VA - Lava Lamp, Feelings Within (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

LAVA LAMP

VA - Lava Lamp, Feelings Within (A Butterboy Compilation) (4 x CDs)

There is something strangely comforting about a lava lamp. You look at it for a moment and nothing much seems to be happening. Then, almost without noticing, a warm shape begins to move. It rises slowly through the coloured liquid, stretches, separates, disappears, and somewhere else another shape begins to form. There is no hurry. Nothing is trying to get anywhere. You simply keep watching. Almost hypnotised.

That was the feeling I wanted to capture here.

Not the obvious psychedelic world of distortion, freak-outs and kaleidoscopic excess, but something softer and more intimate. Music that seems to glow rather than shout. Sounds that have warmth around them. Voices that float in the room. Bass lines that gently pull you forward while everything else seems to be suspended in the air.

So, Lava Lamp, Feelings Within, became a journey rather than a genre exercise.

Some of these recordings are soulful, some are folk, some electronic, some dream-pop, some jazz-influenced, some almost impossible to classify. There are old recordings sitting beside much newer ones, and artists who would probably never have imagined themselves sharing the same musical space. Yet that is part of the pleasure. Like the shapes inside the lamp, they keep changing as they move.

CD1 - The Rise, is where we begin. There is warmth and curiosity here, a sense that something beautiful has just been switched on. Jessica Pratt leads us into the journey, and nineteen tracks later brings us back to where we started, although perhaps we hear everything a little differently by then.

CD2 - The Float, is where the music seems to loosen its grip on the ground. Rhythms become softer, spaces become wider and the voices seem to hover somewhere between the listener and the speakers. Beach House provides the doorway in and out, and in between are sounds that drift, shimmer, pulse and quietly pull at the imagination.

CD3 - The Merge, is where the boundaries become harder to see. Folk can suddenly feel electronic. Jazz can become almost ambient. A guitar can sound like a distant light. A voice can seem to come from somewhere inside the music rather than sit on top of it. Nick Drake begins the disc almost alone and returns at the end with "Northern Sky", and somewhere between those two moments the separate pieces seem to have melted into one another.

CD4 - The Glow, is the late-night part of the journey, when the room is darker and the lamp seems brighter. Soul, trip-hop, dream-pop, electronic music and fragile songs begin to sit together naturally. Portishead opens the door with "Roads" and eventually brings us home with "The Rip", a track that seems to change shape while you are listening to it.

That is really all I hope this collection does.

Maybe you will put it on when you have nowhere else to be. And let one song become another without worrying too much about where the change happened.

I hope the old recordings feel new, the new recordings feel timeless, and somewhere along the way you find yourself staring into the music in much the same way you might stare into a lava lamp late at night.

Watching.  Listening.  Drifting. 

And perhaps, without quite knowing when it happened, feeling something inside you slowly begin to glow. (B)

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Track lists

CD1

01 Jessica Pratt - This Time Around 3:33 2019

02 Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information 4:12 1974

03 Terry Callier - Dancing Girl 9:01 1972

04 Bill Withers - Hope She'll Be Happier 3:50 1971

05 Karen Dalton - Something on Your Mind 3:23 1971

06 Cymande - Brothers on The Slide 4:08 1974

07 Roy Ayers Ubiquity - Everybody Loves The Sunshine 4:02 1976

08 Szabo Gabor - Ferris Wheel 5:30 1968

09 Bobby Hutcherson - Montara 4:58 1975

10 Minnie Riperton - Come to My Garden 3:22 1970

11 Broadcast - Come on Let's Go 3:15 2000

12 Joni Mitchell - A Case of You 4:23 1971

13 Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic  Echoes - Expansions 6:08 1975

14 Sade - By Your Side 4:35 2000

15 Mazzy Star - Fade Into You 4:57 1993

16 Michael Kiwanuka - Cold Little Heart 10:10 2016

17 Goldfrapp - Utopia 4:14 2000

18 Sibylle Baier - Tonight 2:26 1973

19 Itasca - Buddy 2:54 2016

20 Jessica Pratt - Aeroplane 3:35 2019

CD2

01 Beach House - Space Song 5:21 2015

02 Air - La Femme D'argent 7:08 1998

03 Cocteau Twins, Harold Budd - Sea, Swallow Me 3:09 1986

04 Stereolab - Cybele's Reverie 4:40 1996

05 Zero 7 - In The Waiting Line 4:34 2001

06 Morcheeba - The Sea 5:48 1998

07 Galaxie 500 - Strange 3:17 1989

08 Grouper - Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping 2:53 2008

09 Brian Eno - By This River 3:03 1977

10 Massive Attack - Teardrop 5:21 1998

11 Talk Talk - I Believe in You 6:16 1988

12 Yo La Tengo - Our Way to Fall 4:18 2000

13 Cigarettes After Sex - Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby 4:46 2012

14 Lush - Sweetness and Light 5:17 1992

15 Clientele - Reflections After Jane 3:24 2000

16 Spiritualized - Broken Heart 6:38 1997

17 Radio Dept. - Strange Things Will Happen 4:26 2003

18 Duster - Inside Out 2:21 2010

19 Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel 4:28 2001

20 Beach House - Days of Candy 6:16 2015

CD3

01 Nick Drake - Pink Moon 2:04 1972

02 Tim Buckley - Song to The Siren 3:25 1970

03 Linda Perhacs - Chimacum Rain 3:23 1970

04 Robert Wyatt - Sea Song 6:33 1974

05 Nico - These Days 3:33 1970

06 Arthur Russell - A Little Lost 3:18 1986

07 Alice Coltrane - Journey Into Satchidananda 6:31 1971

08 Roy Harper - Another Day 2:57 1970

09 Marissa Nadler - Drive 5:36 2014

10 Durutti Column - Sketch for Dawn I 5:19 1981

11 Fennesz - Before I Leave 4:07 2001

12 Julia Holter - Night Song 4:12 2015

13 Blue Nile - Downtown Lights 6:31 1989

14 Low - Sunflower 4:39 1999

15 Red House Painters - Katy Song 8:25 1993

16 Perfume Genius - Normal Song 3:13 2012

17 Beth Orton - She Cries Your Name 4:47 1996

18 Slowdive - Dagger 3:34 1993

19 Cat Power - Metal Heart 3:59 1998

20 Nick Drake - Northern Sky 3:46 1971

CD4

01 Portishead - Roads 5:09 1994

02 Smokey Robinson - Quiet Storm (Single Version) 3:58 1975

03 Leon Ware - Rocking You Eternally 4:00 1981

04 Ned Doheny - A Love of Your Own 3:45 1976

05 Smoke City - Underwater Love 6:46 1997

06 Hooverphonic - Mad About You 3:46 2000

07 Lamb - Gorecki 6:31 1997

08 Tricky - Overcome 4:30 1995

09 Julee Cruise - Falling 4:12 1989

10 Cranes - Jewel 3:04 1993

11 John Martyn - Small Hours 6:32 1977

12 Moby - Porcelain 4:02 1999

13 Everything But The Girl - Driving 3:58 1990

14 Mojave 3 - Bluebird of Happiness 9:15 2003

15 Elliott Smith - Between The Bars 2:22 1997

16 Sundays - Here's Where The Story Ends 3:52 1990

17 Ryuichi Sakamoto - Andata 3:26 2017

18 This Mortal Coil - Another Day 2:54 1984

19 Chromatics - Shadow 4:13 2012

20 Portishead - The Rip 4:31 2008

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Music weaves itself into the fabric of our emotions, dances through the corridors of memory, and whispers to the soul of who we are. Sharing these stories deepens the connection, turning the experience into something timeless and profound.

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