A panoply of playable pleasures

It's grey, miserable and cold out there. Time, methinks, for another selection of "newer" choons that have caught my ear of late.

Let's open with a distinctively different take on an old classic...

ZRI (Zum Roten Igel): The Red Hedgehog Tavern Band - I Feel Love (Donna Summer cover)

Here's a rarity - Drag Race alumnus Violet Chakchi sans drag (as Paul Jason Dardo) doing her best Marc Almond impression in a video for Soft Cell's latest? Hell, yeah!

Soft Cell - Light Sleepers

By complete contrast... Any regular reader will be more than well aware of my atheist disdain for all things religious - but when we discover divas with voices like this, we pay them due homage. Just. Fucking. Wow!

The Como Mamas - Come Out the Wilderness

Taking a more sinister tone, here's what a typical week on the office is like:

Fever Ray - What They Call Us

Let's lighten the mood slightly, shall we, with some sleaze?

Darin - Satisfaction

Then, there's this - from Erasure's recently-released expanded "Deluxe Edition" of their 1995 self-titled album:

Erasure - Angel (Love Eternal Mix by TSF)

And finally, a remarkable track and video from a most unlikely artist to ever be considered "enlightened"...

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Pretty Boy

As ever, dear reader, let me know your thoughts...

Of new plants and new music

Salvia "Rockin' Fuchsia" [click to embiggen]

The British weather continues to confound us all - yesterday and my birthday were mainly sunny (contrary to all forecasts by the Met Office), and today it has stayed warm yet grey and grizzly; all of which has meant I have been busy getting a few late-season pottering jobs done in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers including rearranging pots, shifting ones that are "over" and moving those yet to flower into their place. Our lovely local garden centre sent me a birthday voucher, which I put towards another beautiful new salvia [as above] yesterday (and I potted that up), and I also lugged home a sizeable new terracotta pot from Homebase today and repotted the Scilla peruviana into it (in the vain hope it might actually flower next year). Now I'm pooped.

Time, methinks, for a selection of some of the "newer" music that has caught my ear of late...

First up, a bit of class (with a capital "k"):

VOCES8 - Straighten Up and Fly Right [Nat King Cole cover]

Something perhaps less classy, and quite bewildering - it came highly recommended from the "Cabinet of Curiosities" that is Dangerous Minds blog:

Wet Leg - Chaise Longue

A very welcome return for "prime totty" Jake Shears with this one - apparently a "leftover" from an old Scissor Sisters session. It reminds me of something else, but I can't put my finger on it...

Jake Shears - Do The Television

Next up, something that (again) is not new at all - it's from 2017, in fact - but I had never heard it until Jake's former bandmate Ana Matronic played it on her Radio 2 Dance Devotion show, so it counts as "new" as far as I'm concerned:

Camelphat and Elderbrook - Cola

Speaking of "club bangers", M'Lud - this one definitely is a recent release, and it's faboo! [...and features just about everybody who is anybody in Noo Yawk's clubland in its video, to boot.]

Ariana and the Rose - Every Body

Leaving the best to last, however - Miss Chachki's getting kinky again, with a song that bears more than a passing resemblance to Miss Kittin and the Hacker, or indeed several choons from the 1980s. Which is no bad thing, in my book!

Violet Chachki and Allie X - Mistress Violet

Phew.

As ever, dear reader, enjoy - and let me know what you think!

Nouvelle musique

It has been a while. However, here's another of my (increasingly irregular) round-ups of some of the newer music that has caught my ear...

Before I start - courtesy of The Quietus, we hear that the saintly David Bowie has permitted the use of a new track of his called Blackstar as title music for a new TV series The Last Panthers. Intriguing, indeed:

The Last Panthers opening credits (feat. Bowie's Blackstar)

And with that interlude, on with the show...

Hallowe'en is mere weeks away now, so how about we open our selection with some costume ideas from the mysterious Swedish duo I Am Karate and their atmospheric Elevate?

I Am Karate - Elevate

Speaking of ghosts, it would appear that someone has been picking up some tips out of the ether from the late, great Marc Bolan... Here's BØRNS and Electric Love. I want his jacket!

BØRNS - Electric Love

Sticking with "70s-grooves-updated", here's house fave band here at Dolores Delargo Towers The Young Professionals, and their version of Abba's S.O.S.:

The Young Professionals - S.O.S

From 70s sounds to something that more resembles the early 80s - here's the exotically-titled Story of the Running Wolf and Electric:

Story of the Running Wolf - Electric

Oh my. What to say about the fantabulosa Violet Chachki (this year's winner of RuPaul's Drag Race)? Words fail me. Thanks once again to the lovely Henry at Barbarella's Galaxy for introducing me to Bettie. She needs a spank, apparently..

Violet Chachki - Bettie

Since we (sob sob) didn't have our usual pilgrimage to Amsterdam this year, here to remind us what we missed is one of the weirder dance hits that's been entertaining the Dutch this year - Lil Kleine and Ronnie Flex, who are on Drank & Drugs. Apparently. So bad, it's addictive!

Lil Kleine and Ronnie Flex - Drank & Drugs

What's hard and sticky and sweet, and we can't get enough of it? Yes! It's our scrumptious houseboys Kazaky - and their delicious Milk Choc!

Kazaky - Milk Choc

One of the "summer club hits" that passed me by until recently, here's the maestro DJ Bob Sinclar with the joyful vocals of Miss Dawn Tallman and Feel The Vibe:

Bob Sinclar ft. Dawn Tallman - Feel The Vibe

And finally, no it's not "Jelly Time". It's DJ Jellyfish and the dance craze you are never going to get right this year - Boom Boom Jellyfish! [Featuring my favourite camp dance instructor, ever]:

DJ Jellyfish - Boom Boom Jellyfish

As ever, enjoy! And let me know what you think...