New Top Ten

Posted By: Shagz
Date:

A little late in getting this one posted, but here you go:

We kick off with a new track from Smoove, a producer who's quickly become one of my favourites of 2005. If you've seen me spin in the last year or so, you'll have heard Smoove's The Revolution Will Be Televised somewhere in the set. All This Love... is a full on, female vocal, jump up soul jam that rips from the word go. I almost cry everytime I hear vocalist Mary Awere belting this mutha out. Track of the Year status as far as I'm concerned.

From new to old: Cyril Neville (of the Neville Brothers) comes in with the classic Gossip, a chunk o' blues funk that hits you where it counts. Follow that with some new AND some old: This Kid Named Miles' (aka The Breakestra) version of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire. Country meets bumping ska. They say it couldn't be done, but here it is. Long a favourite of the Breakestra's live show, I managed to get this on 45 when they were last in town. Dynamite.

Next, a double whammy from a UK producer who I stumbled across, Braces Tower. The first is El Fuego, a smooth riding yet urgent drum 'n bass track spiked with some latin punch. Mambo 'n bass? The second is Eleven Twelve a cheeky but totally classic and timeless rinsing of the Pinball Song from Sesame Street. Download both tracks and more from Braces' Pasteism EP here.

A slightly older track but one I still haven't played out yet: I Don't Know by Capstone, remixed by Aaron Jerome. Think a happier, loungier, faster Red Snapper or Sabres of Paradise and might be close.

Finally got Maktub's latest release and the title track, Say What You Mean, has a hook that just won't let go. I haven't formed an opinion about the rest of the album yet, but that one....hmmmmm, shivers.

Gavin Froome's Sunsets is kind of out of place here in that it's more a track for summer than winter. (Indeed, I think it came out this past summer) Deep, deep house of the finest kind, this would fit perfect at the beginning or end of a long, well done dj set. Solid urban city house.

I had Cha Cha No. 29 on my list last month but I forgot to actually say anything about it in my post. More latin mambo madness, with a bass line maxmized for butt moving. Download it here.

Pendulum remains on my list with Streamline. Drum 'n bass on an epic scale, even the trance heads have got to dig it.

And of course, in honour of the 15+ cm of snow that's fallen on the city today, I finished with Dean Martin's grin inducing lounger, Let it Snow.

Merry Christmas all!

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