Felix NEill

I'm so stoked to see this obscure little nugget has appeared in a few of the trendiest end-of-year "best of" lists. I've been enjoying this since the Summer, and have been extolling it's myriad virtues to anyone who would listen, without gaining much traction it has to be said. There's something indefinably sweet and lovely about this. It's ultra lo-fi and naive, but so effortlessly cool that it just oozes class and raw artistry.

I'm finding it hard to classify, but I suppose it mostly reminds of me of those early totally electronic Disco/Brit-funk records that appeared in the early 80's. But instead of being all about "getting with you, girl", this is uber cool and feminine. She might get with you, but you'll probably just end up talking, but falling helplessly in love with her anyway. This is music smeared through an afternoon haze of Bacardi Breezers and sunshine. Imagine if your school band were clever and switched-on instead of four spotty herberts trying to regurgitate AC:DC riffs at you.

Dividing her time between two of the hippest labels around, Ramona Gonzalez releases her music through both No Pain In Pop and, most famously, Italians Do It Better (as is the case here). 'Want You Back' follows in a similar spirit to her 'What Did He Say' debut single, combining lo-fi dancefloor haze, psychedelic 'verbed-to-the-hilt vocals and most disarmingly, a killer bassline. After a more abstracted, vocal mix comes 'All Out Of Order', whose foggy disco-scapes are at least the A-side's equal. The song arrives in both English and Spanish language versions, but both renderings become a glorious blur of vocoded dancefloor ambience.

I can also give a massive recommendation for the album, "Good Evening" which also appeared this year and is more of the same raw, dreamy, lo-fi genius. The two main tracks on here are something else though.

I'm planning on dropping this in the set at around 11:45 on New Years Eve. I'm risking bemusement and even perhaps, hostility, but I'm betting that a few revelers are gonna be asking me what this is.

This is a digital download as the 12' was a tenner and had one less track. That being the case, I'm only keeping this up for a few days.

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