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Remix your 1990s thoughts and memories here …
In a decade that saw a huge expansion of sub-genres and production technology, including sampling, it’s time to suggest alternative singles and remixes creative and innovative, as opposed to repetitive and exploitative
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Who else but the mighty master of the melodica himself …
Its gentle distinctive organ sound permeates and decorates a variety of genres with a catchy solo or drone sound. Inspired by last week’s topic, guest ParaMhor picks perfect playlists to bring the instrument out in highlights
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Keyboard lollypops: Classic Hohner melodicas
This simple mouthpiece-and-keyboard reed-free aerophone has an analogue charm that can bring a surprise solo or drone texture to a song. But where does it appear and when does it work best?
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Reflections on the Thames, Westminster - by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1880)
From inner London’s famous sites to the suburbs, its a melting pot of people, culture and music, of fame and fortune, fires, pioneers and history’s rebuilding. It’s time to go metropolitan and capture this great city in song
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Crossing cultural boundaries: Ravi and daughter Anoushka Shankar
What’s that sound? It is most associated with a master of Indian classical, but this week we also explore how the sitar has crossed into western and other genres, including electric and electronic recreations
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Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza
Ancient or modern, long gone or still standing, man-made or even natural, these sites are monuments that inspire universal awe and imagination, and bring us together. But how are they captured in song?
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Truly beyond this world - Björk’s Utopia
Out of this world and into many wondrous others, this week’s playlists take you on a cosmic journey through genres and galaxies, skilfully steered and chosen by guest voyager Nilpferd from last week’s topic
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What’s Gorn on here, then? Kirk and a famous old foe …
It’s time to boldly go beyond our planet to explore songs about and inspired by other planets, stars and galaxies, real or those of science fiction, and ideally those are imagined to be, or were once inhabited
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A rare moment of peace for Marilyn Monroe’s restless mind - reading James Joyce’s Ulysses at Long Island, in 1955
It’s a literary narrative technique capturing our chaotic minds and random flow of thought processes, often with non-linear sense of time, free association, saturated with sensory experiences with strange rhythms, but how is it used in song?
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Banjo player, 1856 by William Sidney Mount
It may immediately make you think of The Beverly Hillbillies or Deliverance, but this bright, resonant, plucky instrument has a long history with origins in another continent, and spans many stories, cultures and genres
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A carpet of cherry blossom
Fleeting but spectacular, their mutable beauty is annually inspirational, and with ideas budding from last week’s theme, guest of the week ParaMhor picks a splendid spread of musical colour
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Sakura saturation: a cherry blossom avenue
Their brevity very much integral to their beauty, they are simple yet also complex in their burst of colour. These flowers of stone fruit trees have been inspiration for artists, poets and songwriters for centuries
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Strait of Hormuz …
Filled with stories, history, myth, trade, and conflict, these potent stretches of water sometimes connect two seas or basins, continents, cultures and east and west, and are filled with danger. So how does song capture these many passages, channels and sounds?
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The incomparable Fela Kuti
Famous classical composers to a certain theoretic physicist, as well as a wealth of unusual skilled people, this week guest Loud Atlas takes a sparklingly talented turn picking playlists from from the latest topic and song nominations
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Christ on a bike! There’s always one …
Cultural counting as a figure of superstition and bad luck, it can also have other associations, but whether number, name, place, amount, date, age or more, this week it’s time find your significant thirteens in song as we head through a new Friday 13th
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The yoke’s on you, Dad …
On this celebration day of the written word, let’s embrace the many songs which lyrically use a word to govern two or more other words or phrases in a line or sentence. It comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "a yoking together". Time to pull out words and pints …
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Fats Domino left a star-studded list of those he influenced across the many strings of his music
From early rock ‘n’ roll to pop, rock, reggae, jazz and beyond, the quietly humble, smiling pianist and singer who rose to fame in the 1950s left a huge musical legacy. Loud Atlas expertly picks up some the many big names and songs he influenced, inspired by last week’s topic
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Fancy a lift? Taxi balloons and more, satirising the trend for ‘lofty projects’ by George Cruickshank, 1825
Floating escape and adventure to crashing tragedy, this inflatable movement can bring delight and disaster. Inspired by last week’s topic, guest pejepeine picks perfect playlists to lift spirits and transport the musical imagination
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Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta
From fragile gifts for children to party inflations, early hot air expeditions to the plight of dirigible blimps and zeppelins, balloons offer a profound literal and metaphorical set of emotions to fill the lungs of song
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… you’re in for a big surprise …
Aliens to unexpected identity, unusual sounds to strange artistic combinations as well as the lyrical subject itself, guest Marco den Ouden brings a box of brilliant surprises in response to our Big 10th Birthday Topic
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