New music! Sometimes old music. Music that we love!

New Years is about marking the passage of time, so here’s a cool track about that. It’s surprising to me that such a relaxed, organic-sounding groove came from a British electronic group. My favorite is the moment after the hook, when that double tom hit combines with the tambourine to make this great hiccuping rhythm: dum-Bah-Da, bu-dum, Bah!

The singer on this track is the great Richie Havens, who has one of the best stories I’ve ever heard about how he became famous. From Wikipedia: “His Woodstock appearance in 1969 catapulted him into stardom and was a major turning point in his career. As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd for nearly three hours. In part, Havens was told to continue playing, because many artists scheduled to perform after him were delayed in reaching the festival location with highways at a virtual standstill. He was called back for several encores. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual Motherless Child that became Freedom.”

– Brook Reeder