Dear Doctor, we’re all going on a summer holiday – please suggest a soundtrack.
The Doctor’s summer holiday memories flit from mackerel-filled buckets to cheap sangria, hot mix tapes with Speedy Gonzalez and Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, and dancing to the Macarena.
Yes, summer’s here and it’s perfect music-listening time – music that helps enhance your time away, music to make memories to.
Last summer I visited the Peloponnese, and it was here, next to the azure waters, that I first heard the entire Ghazalaw album. It’s a collaboration which brings together Indian ghazals and Welsh poetry. An astonishing record. I loved it so much that I signed it to my record label, Marvels of the Universe. It features Mumbai singer Tauseef Akhtar and Welsh singer-songwriter Gwyneth Glyn, and their music will transport me for ever more to warmer climes and balmy evenings. So I suggest you put this on your summer playlist, slip off your summer robe and relax.
Follow up with the graceful Akö by Cameroon-born Blick Bassy, an artist now living on a French farm. Think Elliott Smith, Miles Davis and Skip James, and you’ll be swimming in the right waters.
Now back to your deckchair, close your eyes, let those rays of sun penetrate deep – Sleep by Max Richter is what the Doctor orders. It’s an eight-hour lullaby for the modern mind; an exploration into that netherworld between full awakeness and the world of hush.
Once this wonderful “work” is done, rouse yourself with a classic – Summer Wine by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood.
Now, who’s up for a little Macarena?
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