Head Space Daily Words...

As the drizzle falls, from the grey, overcast, London sky, Gilles Peterson’s show on 6Music oozes from the speaker of our DAB radio, filling the dining room with lush soulful sounds. Having been out on a work do last night, I am sitting on our IKEA rocking chair, with a slight hangover. I am not completely hanging, with a banging headache, or groaning on the settee, it is one of those where my brain is just a little slow on the uptake - nothing more, nothing less. So, as far as hangovers go, it is not unpleasant. With GP doing his thing, it is thoroughly enjoyable in fact. Gilles Peterson quite simply sums up my time in London. He has been with us in a musical sense for the past nineteen years, reflecting our lives with the sounds he has been playing, introducing us to new artists and old artists from the world over. That is why his show is called Worldwide. The track currently playing as I write, seemingly transports us to a Moroccan bazaar - the Uproot Andy remix of a piece called Sasda Vasda Raje Punjab by Mahendra Kapoor & Suresh Wadekar. Where else would music like this be played? This is Peterson for you; he can take you from the abstract to the sublime, from Lagos to Lebanon, Berlin to Brazil. Always interesting, always pushing on, going backwards to move forwards, never standing still, forever joining the dots. From the mid to late 90s, a fair posse of us would go to the Blue Note in Hoxton Square on Saturday nights, where Gilles would be a regular. This is before Hoxton and Shoreditch became what they are today and taxi drivers wouldn’t stop to pick up in the area!! He had a Sunday night show on KISS FM called Innervisions if my memory serves me right, with Patrick Forge having a show straight after. That is musical heaven!! There is a box in our spare room stuffed full of old cassette recordings of those Sunday nights, which were a great way to round off the weekend. We must transfer them to digital files. Tapes were great, weren’t they? Peterson feeds you musical knowledge, which can inform your taste. He digs deep and then gets it out there to be shared. He introduced me to Terry Callier, one of my all time favourite artists – a musical hero - who I saw play live five times. At the Southport Weekender, the memory of GP playing the Letta Mbulu track What is Wrong With Groovin’ followed with Moondance by Van Morrison, because there happened to be a full moon that night, lives on. Our last big New Year’s Eve, pre kids, as we entered 2001, was at the then recently opened Cargo in Shoreditch, where Peterson’s set was rammed full of classic tunes, from Rotary Connection's Black Gold Of The Sun, to Lenny Fontana presents Black Sun's Spread Love (see Daily Tune.) Music carries with it a vast amount of memories. A time, a place, people, mood, a moment, so that when you hear a certain track, you can be transported back to when you heard it. Gilles Peterson is a musical director, leading us through life’s journey…

Head Space Daily Image...

As this evening's post is about Gilles Peterson and musical journeys, here is the Soul Box at Sister Ray records on Berwick Street - get digging!!

Head Space Daily Tune...

Lenny Fonatana presents Black Sun - Spread Love

The big tune of the night, when Gilles  Peterson DJayed at Cargo on New Year's Eve, as we celebrated the arrival of 2001 - back in the day…

Head Space Daily Words...

Well, last night’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra gig was pretty damn blow your mind. The main man, Ruban Nielson, entered the stage back lit, in a swirl of dry ice, a black poncho draped across his shoulders (see Daily Image.) Looking like a cool, modern day bandit in search of Morricone, his only victims for a hold up were melodic swathes of feedback, and warm washes of reverb; before shooting them down with sharp bursts of sweet, fractured, heart wrenching falsetto soul. The UMO twitter account describes their sound as ‘psychedellic R&B’ and it is a pretty fair assessment, swinging from emotional beauty to freak out drum solos, stabbing guitar diversions wrapped in distortion, with the pulsating bass, bridging the gaps, gelling the sound together. A varied set of first and second album material was rounded off with a three-song encore. An acoustic version of Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark) was followed by the mesmerizing So Good At Being In Trouble, before we were jerked back to the realm of freak out psychedelia, as UMO were joined on stage by Connan Mockasin for a psychedelic, disco-funk, rendering of Vitamin C by Can. Wow, catch your breath. This musical bandit had captivated us all with his unique sound, before, in the same way he had arrived, submerged in dry ice, poncho loosely hanging from his shoulders, he unassumingly exited, stage left…

Head Space Daily Image...

A backlit Ruban Nielson, frontman of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, takes to the stage of Camden's Electric Ballroom, draped in a poncho, swathed in dry ice...

Head Space Daily Tune...

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Ffunny Friends

This is the opening track to UMO's self titled debut album…

Head Space Daily Words...

This evening I’m off to see my new favourite band, Unknown Mortal Orchestra play the Electric Ballroom in Camden. I bought their current album II (that’s the Roman numeral for the number 2 apparently) in April and it’s rarely been far from my ear holes.  When people ask the question ‘What do they sound like?’ and expect me to fit them into some category or another, or pluck a sound alike band out of thin air to compare them to, it simply comes down to the fact that they sound bloody good. There’s no need to delve into influences and comparisons. To me their music is just a warm fuzz of soulful, psychedelic dreaminess. Ha, ha. What do you think of that!! Their first, self-titled album dropped through the letterbox today and I’m listening to it as I write this blog post - the track Jello and Juggernauts is currently playing and it sounds damn fine. I’ve never been to the Electric Ballroom before, so am looking forward to seeing what it is like and ticking it off my list of venues. Actually, apart from Brixton Academy earlier in the year, every gig I have seen in 2013 has been in a new venue – Madame JoJo’s, Union Chapel, XOYO. Anyway, I digress. Little Blu House is now oozing from the speakers and my anticipation is growing. Once the day is done, I’ll be off to Camden. Can’t wait…

Head Space Daily Image...

The CD covers to my two Unknown Mortal Orchestra albums...

Head Space Daily Tune...

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Swim And Sleep (Like A Shark)

Here is a terrific track from Unknown Mortal Orchestra's album II. One of my favourite tunes of the year...