Other times, nothing will please me more than closing the door, turning off my phone and settling in with comfy slippers, a cup of weak tea and a digestive biscuit.
One of my all-time favourite mixes, Extra Sensitive (in two parts) by Alec DeRuggiero, is for the lazy, languid latter times. It’s a delightfully un-ironic two-hour MOR odyssey through Sixto Rodriguez, Sandy Denny and Linda Lewis, and it contains more soft rock, smooth jazz, lite funk, muted flutes, gentle harmonies, shimmering harps and slow-shuffle percussion than anyone could possibly dream of.
It’s a mix that will never leave my ‘Top 25 Most Played’ iTunes list.
Here are some of my cherry-picked favourites.
I have long preferred male vocals to female in almost all musical settings, apart from two: jazz and house.
Looking through some favourite records recently after a rather ruthless cull of my collection, I realised that I still have a bit of a soft spot for hands-and-hanbags-in-the-air house.
So here is a skeleton-in-closet trio of cheddar house tracks about heartbreak, blind love, and, er, homelessness, which I only ever seem play when I’m at home, alone, preparing for the kind of long night out that involves long stretches of dancing in inappropriately high heels. Because with that kind of pain, you can keep Kenny, I’ll take SuSu any time.
Mange Le Funk – I Still Want You
Yep, I went there.
In my defense, I heard this on the first Muschihaus compilation around 10 years when I was heavily into disco house, and happily found a decent white label version back then, but didn’t realise that it has continued to be re-released in some (worse) form or another since then.
Sharmaine Campbell’s delivery of the lyrics is beautifully understated. She has a nightmare asshat of a man in her life, so she got rid of him, but she misses him, and wants him back. She’s not hysterical, just sort of sadly resigned to it. Breaks my cold witchy heart every time.
Ce Ce Peniston – He Loves Me Too
Almost Like a prequel to the above, Ce Ce’s man shows signs of possible asshattery (according to her friends anyway), but girlfriend is clearly still in the honeymoon phase.
Crystal Waters – Gypsy Woman
Hopefully not the final act of this weird narrative I’m subconsciously (and shoddily) creating?
Either way, a zillion listens later and the chord progression still gives me chills.
