Fred again.. & The Blessed Madonna - “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” from the 2021 album Actual Life (April 14 - December 17 2020) on Atlantic.

When the clubs shut down during the pandemic, London producer Fred again.. wrote today's Song of the Day as a eulogy to the dancefloor, sampling a voice mail message from his dear friend The Blessed Madonna (real name: Marea Stamper). 

"Marea and I met in Palestine around 5 years ago now. I call her my rave shaman," Fred again.. said in a press release. "I think she’s that for a lot of other people too to be honest! Her ability to tell stories and share things has always been a particularly beautiful part of her beautiful mind so I guess it makes sense that I ended up making a song out of sampling one of our conversations! She's a real hug of a human."

Stamper continues, "Right from the second I met Fred there was a real closeness and even though I didn’t know him at all, I always felt like 'this is gonna be a person in my life.' On this particular night in lockdown, Fred asked how I was feeling and I just talked to him like I normally would. Somehow he digs in all my babble and makes it into something beautiful and personal. Fred is a singular artist. He had such a tender way of looking at sound. You can’t fake it. You gotta have real heart. No one has a heart like that."

Read the full post on KEXP.org