A couple of years ago when Joss Stone busted onto the charts with a scorching rendition of The White Stripes’ “Fell In Love With a Girl,” gender pronouns lovingly switched and backed (at least in the video) by ?uestlove and The Roots Crew, I wasn’t terribly interested in the blue-eyed Soul phenomenon. It’s not even a new thing, it’s just trends coming full-circle in a way. See, when all the 40-something British housewives were in their teens and early twenties, they were partying to Northern Soul, its only logical that their darling Duffys, Amys and now Adeles should be singing in the grand tradition of Delta Blues via Dusty Springfield. Cold Shoulder, with its sunny breaks and haunting strings, is Adele’s first chart-bound single in the US. The Basement Jaxx remix is of course my favorite, though there is an “Out of Office” version that is quite a bit punchier. I love how she repeats the main verse of the chorus when conventional songwriting dictates that she should follow “words made of knives” with a rhyming couplet. Undoubtedly Adele is garnering success because of a trend beyond her control; it kind of reminds me of the influx of Neo-Soul artists into the US pop charts in the late 90s actually. Only time will tell us which of these blue-eyed dollies will be a Jill Scott, and which a Jaguar Wright.

I was trolling around the web in hopes of finding some of the individual tracks from Kaskade’s superb newish mix CD, Bring The Night, more specifically I was searching for Axwell’s Classic Mix of I Found You and Kaskade’s edit of Nelly Furtado’s All Good Things, when I stumbled upon the sleeper hit from the second half of the disc. A little peach, this San Francisco-House Kaskade remix of Floetry’s Supastar is simply off the chain. I would play it right after a real banger so that I could slow the pace of the dancefloor down. Right up there with the Fred Everything mix of Ladybug Mecca, Natalie Stewart’s delicious, British flow hits all the sweetest spots and Kaskade’s understanding of pacing really underscores the luscious textures of the original arrangement. Ace; gold; spot-on; big up.

Its my obligatory once-a-month post big-upping Providence’s nastiest freak fest. And by freak fest I mean Providence Is Burning, the wonderful celebration of left-of-center dance music that Micah Jackson and Certified Bananas host mostly on last Saturdays. We missed a month in honor of baby Jesus’ b-day, so this month we decided to forgo a special guest in favor of a big funkin’ shake down. Certified Max on the solo tip and the MJ playin’ all the new jammers. I think since I recently came upon a surfeit of bootyful bouncers from the Southern Fried Label that I’ll post one of those. I first heard the original “Release The Pressure” on Fatboy Slim’s Bondi Beach Mix from New Year’s Eve 2006. It features the untouchable Rosie Gaines on vocals and if I’m not mistaken, its probably Fatboy Norman on the production tip. That’s the beauty of having your own label; you can always release an odd-ball tune under a pseudonym without apologizing if it sucks. This remix, aptly named for its wicked use of Prince’s Controversy motif, is a right floor filler. Listen for the clean guitars, acid bass and punching kick drum, then lose your shit and pump your fist.

It isn’t very often that I repost something I’ve found on a blog, but special artists call for special exceptions. I stumbled across this Alphabeat remix by the likes of Radioclit, oh so popular with me due to their grand contributions to the dj-mix canon. Its got the same clavésque beat that they feature prominantly on the Wawaba remix; almost straight up West-African. I love how that poppy horn line just rides the drums for a good couple of minutes before the clitspit pops the Alpha-boys drops: tonal semi-whine and “woo-woos” never sounded better. Popjustice reports that The Alphabeat crew just landed major-label distro in the UK, so it can’t be long before they’re headlining small clubs in college towns and metropoles here in the states. Not sure how I feel about this mix by Frankmusik. It’s very Lo-Fi-Fnk, which is not a bad thing.

“Lil’ Star,” a 2007 single off the album “Kelis Was Here,” is a little slice of Disco-Pop heaven. She even gets Cee-Lo to add his golden pipes to the chorus. This is by no means a new track, but it finally dawned on me just how good the mixes are so I have to post. This joint is a throwback to the early days of the 12″ record, when mixes extended the best bits and vamped the vocal hooks. Prior to the 1970s, the decade when DJ culture really entrenched itself in NYC haunts such as The Loft and The Gallery, the 12″ record, was unheard of. Discos actually influenced the technology and DJs, in hopes of pleasing their audiences, became producers. The 45/7″ was just too small to accommodate. Now the technology is in a big black nebula again, with amateur edits pushing DJs to innovate on the fly and challenging those nostalgic heads who don’t keep up with the rapid evolution of their dance floors. I love this shit.

British Indie bands always have an easier time balancing club ready, four-to-the-floor backbeats with substantial lyrics. This one’s all about refusing to leave the coast despite the increasing risk of being swallowed by a wall of water; a global warming call to arms shall we say? Well, it is substantial for me considering that I barely discern the content of most the music I get into, and that’s mostly because my brain latches onto the subtleties of production and can’t process the extra info. Athlete’s one of those bands that came out after The Strokes and with no real interest in replicating the Electro-clash playbook. You know the type - first American record out on Astralwerks, some cute videos and a lot of bangs. Stereogum posted this track back in August after Camp America won some sort of remix contest sponsored by the band’s label. It’s really just a great song for jamming in your car to. Especially on gloomy Providence days like today.

As I add the new Kylie album to my itunes playlist I can’t help but pause reflect on that precise moment when she went from a guilty pleasure to a legitimate saccharine heart attack. I guess if I had to name a real clincher it would be “Can’t Get You Out of My Head:” remixed by Soulwax, covered by The Flaming Lips and beloved by the US top 40 audience (at least the first 30 times they heard it on the radio), the song was a tour de force and a perfect synthesis of sounds both warm and electronic. “Sensitized” is by no means the best track on the album; that dubious honor honor goes to “In My Arms.” It is merely a track in which Minogue expertly deploys the pleasantly ubiquitous “Bonny and Clyde” sample from the Serg Gainsbourg jam with Bridgitte Bardot. PS - you don’t even really have to say the Minogue anymore; everybody knows who you’re talking about. Here is the og version and another cheeky sample driven single by German Pop duo Stereo Total.

It’s hard to believe, and exciting as hell, that we’re on our 7th Providence Is Burning. The last one, Halloween, tore the fucking roof off the firehouse. Burned it down in fact. This time around we’re playing host to NYC’s Nick Catchdubs, a much-loved blogger, DJ and producer who’s been around the block and is now working with such unlimited talent as Wale, Mark Ronson and running his own label with A Trak (Fools Gold ya hear?). Last time I heard Catchdubs was at Certified Banana’s party in Cambridge a year or so ago. I’m not sure how much Hip Hop he’s going to play, but here’s a taste of the uncategorizable Black music he is known to throw into his sets.

It’s kind of bizarre that I haven’t yet posted a Plump Djs track since they are consistently releasing giant bangers on the Finger Lickin label. It was between this or the Missy Elliot-cribbing “Kinky,” but there is something really ill about the synth meltdown that breaks this thing into dancefloor-devestating bitesize pieces. It all begins with massive acid subs and the little b-boy callout hook. I can’t wait to play this on Dec 1 at Providence is Burning!

When Craig David burst onto the UK Garage scene with his vocals featured on the hugely successful “Rewind,” he was an everyman and a crooner in a world that was alive with young talent. Soon enough the Artful Dodger became a passé pop fad and David failed to garner a repeat of the international success conferred to Born To Do It. His second full-length, Slicker Than Your Average was a huge step back artistically too. I try to keep up with him as he reinvents his sound in the parameters of radio-friendly Black music every couple of years, and I actually have to applaud him for realizing his own creative short-comings. Why else would he look to whoever is getting paid most to remix each time around? First it was Sunship in the halcyon days of UK Garage, then Akufen and DFA (who never actually took him up on the offer) and now it’s Touché. I don’t think Craig David would have gone international even if he had stuck to his roots in soulful Garage because trends in British music seem to fracture and spawn new sub-genre’s as soon as they get their own names. UK Garage is only just now enjoying a Renaissance thanks to its proximity to new work by artists like Burial, Bugz and even Lady Sov. I’m not expecting much from the Craig David album, but I’m thrilled that Touché is on remix-duty for the first single, Hot Stuff. Not much to say about this single except that it is one of those joints I’d play in the lead up to a banger, but isn’t quite a floor-filler itself.