Ah, February. What a month: pancake day and Valentine’s Day. What’s not to love? This month’s Boat Floaters selection for Meet Bernard takes an amorous turn, appropriately enough. This 33-track, 157-minute playlist will have you dancin’ and romancin’, with luck …
Fallon Jennings’ reggae twist of All Night Long starts us off nice and slow (and if you like this vibe, check out the two brilliant Athens of the North’s For The Love Of You volumes). AOTN also dug out, dusted off and remastered possibly my favourite tune in this playlist: Paula Marie, by Coast To Coast.
While there are plenty of tunes in February’s selection that gush with love – not least the incredible Holy Ghost by Eddie Holman, which is a love letter to the big person above the clouds – I’ve been careful to squeeze in some woeful songs of love lost, or weird love. (After all, we have sugar and lemon on our pancakes, right?) In the latter category goes Embryo’s Wajang Woman, and Ago’s For You, which comes across as an unrequited love affair, verging on stalking. (It begins: “Is there anything I can do? There isn’t anything I won’t do.” Hmm.)
And on the subject of love lost, in late January the great Elza Soares, the little Brazilian with a big voice, checked out, so I had to include Mas Que Nada, a gateway tune for me into’s the magical world of bossa nova.
We also have a lovely version from Japan of Curtis Mayfield’s classic, Move On Up, by Nautilus. And elsewhere I can’t get enough of Gold Dust by the exceptional Matthew Herbert. Finally, Tangerue’s Doin’ Your Own Thing sings of the carefree, defiant, partying attitude that is so attractive.
Hope you enjoy this month’s love-themed selection. Best of luck, and enjoy those pancakes – go easy on the lemon.
If you enjoy this unmixed selection I would urge you to seek out my Boat Floaters Mixcloud profile (see here), where there are both upbeat (“downstream”) and more chilled (“upstream”) mixes. There are two recently uploaded best of 2021 mixes to feast on.
Thanks for your support.
Yours in music,
Ollie (Boat Floaters)