xylophone from Mozambique and since then they have gone on to play everywhere from Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday celebrations at Wembley in London to the Atlanta Olympics and just about every country you'd care to mention the world over.


Amampondo tend to play traditional African music, which is of course dominated by the drum and vocal harmonies that make it perfect for someone like Henrik Schwarz to tinker with. For my money Henrik Schwarz has been the freshest thing to hit the music scene in years and on I Exist Because of You the percussive groove augmented by Henrik's expert placing of the vocals in the mix make this quite possibly the best heads down dancing record that has been released in a long time. Far too many records are way too long but this one, which clocks in at just under ten minutes, is far too short for my liking. This is definitely one of those records that once I've finished listening to it I pick up the needle and start again - it has all the elements that I look for in house music and in music in general for that matter and I really hope that by the end of the year we get two or three more records of this quality, which will take some doing, but if we do then it will have been a very good year for music indeed.

Henrik Schwarz/Amampondo - I Exist Because of You - Henrik Schwarz Live Version

Tokyo Black Star - Kagura

So first off the reason why I haven't been posting much over the past few days is that Blogger was blocked on the network that I use, but after a few frantic e-mails all is restored and I'm free to type more random bollocks, there is a loser in all this but I'm just trying to work out who.


Tokyo Black Star is the result of the musical relationship between Alex From Tokyo and Isao Kumano who some of you may remember from a couple of releases on the sadly defunct Japanese label Flower Records. They've been making music together for a while but have really stepped up since 2005 and have released work on Sonar Kollektiv, Deeply Rooted and Innervisions and the releases have been as eclectic as Alex's DJ sets, which truly do run the full gamut of electronic music - he was the one DJ that I really wanted to book for Kumo but by the time the opportunity arised we had already packed it in. Have a look at Alex's playlist here to get an idea of what the little magician plays.

The first time I came across a Tokyo Black Star release was when they re-jigged a Tony Allen release on P-Vine at the turn of the century and they've made everything from deep house to minimal techno but for this release they've entered the world of ambient and from what I gather it'll be on their forthcoming album Muting The Noise. This is definitely one of those records that sucks you in and has that cinematic feel that was so popular when clubs still had chillout rooms back in the mid-90s, except this one is just the right side of the Jean-Michel Jarre rubbish that I put up with when I was taking a break from dancing my socks off at various haunts in Cape Town at the time. This isn't as instant as some of the records that I've posted on here and is probably crying out for a kick drum but for here and now this works for me and then some.

Tokyo Black Star - Kagura