Bloss

John Phelps

‘EVERYONE JUST calls me Bloss’, she says and she is one of the very knowledgeable presenters with Meander Valley Community Radio.

Bloss has lived in Australia for half her life and the other half in places around the world where there were significant West African and Latin American communities.

And that is how she came to know and love the music from those cultures.

Bloss says that the key thing about such music is dancing. She recalls occasions in Jamaica, for instance, where one person would produce some music device and a group would start dancing at a bus-stop while waiting for the bus to arrive.

‘That’s what you do with African and Latin music – you dance. The salsa is not the neat, ordered salsa we know in Australia. It is slower and much more casual and sensual. The feeling is the key thing about this music.’

And, fortunately for listeners to MVFM 96.9, Bloss shares her love for and knowledge about African and Latin music in her program called ‘Global Grooves’. It may be heard on Sundays at Six (pm, that is).

As the station broadcasts livestream, people all over the world can hear her programs and some of Bloss’s friends around the globe actually do listen, even if they have to get out of bed at 3am to do so.

Among her musical achievements, Bloss plays several percussion instruments not often heard in Deloraine – the conga, the clave and the djembe. She also sings in several languages but, most of all, she loves to dance.