Dom Search and Brad Baloo - aka The Nextmen - are United Kingdom DJs and producers with a trail of mixes, albums and podcasts encompassing club music from many genres, all steeped in a large dose of Hip Hop. Their Podcast regularly troubles the top 5 of the iTunes Music Podcast chart. Production and writing duties undertaken for artists such as Plan B, Wilkinson, Paolo Nutini, Anne Marie, Kiko Bun and many more...

“Funky and tight on all levels” - 
Nile Rodgers
 
Cut the cake, let’s take it to the stage, its 1975!

With those words and a tip of the hat to a couple of gems from another time James Fox Higgins proudly declares his intentions for the brand new album ’1975′.

Equal parts soul, jazz, retro pop and West Coast smooth with a dash of Miami disco, ‘1975’ is the culmination of one man’s love affair with the music of a bygone era. Written, produced and arranged by Higgins, the album is sure to find admirers amongst people whose playlist is loaded with the sounds of Allen Stone, Mayer Hawthorne, Steely Dan, Dennis Coffey or Hall & Oates.

Setting the scene for the album with its sultry piano chords and swooning soprano sax, the opening track gently lulls the listener ‘Back In Time’ to “a time of music, a time of soul, a pre-digital world, a world of hope” and invites them to join Higgins on his retro pilgrimage. The album shines a light brightly on Higgins’ musical luminaries. There’s the Rotary Connection inspired ‘Sun & Sea’, an ode to the natural love affair between the sun and the life giving ocean; the socially aware and relevant ‘Stand Up’, a call to arms to fight against institutionalised homophobia and racism; the breezy ‘Life In The Love Zone’, influenced by harmony driven folksters like Seals & Crofts or Crosby, Stills & Nash and ‘Soul Train’, a disco flavoured tribute to the legendary Don Cornelius-hosted TV Show that launched countless artists into the mainstream. Track after track Higgins proves he’s a modern performer with that rare ability to straddle strong lyrical themes with infectious upbeat melodies and grooves, a trick he learnt from childhood heroes such as The Style Council and Simply Red.

‘Brother There’s Still Time’ is the gospel-tinged ballad that tells a more personal story about the artist’s own experience of racism and discrimination in the world. Higgins’ vocals, instrumentation and production will evoke memories of early-70s Stevie Wonder and the song is the perfect balance to the reworking of Sam Cooke’s classic ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’, the quintessential lamentation of racism and social disharmony. With the greatest respect and one of his most emotional vocal performances, Higgins delivers his own quiet storm arrangement of this very important song in soul music’s history.

The first single from the album ’1975 (Wish I Was There)’ is an upbeat soul-funk dissertation on the key musical events of that year. From Wonder’s participation in the Festival of Human Kindness, the release of The Who’s ‘Tommy’, Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ and Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’, the birth of Sean Lennon and the untimely demise of Tim Buckley and Al Jackson. And of course what would a song about 1975 be without name checks for Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson, The Bee Gees, Curtis Mayfield, The Stones and co. With a respectful tip of the hat to Dorothy Moore’s ‘Looking For A Lovin’’, this joyous foot-stomper comes complete with an era-correct George Benson-inspired guitar solo by the legendary Rex Goh and is destined to take you back in time whether you were there or not.

Throughout ‘1975’ Higgins shows he possesses a deep-seated reverence for the pioneers of 70s music.”I grew up in the 90’s and all along I felt like I was born at the wrong time.” he explains, “That year is the epitome of soul music to me. Music production was at new heights, there was funk, disco, soul, R&B and jazz rock coming from all parts of the world. Social consciousness was fashionable and present in the lyrics of pop songs. Times are very different now.”

I been at this for decades! I've played at thousands of events in hundreds of places! Thanks for stopping by!

Hey everyone, thanks for visiting.  I read all the comments you leave, and appreciate your feedback.

I use this page to release a combination of individual tracks and archives of my radio show (Subterranean Homesick Grooves).  I will also be releasing most tracks as full-length, full-quality, and available to download, although I have a few other projects that I'm working on that unfortunately won't be available here as free downloads.  You'll mostly be able to find progressive & tech house tracks here, as well as the occasional deep house or drum & bass track.  I appreciate your interest, and I'd like to invite you to "follow" me if you're a SoundCloud user yourself.

Also, for people interested in listening to any of my full DJ mixes, whether your preference is progressive/tech-house, deep house, mainstream/top40, or drum and bass, I have well over four hundred radio shows and recordings of live shows at parties and clubs at this web page:
http://www.djbolivia.ca/mixes.html

Unfortunately, I'm very backed up with an overwhelming amount of studio projects, so I'm unable to respond to requests to review DJ sets.  Just not enough time, sorry!

Thanks for reading ... and check back regularly for new releases of DJ mixes or individual tracks.  For individual tracks, I'll even post download links to my entire project files, so other producers can download them, dissect what I did, and maybe (hopefully) even learn a trick or two!  I use a mix of Ableton, Pro Tools, Cubase, and Reason for most of my work.  I have releases on Beatport from Coldwave Records, Thirteen Towers, It's Not A Label, Smart Phenomena, Cuete, and other labels.

You can also check out my YouTube channel, for some videos that cover some production techniques:
http://www.youtube.com/djbolivia

And finally, I'm also an author, with books about music, reforestation, travel, and other topics.  Learn more at:
www.jonathanclark.ca

- Jonathan Clark (DJ Bolivia)
http://www.facebook.com/djbolivia
http://www.djbolivia.ca/dropbox.html

Her ancestors came to Canada from the frozen Arctic and the mountains of Transylvania. That was over a hundred years ago, though Claire Kenway inherited their nomadic spirit, zigzagging her way across Canada before landing in Montréal where she now lives. 

Music has been a part of her forever, as she grew up to the sounds of her mother’s violin performances and studied a variety of instruments: violin (of course!), voice, bass guitar and a little jazz piano. A bit of a gear junkie, Kenway has a small but mighty arsenal of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, and drum machines. Something just flows when those machines come alive and as such, she has several EPs on vinyl and has released on labels Conceptual, Monoclap, Hushlamb, Archipel and her own label, Planète Secrète.

A DJ, live act, composer and conceptual artist, Claire explores the intersections between sound, space, sensation, and emotion. As a musician, she has performed and presented at noteworthy events such as MUTEK Montreal, Elektra Montreal, MUTEK Mexico, Piknic Electronic Montreal, Piknic Electronic Santiago, Igloofest, Modular Reef, and the Techno Parade, as well as performing on almost every continent, including Antarctica. Having received funding for her work on numerous occasions from the Canada Council for the Arts to make installations and audiovisual projects, she explores themes of consciousness and perception, employing sensing technologies, synthesis, and algorythms of sonic visualization.

Robot Heart is a collective of doers and dreamers, artists and entrepreneurs. Our home is in the desert dust of Burning Man, and the streets of New York City, Detroit, Bay Area and Hong Kong. Home is wherever the Heart is.

Robot Heart is a community and a family, and our events are an extension and celebration of that community, bound together by shared values of inclusion, giving, environmental responsibility and mutual respect.

Music is our first language, and our mission is to bring love and beats to the world. We work with and support artists, technologists and visionaries of all types in order to create incredible experiences and connected moments. To create love and beats, for you.

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