#22. Elisa – Come speak to me (4 Hero remix) [Epic 2002]

Price on Discogs: £2.00

I can't quite believe I'm 20 entries deep into this blog and have yet to touch upon 4 Hero?! Followers of my Noodle Hotpot show will no dobut already be aware of how much I love their productions and I certainly won't bang on about it here other to highlight that their back catalogue is not only HUGE but littered with zillions of records that could make it onto this blog. They shouldn't do of course but we live in a mad world so we are where we are, so plenty of bargains to be picked up including this slice of 10" goodness. I'd left this record on the racks for a few years but pulled it back out recently for my 10" special 2 hour show I did here and was instantly reminded of its lushness. I know bugger all about Elisa other than she was an italian pop artist in the early noughties but 4 Hero brought her to my attention after laying down their signature swinging drums underneath her vocals. It's not one of their biggest remixes and certainly doesn't reinvent the wheel but it doesn't need to, their magical touch just does enough to lift it even higher.

A quick look at the date also raises an eyebrow, this year marks 20 years since it was released. Well I never.

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#21. Francisco Mora Catlett ‎– Amazona [Kindred Spirits]

Price on Discogs: £2.50

It's a new year and shockingly 9 months since my last entry. Let's sort that out right now and blow the January blues off with this jazz dance heater. I say jazz dance but don't let that put the heebie jeebies up you, you could easily drop this in all kinds of sets which is exactly what we were doing back in 2004 when the Amsterdam label Kindred Spirits put it out on a nice 12" complete with a blistering Carl Craig edit that extended it for the dancefloors. A record that leaps out the speakers at you that will surely have ancient scholars of the futures one day pontificating on just how much COVID wobbled our heads to leave this wallowing around on Discogs in 2022 at such a price. Who knows. We'll be dead by then. Happy new year!

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#20. Swell Session feat. Yukimi Nagano – The Music in her eyes [Hollow Recordings] 2000

Price on Discogs: £2.49

Celebrating it's 21st anniversary this year is this slice of niceness out of Sweden. Long before the band Little Dragon formed (and even Koop to some extent), Yukimi Nagano first popped up on our radars with this rather tasty collaboration with Andreas Saag. Blew my head off at the turn of the century. Head scratchingly brilliant with that 'walking' bassline it sounded incredible loud as Yukimi's vocals just soared. I haven't played it for probably 10+ years but stumbled across it in the racks the other day and it still sounds as strong as it did 2 decades ago. It's lounging around on Discogs for less than a pint of Harvest Pale so go treat yourself. Just watch your bassbins when you play it out.

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