There’s no turning back, I’m lost in music

I borrowed lyrics from Sister Sledge to get where I need to go with this one.

The first time I found out about Sister Sledge was as a young girl. My sisters and I gleefully sang “We Are Family” while driving to the beach one sunny summer day. We were young and those were innocent days. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. And we had music. Each time the chorus came around, we looked at one another with big smiles and belted out “We are family, I got all my sisters with me!”

Although my music adventures go all over the map, I often find myself thinking about those days, and this song in particular. Maybe it’s me fondly reminiscing of a time when the worries were few and the adventures were seemingly endless. I still long for those moments. Fortunately, the music is there to take me on the journey.

So while I haven’t been posting my every move on my website, I’ve been digging into crates, catalogs and memory troves. In other words, I’ve been getting lost in music. Because that’s my favorite place to be.

Each of the last three Alternate Take radio shows on dublab has its own flavor. On the June edition of the show, I felt a need to celebrate, all at once, the varied creative expressions of Black musicians. Black culture has contributed so much to the evolution of music, and I feel it is important to honor these roots on a regular basis, and perhaps now more than ever. We hear from Elizabeth Cotten and ESG. Then it’s The Ink Spots, Tony Drake, Charles Mingus and so many others.

On July’s Alternate Take, it’s a survey of music old and new from many sources. New pop sounds from Mexico’s Rey Pila give way to classic Robert Palmer. I share textured downtempo from my fellow dublab DJ D Tiberio and DJ Spooky’s take on Steve Reich. Somehow, folk stalwart Shirley Collins is wedged artfully in between. There’s a new song from Apparat and music that defies description from Model Home.

I took time off in August for camping, because that’s the closest I could physically get to recapturing that missed sense of adventure.

By the time the September edition of the show came around, I put a big emphasis on new music. A Poolside remix of DRAMA is the intro, before finding its way to the psychedelic sounds of Death Valley Girls and the dazzling brightness of Legowelt. L.A. Witch and Erasure take the stage, but there’s always room to share with the soulfulness of Roy Ayers and otherworldliness of Goldfrapp. Of course, curious oddities by Enoch Light and Outrageous Cherry are included that are well worth the trip.

I’ll be the first to admit that times have been tricky. These are the days we find out what we’re made of, and what keeps us going. In my case, it has always been music.

I didn’t include “Lost in Music” in any one of these shows, but I think I know what I should include in the October edition of Alternate Take. Stay tuned.

Image credit: Cover art for “E S C A P E” by Peaking Lights