Late Night Tales: Groove Armada (2LP)

If you are looking for a variety of rare mellowtronica and dance music from two of the UK's most respected curators then you couldn’t do worse than check out this new re-issue of "Late Night Tales: Groove Armada" which originally dropped in 2008.

For their second collaboration with the legendary record label (and a release that even the BBC admits “delivers a selection of some great tunes”) Andy Cato and Tom Findlay have painstakingly compiled a collection of songs so varied that even the most open minded listener will at times be scratching their head. And yet somehow, it works, from an unexpected cover of Gary Numan’s “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” to the arcane Americana of Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve’s Roscoe mix, to a Balearic edit of Will Young and a White Isle ready edit of Chris Rea’s “Josephine” the good ship Armada never fails to captivate. All aboard!

"When I look back on my career the two things I'm probably most proud of are the compilations we curated and the live show. They’re two things I think we did really well. How many of them are still tunes that I play now? Obviously, it's got 'Josephine' in it which is an Ibizan anthem and has soundtracked all my best moments in Ibiza. There are those moments where you find yourself playing in one of those nice beachside bars or an after party somewhere, and you drop that record and it just causes the roof to lift, and this edit is one I still play all the time even now." - Tom Findlay, September 2023.