The New Cruise – Summer Edition
Posted verbatim from my Last.fm journal.
The Summer Edition of Cruise started with a whole bunch of left-overs I’d had from the process of auditioning The New Cruise. I’ve recently gotten heavily into Schema Records and the whole modern bossa movement. As a result, when I was hunting through my CDs and folders, I added a stack of modern bossa tracks. For The New Cruise I gravitated towards the beatier, groovy tracks to suit the vibrant driving feel I wanted, but almost at the same time as playlisting it, I maintained a playlist of the bossa tracks which eventually evolved into Summer Edition. My initial playlist file is dated in August, but I probably wasn’t done messing with it until September some time. Here in Australia it was still well cold then, but these tracks have plenty of sunshine stored in them. I’ve played this compilation more and more as we’ve headed into the summer we’re in now, and once again, it’s one of the compilations I’m most pleased with.
1. Gerardo Frisina – Bluesanova – Modern Sounds from Italy 2 (5:44)
2. Soulstance – Truth, Simplicity & Love – En Route (4:05)
3. S-Tone Inc. – In The Mood For Love – Sobrenatural (4:08)
4. Rosalia De Souza – Canto De Ossanha (reworked by Big Bang) – Garota Diferente (6:38)
5. S-Tone Inc. – Limbe – Sobrenatural (4:42)
6. Fragmentorchestra – Metropolis – Fragmentorchestra (6:05)
7. Shrift – To The Floor – Lost in a Moment (4:25)
8. Shrift – Floating City – Lost in a Moment (4:13)
9. Soulstance – Honesty – Life Size (5:56)
10. Samantha James – Enchanted Life – Rise (5:32)
11. Fragmentorchestra – Sambita – Fragmentorchestra (6:24)
12. S-Tone Inc. – Effetto Notte – Sobrenatural (4:10)
13. Moon Orchestra – Hummingbird – You’ll Know When You Get There (3:32)
14. Rosalia De Souza – Mais (performed by The Dining Rooms) (nu-folk mix) – Garota Diferente (4:43)
15. Toco – Rio de Janeiro – Instalação Do Samba (3:16)
1 hour, 13 minutes.
Perhaps it’s my sense of cheesiness, or my outright acceptance of it, but a lot of this compilation plays like a Lonely Planet guide to Europe or South America, or perhaps it should. When I hear this stuff I always think of the Riviera, the beaches and coasts of the Mediterranean, the roads that skirt it and the towns with their cafes and restaurants by the sea. This really is some of the best European music around, with Schema Records really representing the lion’s share of the playlist. There are a lot of artists with more than one offering here, but I never really have a problem with it as I choose music based on how suitable it is to the overall mood. It’s just great that so many artists had more than one track included in the list. It’s also good to see Samantha James’ name continuously pop-up in my playlists, a pretty good feat considering she only has one album.
Fragmentorchestra’s album was an instant favourite upon my very first listen – I fell in-love with it from the opening 30 seconds of the opening track, De Muse (which is included on the first New Cruise). Every track of theirs is gold and I’m thinking that in a few years, I will have included almost every one of them on at least one compilation somewhere. Shrift’s liveliest two tracks from Lost in a Moment are no-brainers, and eventually we start to chill-out towards Toco with a stellar finisher, Rio de Janeiro. Before then though, there is what probably is the sexiest little bracket outside of the Romance Nouveaus; Effetto Notte, Hummingbird and Mais are three of the silkiest smooth and seductive tracks I have without heading into the more intimate serious pieces.
Overall one of the most fun compilations I’ve made. It’s good to get some energy outside of the J-Pop Sunshine series.