Basement Crates: Quickie Edition

Sanchez: Leave Out A Babylon (Digital B, 1994)
I was messing around with a pile of record sleeves - looking for some arresting ones for the wall - when I found an old Bobby Digital compilation - this one, in fact - poking out. So I had a squizz down it and remembered how much I liked this Sanchez track that's pitched sort of perfectly between dub and dancehall. He's not 100% complimentary about all the world's people, "Why would you want to be with the Babylonians?", he asks, quite understandably, but it certainly has a tune you can whistle...


Blur: Berserk (Parlophone, 1991)
... Which is more than you can say of Berserk. Track Four (of four) on their Bang single, this is the sort of extended-groove, 'Goodness me I'm woozy' psychedelia that young people all over the country thrilled to 18 years ago. They did, honestly. Maybe I'll start one of those hilarious on-line petitions to get them to play this during their shows in the summer! Hahaha! Then again, maybe I'll get the Hoover out instead.

Basement Crates: 40 & 41

Michael Garrick: First Born (Argo, 1972)
I found this in a box under an unpleasant old suitcase. So I threw away the suitcase - I'm ruthless like that, and dug my way through the box. This is a proper beauty, the sort of thing you will waltz around the kitchen to - possibly on your own - when you're feeling like really getting into chopping those vegetables and searing that streak (or, y'know, wevz). Garrick is quite a fellow and should you be lucky to find any of his records, then snap them up. You could do a lot worse than start with this one my friend Jonny put out a year or so ago...


Kings Of Convenience: Leaning Against The Wall (Bamboo Soul remix) (Source, 2001)
One of my great, "Aren't I hilarious!" stories (there aren't many, tbh) concerns the time I went to Norway to interview the Kings Of Convenience for Sleaze Nation (RIP). S and I had only got back from (getting married in) Sri Lanka 48 hours earlier when I was suddenly in Bergen in January. The rain came down in waves and the only thing to do was drink and eat reindeer. One of the band - Erlend - and I got off to a bad start when I proposed the notion that their music was so spectacularly soppy because he'd never actually even kissed a real girl. He took this very badly and stormed off the play the piano (we were in a hotel bar, while he played his bandmate Eirik confirmed his pal had kissed more than one girl - on the lips and everything). They suggested dinner at Bergen's finest restaurant with lashings of wine and vodka. A lovely idea until the bill arrived and they mentioned they had no way of even helping me pay (the press officer's card "malfunctioned" too). Later, in another bar, Erlend amused himself by going outside and wandering across the pelican crossing again and again and again. Anyway, by the third day we sort of liked each other again and we went for a drive and listened to A-ha, something they clearly still like (Erlend's on the right, Eirik, on the left, was lovely. But then, he had a real girlfriend). You're right, that wan't very hilarious at all, was it?

Basement Crates: 37 & 38 (& 39)

King Sun: Coming Soon (Profile, 1989)
I've been having a good root around down there (the basement) and found a stack of stuff which, as far as I can make out, I've not played since the last time someone asked me to DJ. As you can imagine, that was a tremendously long time ago (with no major bookings on the horizon, either). So, I think I bought this at HMV in Guildford back when the very idea of owning a hip-hop LP was exciting. It's hard to imagine feeling like that now, isn't it? That craving for more, buying stuff that you know almost nothing about, but you're willing to take the risk because you might just luck out. Anyway, King is still banging away, working for his next break. Someone more cynical than me might say that he should have got over it all by now and found something else to do, but I feel rather generous, so, good luck to you KS. And, if you're reading, can I just mention that while I like Coming Soon's "I'm acting silly, she's just a lady...", a lot, I think "A nice dinner, on the spaghetti tip..." might just be my favourite lyric of all time. So thank you!

Isla Cameron and Jack Armstrong: My Bonny Lad / O Can Ye Sew Cushions (Concert Hall, 1970)
I remember buying this on eBay when I used to work at a rather downmarket dance music magazine. All the people who worked there were lovely, but the people who ran the gaff were utter, utter, um, something else. Anyway, I instigated Folk Music Fridays there and I would play Pentangle and Barry Dransfield and Toni Arthur records. How the young people screamed with joy when this collection of traditional Northumbrian folk music slipped from the envelope. Anyway, it's full of nice tunes, so why worry? And, while we're at it, why does no one write songs called O Can Ye Sew Cushions anymore? What's wrong with people? All this nonsense about cars and jewellery and the like when the real question is, what are your needle skills like? Can you handle a whole sheet? Apparently, Isla learnt this song from a Mrs Mackay - a Scots lady. It's an ancient Scots nurse's lullaby. I think it's safe to say Isla had a fairly sweet set of "pipes" on her.

BONUS POST
Big Daddy Kane: Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now (UPSO mix) (Cold Chillin', 1989)
In 1989 this was the sound of The Future. UPSO were Blacksmith, the late 80s and early 90s remixers of choice for nearly everyone. Sounds ridiculous now, but in a good way.

Basement Crates: The "Pot Roast" Year(s)

Gravediggaz: Diary Of A Madman (Gee Street, 1994)
My very good friend Billy and I used to DJ as Pot Roast. I know, but it was a long time ago. Our reasoning was, we played the sort of music that sounded quite good if you'd inhaled and our regular gig was at The Albany on a Sunday night (what a night...). Anyway, I found a few of our most beloved tunes while looking for some cutlery the other day. I actually felt a little choked up as I pulled out what young people used to refer to as "the jizz-ams". So, The Gravediggaz were a huge hit with us, I remember seeing them play an amazing showcase at a club in Ladbroke Grove, and this tune was always somewhere near the front of "the box" (you see how I remember the lingo?).

Pressure Drop: Back 2 Back (Main and Dub mixes) (Big World Records, 1990)
I used to play this record so much that it actually haunted my dreams. It had everything I wanted from music in 1990, ie, it was a bit hip hop, a bit funk, a bit abstract and a bit weirdly ambient. The lyrics sort of make your eyes water now (although I like the way the guy says, "ray-shism"), but this is nearly 20 years old now - let's cut ourselves some slack, eh? Pressure Drop got signed up in the great post Coldcut / Massive Attack goldrush of 1990, but it never happened for them (that makes a nice change for Landcroft House, doesn't it?) This is the sort of record that (and here's another popular DJ phrase from the time) really "turns around" loud (ie, it has a walloping big bassline which sounds good if, perchance, you have inhaled / ingested and hear it on huge speakers). I've included both mixes because, frankly, they're both incredibly good.

E-Z Rollers: Believe (Foul Play remix) (Moving Shadow, 1994)
There was a school of drum and bass in the early to mid-90s that wasn't exactly "intelligent" and wasn't exactly whatever the other thing was (whither, "jump up") and this E-Z Rollers tune sort of typified that sound. Foul Play's drum programming is ludicrously tight and there's this full-on, proper head-spinning dance-floor diva vocal (to this day, Billy and I will sing, "Be-Leee-Eeeave" to each other for no clear reason and we have a combined age of 82) to "boot".


Bob Andy: Dubbing Home (I-Anka Records, 1989)
This is the one we used to play when we were, well, going home. A deed that, in itself, used to raise a few cheers. If there's a record in the world that makes you want to raise your lighter to the sky and sway slowly and drunkenly more than this one (bearing in mind you're not allowed to raise your lighter to the sky in clubs anymore), then I, for one, have never heard it. Fantastic record. Happy days!

Basement Crates: "Jazz" Tuesday

Jimmy Smith: In Search of Truth (Delta, 1980)
Neither of these tracks are really jazz at all. This wonderful Jimmy Smith track is, basically, a done-in-one-take blues vamp and the Emperor's New Clothes choon is consensually funkual, breakbeat dub with some silly noises on it. But I love both of them dearly, despite not having heard either of them for a Very Long Time indeed (hang on a minute, that's probably why I lo... etcetc). Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this is the later Milan pressing from 1989 - oh yes. Anyhoo, this was originally from the Lalo Schifrin soundtrack to Battlecreek Brawl (also the title of a fantastic track by Brit hip hop chaps, Gunshot) and it is, literally, really good.

The Emperor's New Clothes: Nature Never Repeats Itself (Acid Jazz, 1993)
I think I might start a strand where I just collect together vintage press releases. Then again, maybe I'll just throw myself out of a window and be done with it. 15 years ago, this sort of thing was - to my ears - incredibly wonderful and strange. It still sounds pretty good to me, but this sort of ambient dub has, sadly, been cheapened by being whacked on every TV ident between here and a thousand years in the future. Whatever, this is still a great record. It never really happened for TENC - if you're out there, get in touch...

Basement Crates: 34, 35 & 36

Flora Macneil: Craobh Un Ubhal (Tangent, 1977)
I found this bag of LPs I used to DJ with downstairs. When I say "DJ", I think it's clear from the records themselves that I was never going to get a gig at, well, anywhere really. Perhaps a very lenient pub on a particularly quiet Tuesday lunchtime, but that's about it. I mean, there's some Herbie Mann in there, there's Jimmy Ponder's Mean Streets, No Bridges for the breakbeat afficionados, there's some swinging Jimmy Smith soundtracks, but other than that it's Scottish folk song, English madrigals and a groovily toothsome Tom Jones Live LP from 1971 that I remember buying in a charity shop in Dortmund. Anyway, this is lovely, an unaccompanied piece (it translates as The Apple Tree) that is, and I quote from the extensive sleevenotes, "a journey to an ancient pagan world where the cult of the tree held a central position." So now you know. I am available for hire, btw.


Red Garland: Please Send Me Someone To Love (Prestige, 1956)
I don't think I've listened to this album in 15 years, but I used to play this track - a version of the Percy Mayfield belter - every single day without fail. No one plays the joanna like Red, there's something about the way his fingers seem to sort of brush the chords rather than actually play them (hark at the twot from Downbeat) that's always made my hair stand on end. And 15 years ago I had a lot of hair. Now you'd barely notice, but it is right on end, trust me.


St Etienne feat Q-Tee: Studio Kinda Filthy (Heavenly, 1991)
This reminds me of a pub in Kingston that I can't remember the name of. We would stand outside in the sunshine on Thursday nights and listen to Shuff and Tarby play Expansions and Talkin' All That Jazz and Donald Byrd's Flight Time and Tribe and Moody Boys and Palm Skin Productions and C.R.E.A.M. and Photek and all that sort of thing. Strangely - though entirely naturally for the time - bowl-headed indie-pop overlords St Etienne fitted right in. This is exemplary summer-time dub-pop.

PS: Yes, you're right, the pictures do look horrible in the middle. I won't be doing that again, I can assure you...

The Greatest Record Ever Made (Today): 1

The Rascals: Sativa / Sattva (Atlantic, 1968)
I just found this down in the basement. I thought I'd lost it, so you can imagine my pleasure on discovering that this classic piece of sitar-jangling hippy-bandwagon jumping pop soul hadn't disappeared forever. This will, inevitably, make you think of these people, but the difference is, The Rascals actually meant it. At least, I like to think they did. Anyway, this record contains three of the elements I most require from a pop record if I am to love it without limits.

1. It must have an element of "otherness" - there must be a sense that people are trying to do something they can't quite manage but, by Jiminy, they're going to have a crack at it. For instance, when The Beatles, say, decided to whack a bit of sitar on a record, they went to the main guy and worked at it. The Rascals, on the other hand, just seemed to have borrowed one off someone and tried to play it like a guitar. This doesn't make them better, or worse, it just means they're having a go. Commendable.
2. Drones. Incredibly important, obviously. There's not a pop record in existence that's not been improved by a drone.
3. Great, great lyrics. My favourite being, "Walking down the flower street, all the colours melting at my feet..." There are others.

As for the title. The sleeve calls it Sattva, the label calls it Sativa. To be honest, I sort of like that kind of thing too.

Basement Crates: 30 & 31

Gangstarr: Just To Get A Rep (Chrysalis, 1990)
Pulled from the big box marked Should Have Been Enormous, Gangstarr were everyone's favourite hip hop outfit of the early 90s, well everyone apart from that important group known as the general public who, despite the band's innate ability to write brilliant singles (and the fact they were fantastic live) decided they could live perfectly happily without DJ Premier's wiki-wiki wotsits and Guru's proudly monotone flow. Well, their loss, for this EVA sampling gem was quite the thing for those of us who were paying attention 18 long years ago.


James Yorkston: Tender To The Blues (Domino, 2002)
I got an email from James Yorkston a few days ago. He's in an old converted farmhouse studio in Wales recording his new album. Yes, you're right, it does sound nice, doesn't it? I thought so until he told me how the 300 year old building's resident ghost pulled him out of bed by his ankles the other morning. That's not quite so lovely, is it? Anyway, I found this old single of his while rooting around in a box full of magazines. This is a wonderful record, but then I'm a total sucker for this sort of thing. "And the mornings I’ve woken and sought your warmth," he sings. "If only I’d held you and told you before..." Literally, blub...

Basement Crates: 27, 28 & 29

Lynn Hope: Blue Moon (Premium, 1951)
How can you not love a sax player from Alabama whose shtick involved wearing a turban? Hope was a huge RnB star of the 50s whose records were much loved and sought after - and played to death - by the Jamaican sound system DJs of the time. No one covering Blue Moon is looking to change the world, but you might find yourself feeling a little better about almost everything by just exposing yourself to this very lovely record (that I found in a bag this afternoon while tidying my basement office).


David Axelrod: The Sign (Part. 1) (Capitol, 1970)
Oh, I know, Axelrod is the record snob's crazy-man of choice and here I am posting some old nonsense from 37 years ago. But, but, this is really, really good. Jazz, soul, RnB, funk have all been stirred in while Ax smokes filterless gaspers and expects just a little bit more magic from the string section. And Earth Rot may just have been the first LP to have concerned itself with the environment. And stuff. Found this in a bag that had some old tax returns in it. Tidying up rules, innit?


The Techniques: Queen Majesty (Treasure Isle, 1967)
Great picture, eh? If you can find a better one of The Techniques then, y'know, let me know. Anyway, I found this in a huge polystyrene box marked Silvana's CDs which seemed odd as she's never shown much interest in late 60s ska to my knowledge. Having said that, it was under a load of old magazines that I might have dumped there without knowing what I was doing. You know how it is. Anyway, this is a truly wonderful record, joyful, questing and tinged with sadness. What more could any of us ask for?

Basement Crates: 20, 21 & 22

Cluster & Eno: Die Bunge (Sky, 1977)
This Picture Music LP was another one I salvaged - I guess I mean stole, really - from the huge pile of vinyl good old Ivo out of 4AD brought into sell at the shop I used to work at. A compilation of - and I quote - "German Rock Impressionismus" (Sky Records' translation budget was clearly a little lacking), you'd do well to not be put off by that awful thought and just let Brian rub electronic ice-cubes on your fevered temples while his Cluster pals open the window a bit and let some fresh air in to cool your toes. And stuff.


Nick Nantos & The Fireballs: Jazz Banana (Summit, 1963)
I found this on an LP called Guitars On Fire in a car boot sale for 50p or the like. Turns out it's worth more like £10 and not because it has the good sense to be either uniformly brilliant or because it names a track, Jazz Banana, but because Nick Nantos was actually Nick Nastos, a member of Bill Haley & The Comets. Big fer-laming wow, but it clearly means something to someone. I've never cared much for pre-Beatles rock and roll, but this rattling, guitar-twangling instrumental has that sunset-surfing-safari sound that means it would sound right at home heading up a Tarantino soundtrack. Hopefully for a film that wouldn't tank so badly we never get to see it. Anyway, Jazz Banana! How can you not love that?


Tortoise: Ry Cooder (Thrill Jockey, 1994)
Look at the packaging on that. I wonder where Divot and Whorable Orphans are now. Actually, I know because I just Googled them. It's a really redundant question "Where are they now?", isn't it. Anyway, I went to the first ever Tortoise gig (I can feel the excitement levels really peaking now) and in that week in 1994 they were the coolest band in the world. They were, really! As cool as Portishead or Tricky. Yes, that cool. I mean, the coolest band in the world as long as you worked in an independent record shop in a leafy London suburb.The tabloids didn't write about "indie" music then, so the 'Toise could comfortably fit all the people who wanted to see them into the upstairs room at The Garage rather than, say, three nights at The Astoria. Anyway, when they played this, and the xylophone bit started (I so rarely get the chance to write about great xylophone moments), every single head in the room began to nod together in gloriously-aligned rhythym. I still clearly remember how good that looked.

My favourite phrase from the picture below: "In one word: klangfarben..."




Enjoy...

Basement Crates: 17, 18 & 19

Dream Warriors: My Definition Of A Boombastic Jazz Style (Young Disciples remix) (4th & Broadway, 1990)
In the future, music historians will discuss the hits of 1990 and therefore assume, like we do, that they know what the year sounded like. But they'll be wrong, because, for a lot of people (including, obviously, me), 1990 sounded like this. Sampled beats, deftly stroked "vintage" instruments and a general air of self-conscious, vaguely ridiculous cool. In Britain, OK, London, this was a way of marking your difference from the flyer-hoarding, puffa-wearing rave monkeys. We stroked our neatly clipped facial hair and admired a hip take on breakbeat and hip-hop that affected jazz pretensions as long as jazz could be narrowly defined by a few records made between 1968 and 1973. Nobody was allowed to call it Jazz Funk, because that was, and remains, the uncoolest music of all time, but, let's be honest, this is closer to Grover Washington Jr than it is to John Coltrane. Happily, I like GW Jr and JC, so I was happy as Larry. Anyway, in 1990, the Young Disciples were cool enough to basically reprise their own Step Right On track and call it a remix, while Dream Warriors could bang on about "boombastic jazz styles" and wear outlandish wooden jewellery and, for about a month, be considered fantastically outre. Oh, 1990, you are such a long time ago.

ED O.G & Da Bulldogs: Be A Father To Your Child (First World remix) (Urban, 1991)
So, 1991 was kind of odd too. Look at this for instance. Notionally released by the Polydor offshoot Urban - originally home to a slew of rare groove re-releases (and The James Taylor Quartet) - there are five labels listed on the sleeve, one of which is PWL America. In 1991, no one really knew what was going on. Records as melodic and - ahem - conscious as this one still sold across the board in numbers big enough to make the record industry think that the pay days would last forever. Acid house had turned into album sales, hip hop was massive, grunge was coming up fast - would this party never end? Well, yes it would, but not for a few years yet. Of course, Ed and his Bulldogs never really got to enjoy any of the riches as they were propelled to their one hit by a remix. Google reveals them to have no web presence other than a bit of Last.FM and a Myspace page with seven - seven! - friends.

BONUS POST!
Def Jef: God Made Me Funky (Delicious Vinyl, 1989)
This is a bit battered, a bit crackly, a bit jumpy, but it still feels good. Def Jef - great name! - arrived in Young MC's slipstream and was forgotten in about three weeks, but this is a nice legacy. Upright, feel-good hip hop with live bass, hilariously 80s rhyme pattern and a smattering of Troublefunk samples... This sounds like ancient history now.

Enjoy!

Basement Crates: Car Boot Special

Natural Mystic: Runaway Lover (Ethnic Fight, 197?)
Picked up a few treats from a car boot sale in a primary school in Nunhead last weekend. I'm particularly excited about this one - Natural Mystic's Natural Love LP. You just don't see mid-70s reggae (like you don't see 60s folk LPs or soundtracks that aren't South Pacific) in car boot sales. As I can make out, the Mystic were that rarest of rare beasts, a young British reggae band whose target market was the social and working men's clubs. Look at the cover - there's no unsettling dreadlock vibration going on here, it's all dicky-bows, big smiles and penguin suits. You could imagine them on the bill between Lenny Henry and Mike And Berni Winters. The internet doesn't know much about them - other than the LP is worth a lot more than the 50p I paid for it - but I reckon it was released in about 1974.


Stanley Black: All It Takes Is Two - Like Me And You (Phase 4 / Decca, 1976)
Stanley Black is an incredible fellow and this LP is full of great moments. But the planet's breakbeat afficionados are particular fans of this latin-tinged little beauty. I love the fact that this album clearly had a fairly high budget - it sounds really good. While this is full of groovesome good times, your attention is drawn to the just-about-three-minute mark where the band sit back and, in the words of James Brown, give the drummer some.

Enjoy!

Basement Crates: Religious Special

Alan McGill: Gentle Hands (Supreme, 1972)
Alan McGill: He Walks With Me (Canaan Records, 1971)

It's Easter Monday, so it seemed an appropriate time to post some of the religious treats I picked up when I should have been watching the magician at a three year old's party recently.

Alan McGill looks a bit like my late Great Aunt Beryl, so, for that alone, I think he is a wonderful chap. He was known as "the smiling face of Gospel" - who, I wonder, was "the snarling grimace of Gospel" and where could I get his LPs? - and he spent many years in California before moving to the heaving fleshpots of Baltimore in Maryland. Has any English person ever been to Baltimore (other than to try and find John Waters?) Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone called Alan McGill, this kindly hearted soul was of the Gaelic persuasion as his cockle-warming tenor brogue can't help but reveal. He Walks With Me is almost jazzy while Gentle Hands is pure, old-time Christian radio schmaltz and all the more wonderful for it. As far as the internet's concerned, he's still alive and making appearances. But probably only in Maryland. By the way, Hands is taken from an LP called He Touched Me which features a ghostly, godly hand coming down out of the sky. Sadly, instead of inducing awe, this just makes me snigger into my hand every time I see it. Sorry Alan :(

The Glorylanders: When I Found Out About Jesus (IBA, 1972)
The Glorylanders are still going too. They're selling their old tour bus at the moment. They may have bought it with the money they made from this LP - a gospel-folk-pop classic from 1972. I say classic like I knew anything about it, but you only have to look at that typeface or see the stand-up bass and acoustic guitar to know something kewl is going on here. This track is nearly brilliant, it's clear the 'Landers had a big thing for The Beatles, particularly John Lennon 1965/66 era, as you will hear in its series of direct stylistic steals. Great attmept at a "Scouse" accent too...


Dick Saunders: Jesus Bids Us Shine (Echo Recording, 1972)
Jimmy Owens' Come Together Singers: Tell The World (Word/Light, 1973)
The rest of the Dick Saunders LP is a load of no-partner-having, nylon-wearing librarians singing bad hymns to each other, but Shine is a little slice of instrumental heaven. Nice picture of Piccadilly Circus on the cover too. And, anyway, what do you want for 20p (or in your case, nothing)? I've covered Jimmy Owens before, but I was tricked by the different sleeve on this one. Those Christian bastards, always with the stealing and the trickery... However, buying it again did make me revisit it and rediscover Tell The World. Unlike Saunders' lily-livered, Bible-stroking milk-sop pals, Jimmy, Carol (and the Come Together Singers) sound like they're at it all the bloody time.

Joy Is Like The Rain: Speak To Me, Wind (Avant Garde, 1966)
This seems very, um, advanced for 1966, but that's when it was, so there we go. Singing nuns can get pretty tiresome, pretty quickly, but this track is great - a wispy-voiced, knock-kneed, wimple-rocker so In Love With The Lord it can't even breathe in His presence, never mind meet his steely gaze. Don't, like us, go looking for Avante Garde Records on 57th Street as rather like the Electric Banana, it's not there anymore.



Happy Easter!

Basement Crates: Classics Edition

Joanna Law: First Time Ever (City Beat, 1990)
St Etienne: Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Version) (Heavenly, 1990)
Public Enemy: Shut Em Down (Pete Rock remix) (Def Jam, 1991)
Urban Species feat. MC Solaar: Listen (Talkin' Loud, 1993)
The Memory Band: Catch As Catch Can (Hungry Hill, 2003)

In the grand tradition of my side of Landcroft House, (almost) all these records came out in the very early 90s which I'm increasingly beginning to see as some kind of golden age for me, a time when I liked the records I liked because I heard them in a club or in the shop or at parties round someone's house rather than liking them because they sound nice when you're trying to write, or you're commuting, or because someone on the end of the phone tells you really should listen because, honestly, it's really good! And it's release date coincides with your next issue!

Anyway, the Joanna Law track - an early attempt at, ahem, breakbeat folk - was a huge favourite of mine back in the days when summer evenings were spent in the back bars of Kingston pubs listening to Shuff and Tarby play PE, Lonnie Liston Smith, James Brown, Tribe, you know, all those people that only old people like. To most other ears it probably sounds like the lamest, most mannered piece of crap ever, but I loved it. I still do. That's her brother Simon - the only ginger part of the Soul II Soul collective - on the piano. I feel like I remember a video was made for this, but I might have imagined that.

The St Etienne tune is seriously old. It has, of course, since become a Copper Bottomed Classic and the Et' became a much loved pop group, but at the time this came out, they were as pie-eyed on rave tablets and as full of mad ideas as everyone else. Except most other people went to bed on their mad ideas and by the time they'd woken up and their head was back together the moment had passed. Well, not for this lot and this dub version remains a brilliant window on a way of thinking that doesn't really exist anymore.


Although the idea seemed a bit crazy at the time, Shut Em Down would prove to be Public Enemy's last truly remarkable single. A viciously anti-corporate blast, it retains a harsh, belligerent edge 16 years after its release. This is taken from a wonderfully ugly, white vinyl-N-die-cut sleeve UK Def Jam release. Pete Rock was, literally, the coolest person in the world at the time and this mix was everywhere for months after. It still gets me in the same way Fight The Power or Night Of The Living Bassheads do...


Look. I've got every single Talkin' Loud promo between 1990 and 1995 and I'm probably going to post quite a few of them, so get used to it. I find it incredible that a major label actually funded this - a stridently anti-war rap track with a live jazz group and a French rapper - how good must those drugs have been? Anyway, I imagine that this is about the uncoolest music in the world right now which means, in time, it will be the coolest thing ever. And then I'll be RICH! Rich, damn you!


The Memory Band is the only ringer having come out in 2003 (which, in itself, feels like a fairly long time ago already). I wanted to put in in here because it's a great link between the early 90s jazz-inflected post-rock that came right after - and was undeniably influenced by the sort of records Pete Rock and his crate-digging peers made - and, well, it's the sort of warmly psychedelic-toned British folk that - right here in 2007 - is enormously popular. Well, enormously popular with me anyway.

Enjoy!

Basement Crates: Discoveries 15 & 16

Willie Hutch: I Can Sho' Give You Love (originally Motown, 1977, this issue, Big Cheese, 1994)

I distinctly remember sticking this Big Cheese compilation in my bag at the record shop back in the spring of 1994. Soul was never really my thing - hip hop, jazz, dub, jungle, breakbeat, funk, afro-beat, even hi-life, yes, but soul no - so I was a little suspicious of this, but it only took me one listen to fall for it. I also had some friends who recorded for and did some work for the label, so that helped. Am I correct in remembering some sort of Big Cheese magazine too? It were all nights at t'Jazz Cafe and funny little beards in them days, I tells yer.

Anyway, 1977 is not a year I hold a lot of affection for as a rule, but this is fantastic, nicely samplable intro too. Not that anyone should take any notice of that, naturally.

The Lilac Time: The Darkness Of Her Eyes (Creation, 1991)

Ecstasy. One of the most sensible things Creation boss Alan McGee boss ever said was how he always used to enjoy taking ecstasy on his own and going to Richmond Park to listen to Nick Drake rather than losing "it" in some grotty basement club. Very prescient, Mr McGee. And an emotion that leads easily to Lilac Time, Stephen Duffy's folk-pop outfit that's been signed to every other label in Britain and never made anyone a penny.

This is, in classic Duffy style, a devastatingly beautiful song. Taken from an album - Astronauts - that was written while the early 90s whirl of pills and powders and booze washed around the smart west London flats he lived in (North Kensington is another great track from the record), lines like, "There may be less between us than we thought," are just thrown in, left floating for the rest of us to imagine what happened next.

I once saw Duffy - in about 1994 - swilling champagne with Alex James at the aftershow of some Blur gig in the basement bar of a posh central London venue. I remember thinking he had a very enviable life.

I hope he still has.

Enjoy!

Basement Crates: Discovery 14

Caveman: Caught Up (Profile, 1991)
There's a lot of crap talked about old hip hop (some of it here, to be honest), but there are certain tracks that just shine years and years and years later. And this is one of them. Perhaps the only man other than Perry "The Destroyer" Como to ever wear a comfortable knit sweater on the cover of his LP, Caveman was, without doubt, one of the brightest and most sadly missed stars ever to come from the UK hip hop scene (let's talk about Hijack - The Terrorist Group - soon tho').

Full of the most gloriously positive lyrics imaginable and riding a brilliantly sharp set of JBs and 70s jazz samples, Caught Up is a reminder of a time when hip hop had other things on its mind than how much wedge you could make flogging chisel. Having said that, I came home tonight listening to the new Clipse album which is almost entirely devoted to celebrating how much wedge you can make flogging chisel, so don't pay too much attention to my high minded nonsense.

By the way, I know the Wikipedia entry and the Heroes Of UK Hip Hop entry both say the album came out in 1990. Well, my copy clearly says it came out in 1991. So there.

Anyway, enjoy.

Basement Crates: Discoveries 12 & 13

Serge Gainsbourg: Je T'aime Moi Non Plus Au Lac Vert (Philips, 1976)

Serge Gainsbourg never meant much in this country, but, weirdly, loads of people name check him now. He always seemed to me to be the most perfect kind of popstar. Someone who was a brilliant enough musician to be able to pick out the most sublime melodies while looking as if he'd barely thought about it, and old enough to know it was all a load of old shit anyway and you might as well hammer the pastis and smoke yourself into an early grave.

Serge Gainsbourg had that air about him of someone who knew he could do this stuff with his eyes closed, but it paid for nice house in Paris and all the naughty stuff he could handle, so why not just bang it out and be done with it?

Anyway, this is taken from the soundtrack to the fairly terrible movie, Ballade De Johnny-Jane. It's not exactly the best record you'll ever hear, but it does have some sublime versions of Serge's signature tune (as least as far as everyone who's not French is concerned) Je T'aime Moi Non Plus. This one sounds like it should be playing in the lift of a mid-70s Travel Tavern somewhere outside Dusseldorf, which can only be a good thing.

DJ Shadow Count And Estimate (Dub) (Sole Sides, 1993)

Now, I've written about DJ Shadow before (that's his original studio pictured above, BTW), but I was going to post this Oneness Of Juju record and then, having dragged it up from a long forgotten box in the basement, I realised it wasn't actually any good. This, on the other hand, is great. Raw, chopped-up breaks and dubbed out vocal samples. 14 years ago this sounded like the future. 14 years later it sounds like the past, but at least it's an interesting past...

I'd post the original version of Entropy, but it's 18 minutes long (gotta love the Shad...) and who's got that kind of bandwidth to spare? Anyway, this is fantastic and I might dig out my original, extremely well-played and a little crackly Mo Wax promo of In/Flux sometime soon and post that - still one of the truly astonishing records of the last twenty years.

Tonight's post has been sponsored by a nice Chianti and some lamb chops...

Enjoy!

Basement Crates: Discovery 11

DJ Shadow: Lost And Found (Mo' Wax, 1994)

When I first heard DJ Shadow I had the feeling that, finally, here was the music I'd been waiting all my life for someone to actually make. A bit like hip-hop, a bit like jazz and a bit like funk, but not like any of them as it was all cut through with the same sort of obsessive melancholy I loved in Red House Painters or, y'know, Miles Davis. Shadow gave off this sense of being someone best able to express themselves through the manipulation of minute slices of sound that others had discarded years before.

Shadow seemed to me to be an entirely new type of person, musician even, if you can bear it. He was aware that here is so much recorded media, so many LPs lying in mouldering heaps across the world that it's not an entirely stupid idea to think, well, I'll make my music out of them then.

And for a while it was really, unbelievably good and the people who still, 16 years later, commission "edgy" advert music owe him, big time.

Of course, his new album ditched all the obsessiveness and just made with the "hyphy". We don't really get hyphy in Britain. But Shadow's a dad now, he hasn't got time for all this nonsense, none of us have. Whatever - thanks for all the cool stuff. Hope the kids are well.

BONUS POST


Jah Wobble's Invaders Of The Heart: Visions Of You [Andy Weatherall's Secret Love Child Of Hank And Johnny mix] (East West, 1991)

Of course, Shadow's shtick didn't come from nowhere. He fed Eno and Byrne through Hank Shocklee and PiL and threw his own stuff on top. From what is clearly turning into my favourite year ever, this is a classic Andy Weatherall mix of ex-PiL man Jah Wobble's Chart Smasheroo from 1991. I think that's Sinead O'Connor on this - I used to love her so much - but I sort of can't be arsed to google it. Anyway, I remember this taking the top of my head off when I was, ahem, thizz at a Leftfield party once a long, long time ago.

UPDATE
Alright, I can be bothered and hurray, it is...