SELECTOR
“To me, creating stylistic divisions is the domain of the critic and the corporate executive,” says Todd, who has been discovering and collecting music since his childhood days. “It is the right and the responsibility of music lovers and DJs to blur those lines and obliterate those barriers.”
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
Rewind: Recovered Grooves for the Replay Minded
13 October 2010
Freda Payne, "Suddenly It's Yesterday"
Invictus Records
Is 9100
"Memories, memories…keep comin' back!"
This minor masterpiece of funky, orchestral Soul from the Motown superproduction team of Holland-Dozier-Holland (from the Freda Payne album Contact) is released as a B-side to the single "You Brought the Joy" on their Invictus label in October 1971.
Freda's powerful and stirring delivery packs a wallop as she ably handles the tune's complex key and tempo changes—elevating it to operatic effect in the song's ethereal vocal bridge.
This rare groove, a precursor to the sophisticated R&B pieces Gamble and Huff and Thom Bell would perfect in Philly, has found a fan in producer 9th Wonder, who has sampled and reworked the song for the Boondocks animated series (Second season, episode four, "Stinkmeaner Strikes Back").
Are you a fan of Mayer Hawthorne AND Burt Bacharach? This is essential!!
Fast Forward: Future Tracks for Future Listeners
28 September 2010
Badonday, “Albondigas”
Flashback Records
FB005
Plucking this instantly catchy, yet unfamiliar 12-inch from the racks of Neal Becton’s Som Records, he curiously inspects the title, smirks, and quizzes:
“Albondigas. You know what it is, right?”
I shrug and reply, “Some type of soup, isn’t it?”
He nods in the affirmative and rings up my purchase.
Days later, spinning this infectious Nudisco burner in the lab for mi hermano, Mexican super Space Cumbia producer, Gustavo Naranjo, he excitedly states:
“Hey T, that’s a nice track--Albondigas! You know what those are right, man?! Mexican meatballs.”
I am not certain what producers Toby Tobias and Dave Garnish, under the moniker Badonday, had in mind with this curious title but like its Spanish namesake it is a wonderfully light proto-disco soup with hearty chunks of rhythmic club bottom, thumping electro bass, and meatball sonic production elliptically building to anthemic crescendos and receding into spacious dubbed out bliss.
“Albondigas. You know what it is, right?”
Yes, I do. It’s HOT!