One summer night, out on a flat headland, all but surrounded by the waters of the bay, the horizons were remote and distant rims on the edge of space.  Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages.  Otherwise there was no reminder of human life.  My companion and I were alone with the stars:  the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon.  It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this little headland would be thronged with spectators.  But it can be see many scores of nights in any year, and so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably gave not a thought to the beauty overhead; and because they could see it almost any night, perhaps they never will.
Rachel Carson

• Mlle Caro & Franck Garcia - Soldiers
  Left (Buzzin’ Fly Records, 2010)
• Zoot Woman-It’s Automatic
  Living In A Magazine (Wall Of Sound, 2001)
• Popnoname -Hello Gorgeous
  Hello Gorgeous  (Kompakt, 2010)
• The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart-Higher Than The Stars (Saint Etienne Remix)
  Higher Than The Stars (Slumberland Records, 2009)
• Ada-Lovestoned
  Adaptations (Kompakt, 2009)
• Massive Attack-Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto Remix)
  Heligoland Remixes (The Vinyl Factory, 2010)
• Arandel-#1
  In D  (Infiné Music, 2010)

This is the first of the “Midnight tempo” series. You can find some rhytmical pop sound to surfing or traveling  across the midnight. 
See you in the next time.  While enjoy it.   

Photo: Twentyeight

Photo: Nickolas Muray via GEH.

Allez donc vous faire bronzer
Sur la plage, sur la plage.

• Allen Toussaint - St. James Infirmary
  The Bright Mississippi (Nonesuch, 2009)
• Paris Combo - Señor
  Living Room (Tinder, 2000)
• Sacha Distel - Allez Donc Vous Faire Bronzer
  Allez Donc Vous Faire Bronzer (La Voix de son Maître, 1968)
• Sisters Love - Give Me Your Love
  Give Me Your Love (1973; reissue on Soul Jazz, 2006)
• Dusty Springfield - Spooky
  Spooky 7″ (1970)
• Kinobe - Slip Into Something More Comfortable
  Slip Into Something More Comfortable 7″ (Pepper, 2000)

An all-weekend getaway to the beach. A subtle and clumsy dance on the pool. I love this Nickolas Muray photograph. I had no idea they had such bright, colourful photographs in 1932. I’d love to lie and tell you I created this playlist inspired by it. Maybe I will.
I created this playlist inspired by today’s photograph. Manouche jazz, soul funk, rare groove… it’s a nice, vibrant soundset for warm summer days. It might just scare the rain away.

A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability. We are constantly re-imagining its reality: to distinguish all these images would be to describe the soul of the house; it would mean developing a veritable psychology of the house… They give us back areas of being, houses in which the human being’s certainty of being is concentrated, and we have the impression that, by living in such images as these, in images that are as stabilizing as these are, we could start a new life, a life that would be our own, that would belong to us in our own very depths. - Gaston Bachelard, “The Poetics of Space”, pg. 17

1. Deodato - Univac loves you (Very Together, 1976)
2. Koushik - Be with you (Out my Window, 2008)
3. Andras Fox - Touchy feat. Amenta (Unreleased)
4. Andres - A new beginning / You can’t hide (Mahoghani Music, 2010)
5. Andras Fox - Body & Soul (Unreleased)
6. Ron Basejam - Into my Life (Brownswood Bubblers Five, 2010)
7. Hanna - Cottage (Sound Signature, 2005)

A long overdue return to the Motel. So much has happened, from the incredible experiences of The Red Bull Music Academy, a return home, changes in my own life, and finding a new rhythm and routine.

Like a child seeking stability in an image of a house, I’m finding stability in the regular heartbeat of an 808 kick drum. All of these songs explore a tension between a evolving fluid element and a regular organizing structure of drum programming. They are what I am drawn to playing right now - slow, swung, dilapidated house.

pic: author’s (taken in torokbalint, hungary)

“Definitive, once-and-for-all developments seem no longer appropriate to musical thought as it is today, or to the actual state that we have reached in the evolution of musical technique, which is increasingly concerned with the investigation of a relative world, a permanent ‘discovering’ rather like the state of ‘permanent revolution’.” Pierre Boulez (Sonate, que me veux-tu?, 1960)

1.  Monarch All Star Jazz feat. ‘The King‘ - Lover Come Back to Me (Monarch 10″)
2. The Majestic Arrows - I’ll never cry for another boy (rehearsal) (Bandit)
3.  Stanley Black - unknown (’Cuban Moonlight’)
4. Lloyd Miller - Gozel Guzler (Version II) (Jazzman Records, Reissue 2009)
5. Controller 7 - Unbalanced (’Left Handed Straw’, 6months, 2001)
6. Samiyam - Catch me riding dirty (’Man vs. Machine EP, Poobah, 2009)
7. Andras Fox - Love is Gone (draft) (unreleased)
8. Oh No - Midnight Missions (’Dr. No’s Ethiopium’, StonesThrow, 2009)
9. J’Dilla - Donuts (intro) (’Donuts’, StonesThrow, 2008)

Listen: a good piece of music is never definitive. There could have been alternate takes. There could have been unforeseen errors in equipment, in the musicians approach, in the mood of an engineer, in the vinyl pressing. There could be samples that could have been used differently. There could have been an extended version, etcetera.

That is not to say that the artist lacked drive or integrity to complete their work. Whilst this list features drafts and rehearsal recordings, most are mastered songs, cut to record and released. But these pieces of music still contain what I would call an unfinished element – an element which threatens to spawn a new version, a sample waiting to be used, a loop that could be extended if need be, and so on.

The infinite JDilla is perhaps the figure of the unfinished musician – his songs built upon the work of others who came before, his work has inspired musicians to come, and the very structure of ‘Donuts’ suggests endless revolution. Ending with the track ‘Intro’ seems self-explanatory in this regard.

“So you see! There’s no end to the things you might know, depending how far beyond Zebra you go.” Dr. Seuss

Pic: Author’s