From the moment I first heard the needle find the groove and the opening synth wobble of Fluke's Philly poured into the room, some time in spring 1991, I loved the sheer joy of the song- the 'put your hands up high' vocal line, the pump of the acid house drums and bass, the start of a new decade feel it provoked. Their albums from 1991, The Techno Rose Of Blighty and Out (In Essence) brought more of the same- house, synth- pop, downtempo, seamlessly brought together in a streamlined, mid tempo rush. Mike Tournier, Mike Bryant and Jon Fugler formed Fluke in the late 80s, and released five albums before calling time in 2003. Their early 90s records are as much a part of my record collection at that time as any others, the sound and feel of the early 90s wrapped up.
The Bells was a 1991 single, a track with three mixes (1, 2 and 3) and punningly titled 'The Peal Sessions', with a vocal conflating ecstasy and Jesus.
Philly (Jamorphous) first came out in 1990, a 12" on Creation backed with two further mixes- Jameoba and Jamateur. It was then the opening track on Creation's Keeping The Faith compilation twelve track album released in spring 1991 that was as good record of the time as any other- alongside Philly were the likes of Sheer Taft's Cascades, Weatherall's remix of My Bloody Valentine, Hypnotone, Primal Scream, Love Corporation, J.B.C's cover of The Rolling Stones' We Love You and World Unite.
The version of The Garden Of Blighty here is from Out (In Essence), a five track live album Fluke released in 1991, a gloriously uptempo document of their sound at the time.
The Hypogasmix of Slid, remixed by Tom Middleton of Global Communications, came out on the Absurd EP in 1997, the pick of four remixes and one which sounds as fresh today as it did in 1997. Slid was on their 1993 album Six Wheels On My Wagon, a typically optimistic blend of club rhythms and melody, songs and beats, sequenced so it started out poppy and full of hooks and gradually becoming more ambient and experimental.
Joni samples Joni Mitchell and first saw the light of day on a self released white label in 1990. The B-side was Taxi (a nod to Joni and her Big Yellow Taxi). Joni was then included on The techno Rose Of Blighty album. Joni is very much a progressive house thumper.
Fluke remixed Bjork several times, two versions of Big Time Sensuality in 1993 and two of Violently Happy from '94. The two remixes of Big Time Sensuality are among my favourite records, part of the fabric of my life in 1993/ 1994. The shorter, slower Minimix is a stunner but the longer, faster Moulimix was the one required here.
Last week Khayem at Dubhed posted a recreated 1997 mixtape which included a Hypnotone remix of The Lilac Time's Dreaming, a remix that did not go down well with Stephen Duffy at the time but as Khayem points out is 'pretty close' to 'Hypnotone's high water mark remix of Sheer Taft's Cascades (that remix of Cascades is a desert island disc for me). The post sent me into the Hypnotone's back catalogue and today's mix is the result, forty minutes of Hypnotone remixes and their own material to light up Sunday.
Hypnotone were Tony Martin, a Manchester producer with Martin Mittler (bassist from Intastella and Laugh) and later Cordelia Ruddock (who Tony discovered at a fashion show). Hypnotone signed to Creation which led to work with Primal Scream and The Lilac Time, both Creation acts at the time. Their self- titled mini album from 1990 is a lost gem, an early 90s time capsule.
Dream Beam was the debut release, a 1990 12" on Creation from that point where Alan McGee wanted Creation to be a dance label and briefly did it very well indeed. The much missed Denise Johnson is on vocals, 'feel so high', sung over chilled dance bleepy house. I saw Hypnotone play live at Sefton Park in Liverpool in the summer of 1990, this track floating over the lake in the summer darkness, everyone very chilled as Denise's voice rang out. It was remixed twice, once by Danny Rampling and once by Ben Chapman, the latter being the pick of the pair for me, perfect 1991 dance music. The robotic voice repeating 'hypnotise us... hypnotise us...' is very hypnotic and as the track comes to a close the collapse into the final vocal message, 'I don't know if I'll ever see you again...' is a blast.
Hypnotonic, all piano house, rattling 808s and a very early 90s rap courtesy of Carlos (2 Supreme), was a 1991 single was recorded at Out Of The Blue in Manchester, a studio in the then semi- derelict Ancoats area, now part of the ever growing regeneration of central Manchester.
Atlantis was a 1991 12" single by Sheer Taft, remixed by Tony. The Hypnotone remix of Cascades, also from 1991, is a genuine classic of the era, a record that was big everywhere from Ibiza to Manchester and in between. It appeared on the Creation dance compilation Keeping The Faith which is a definitive document of a time.
Dreaming was a 1991 single by The Lilac Time, a pair of remixes that sound great today, dubby Balearic house- why Stephen Tin Tin Duffy didn't like it is a mystery.
Come Together, Primal Scream's second Screamadelica- era single, is better known in its Weatherall and Farley remix forms but the Hypnotone remix is a belter too, harder and faster, distorted voices, thumping 808 kick drums, horns, bubbling bass, everything piling up in an ecstatic rush. It was on Keeping The Faith and released as a white label 12" along with the fourth and largely missed BBG remix of Come Together. Tony co- produced the cover of Slip Inside This House that appears on Scremadelica too.
Electraphonic was on the second Hypnotone album, Ai, released in November 1991.
This is one of those tracks which I've been listening to for over three decades now and when it plays I always get a rush of excitement, almost like hearing it for the first time again. Fluke were a Buckinghamshire based group, Mike Bryant, Jon Fugler and Mike Tournier, who were into the industrial/ electronic sounds of Cabaret Voltaire and were then fired up by acid house. In 1990 they found their way to Creation Records, who were at that point setting up a dance music division, the Creation office's enthusiasm for all things dance music having few limits at that point.
In 1991 Alan McGee rounded up a killer selection of Creation's dance records and put them together on a compilation called Keeping The Faith. As well as Creation mainstays Primal Scream and My Bloody Valentine (both in remixed form courtesy of Hypnotone, Terry Farley and Andrew Weatherall) Keeping The Faith had Ed Ball in his Love Corporation guise, superb singles from World Unite and Sheer Taft, J.B.C. aka The Jazz Butcher covering The Rolling Stones in classic 1990 style, Hypnotone remixed by Danny Rampling, The Sound Of Shoom and Crazy Eddie and Q.Q. Freestyle. Opening the record was this...
The sci fi whooshes, juddering synths, twinkling sounds, cymbal crashes, keyboard runs and sirens all kicked in within seconds of my then housemate Al dropping the needle on side one, the rush of the track instantly dragging us aboard. The vocal comes in, 'Put your hands up high... got to try to find a way to liberate our hearts', and it's wide smiles on faces. There are sweeping synth strings and a throbbing beat, more string stabs (borrowed from Philly soul in the 70s), bursts of electric guitar, more strings and the ever pulsing rhythms. More and more, strings, whooshes, chanted vocals, trying to find a way to put your arms around the world'. Four minutes in a tumbling drum break leads to the briefest pause and then we're straight back in for the final three minutes. Everything that was in the air in1990 is in this track- the sense of freedom and possibility, the technology of samplers, synths, drum machines spliced with singers and guitars, influences dragged from record collections and nights out and put into a giant, technicoloured stew.
Creation had released Philly as a single the year before, a three track 12" with the Jamorphous Mix on the A-side along with the Jamoeba Mix and the Jamateur Mix. Jamorphous is still the pick of the bunch without doubt but the Jamateur mix has its moments, less song, more rave, more piano and no vocals except for a chanting crowd just about audible.
Another Andrew Weatherall sample spotting post, my continuing attempts to try to identify and pull together the sounds that made the remixes. Today, the monumental, ground breaking, juddering dance/ rock remix of My Bloody Valentine's Soon. The long gestation period that led to the release of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless album has been well documented and is the stuff of indie legend- the record that broke Creation, the album that illustrates the manic attention to detail and difficulties of working with Kevin Shields and his single minded drive and obsession with the process and art of recording guitars, the failings of various London recording studios, the hand to mouth cash existence of Creation Records, the poor health of various participants (tinnitus not surprisingly given the volume the group played at) and so on. David Cavanagh's My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize book describes the myths and the reality in detail.
Soon first saw the public light of day as the lead song on 1990's Glider EP (along with Glider, Don't Ask Why and Off Your Face. David Cavanagh speculates in his book that the song titles from MBV's releases at this point can be seen as ripostes to Alan McGee and his frequent requests to give him some music to release). Soon is arguably the pinnacle of Shields' famous 'glide guitar' sound and technique- playing the strings and bending them using the tremolo bar. That underestimates Soon somewhat- Soon swirls and shimmers, disorientation and delight in equal measures, a riot of melodies and feedback, ghosts of guitars and washes of vocal. It rattles in with some percussion and then a storm of guitar chords, the queasy topline melodies (one that sounds very like a flute and may well be), echoing feedback and Belinda Butcher's barely there vocals. Soon is vaguely danceable and the guitar sounds, the vertigo inducing tremolo chord changes, give it a swirling, slightly out of control feel- you've had one too many, the edges of your vison and hearing are fuzzy, you're spinning and not in control. The video version here is under four minutes but the version on Glider and different mix that made it onto Loveless are seven minutes long, an ecstatic headrush of sound.
When it came to remixing it Andrew Weatherall entered the studio armed with the records he wanted to sample and MBV's master tapes. It seems that the band were a little reluctant to hand over control to a DJ/ producer/ remixer (this was before Screamadelica had been released so Andrew's reputation in the studio wasn't established). The resulting remix, released in 1990, turned the highwater mark of shoegaze into a stomping, shuddering leftfield dance record, one that as much as any is where his reputation as a remixer rests. MBV accompanied him in the studio, either to keep an eye on him or to see how the process of remixing worked (or both). Indie- dance would quickly become tainted as a label, used more in derision than admiration- people use the term to describe Weatherall's remix of Soon, but there's a lot more going on in it than just sticking the Funky Drummer underneath the guitars and adding some cowbell. There would be plenty of guitar bands queuing up to have their feedback and four square rock refashioned but no other remix of a guitar band from this period comes close to Soon in its execution or the effect it can have on a dancefloor.
The Geiger counter intro, impossibly loud in the mix, is followed by a very un- MBV voice declaring, 'Here we go'. Then one of those guitars, stripped from the original song, appears high and centre. A thumping bassline and percussion hit in. The flute/ guitar part is punched in, on its own. 'Here we go' again. More layered guitars. The drums thunder away, the guitars are looped round and round. The 'aaah aaaahhhh' vocal sample is dropped along with a guitar part that sounds like wire being wound very tight and hit. It sounds like Soon but moreso, the drift and ghostliness of the original snapped into focus, equally narcotic but a different drug. The ending is dramatic too- the elements being stripped out one by one, faders, pulled down until there's just a voice, 'aaahhh aaahhhhhhhh/ aaahhhhh aaahhhhhhhhhh'.
West Bam's Alarm Clock, a manic 1990 breakbeat/ house 12", provides some of the feel of the remix and the clattering rhythm that Andrew uses to underpin Shields' wall of noise.
West Bam had already borrowed guitars from this, Gang Of Four's What We All Want, from their 1981 Solid Gold album. Stentorian, Marxist funk rock which Andrew would surely have recognised instantly when he first heard West Bam.
Some of the vocals are taken from this song- Tides- by Claire Hamill, released in 1986, an entirely acapella album, Hamill's voice overdubbed to produce all the sounds. Go to 44 seconds in and you'll find the vocal part Weatherall dropped in- it repeats throughout the song.
Hugo Nicolson, Andrew's assistant, engineer and studio whizz, tells us that some of the voices were sampled from a Volvic advert (I can't find any trance of the advert on the internet). If you go to 3 minutes 15 seconds in this 1975 song, Funky Music Is The Thing by Dynamic Corvettes, you'll find a rhythm break that appears in the remix too- or one that sounds very like it.
The website Who Sampled Who says that Weatherall's remix takes elements, the bassline probably, from this- The Rhythm, The Feeling by Rich Nice, a 1990 hip- house single.
If anyone knows where the 'here we go' sample comes from, write in to the usual address and I'll add it to this post.
The remix came out first as a white label 12" and was labelled the Andy Weatherall Remix. Later versions would by credited to his full name. It also appeared on Creation's superb 1991 compilation Keeping The Faith (and if you're after a vinyl copy now you'd be better off finding a copy of the compilation- cheaper and containing a slew of other era defining tracks to boot). Soon in Andy/ Andrew's hands is a record and remix in a class of its own. It still sounds like Soon but it's a Soon that My Bloody Valentine hadn't imagined and one that blurs all the lines and boundaries that existed at the time- not rock, not dance, not indie dance, not shoegaze but something new built from all of these but something else as well. 'Here we go'.
When you disappear to a place like Anglesey for a couple of days it's easy to believe the issues that have swallowed us up this year are not so very important. There aren't many people around- the surfers at Rhosneigr were taking advantage of the wind and the waves and the fish and chip shop had a one way system, people were wearing face masks as they came out of or went into shops, but if you just ambled about the island, visited the fairly quiet beaches and bays and stopped off to look in on some of Anglesey's Neolithic sites, the stresses of recent months vanished a little. The 2020 fear of being caught without hand sanitiser never entirely goes away though. We were trapped in the rain in a bus stop eating fish and chips because we're still not taking Isaac into indoor cafes or restaurants and when we stopped off in Conwy on the way home it was disturbingly busy (at least to us with someone who we are effectively still shielding, it was). Everything's got so complicated and difficult this year. Sitting in a caravan in a field is a good way to simplify things even if it's only for a short while.
This song from 1991 is never far away from me- World Unite by World Unite. It came out on Creation Records when Alan McGee discovered acid house/ rave was the new rock 'n' roll and put out a load of dance records (later brought together on the era defining Keeping The Faith compilation). World Unite is seven an a half minutes of good vibes, trippy dub house, a bubbling synth part and bassline, a breakbeat, some organ, and a spoken/ sung verse immediately followed by a sampled global/ world music female voice.
World Unite produced nothing else as far as I can see, just one 12" single with this version on one side and the Unitemix on the other. The names credited with writing the song are Stacey/ Potter, it was recorded at Vons Studio in Islington and engineered by Simon Daniels. Someone recently suggested to me that World Unite were probably a bedroom producer and a drug dealer mate of McGee's who found themselves together for a few hours with a sampler and some ideas. The press release that came with my white label copy says 'World Unite are Martin Stacey and Graeme Potter, both of whom hail from Essex- although Martin now lives in Wapping and Graeme in Bath. This is their first record together. Martin (male vocal) encourages us to 'Listen to the voice of the world unite/ Believe in love, believe in life/ Live and let live/ Live and let love', over heavy rhythmic drums and ethnic female chanting, from Madagascar. Real hot!'
In a way I don't need to know who Stacey and Potter were/ are. The idea of making one perfect but largely unknown single, releasing it and then disappearing, is very appealing to me, especially one bringing joy to a small number of fans nearly three decades later.
Today's post accidentally fits in really well with David Byrne's ideas about finding vocals and using them in new musical places (see yesterday's My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts post). A while ago someone somewhere, sorry I can't remember who, posted two Orbital tracks both released in 1990, one the B-side to Chime and the other a remix of that B- side from the Omen 12". Deeper and 2 Deep take the voice from a relaxation tape, designed to help people who were unable to relax or get to sleep, calm down and chill the fuck out. A warm, calming voice appropriated by the Hartnoll brothers and laid over some techno. Knowing, ironic, a bit trippy. 'Close your eyes and relax...'
I put both versions onto a compilation CD along with other similar stuff and found that they sounded really good driving to and from work. Thankfully they didn't cause me to relax so much that I fell asleep at the wheel. That would not have been relaxing.
Also from 1990 and in the same ballpark is this from Ed Ball's Love Corporation- sparkling, inventive acid house with a vocal found on a New Age, meditation tape, remixed by the King of Shoom Danny Rampling. 'Close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly and deeply...'
Following yesterday's remix of The Lilac Time here's some more Hypnotone. First that Primal Scream remix (first released as a white label and then as part of the Creation Keeping The Faith compilation, as essential a slice of 1991 as you're going to find). Come Together was/is a masterpiece in its Weatherall ten minute mix and the Terry Farley flipside. Hypnotone's version is more frantic, more bass-in-yer-face, more rave, a more tops off on the podium gurning at the lights kind of tune...
The white label 12" has a lesser known remix of the other side, a more ambient dub mix by BBG (Big Boss Groove, best known for their Snappiness and Some Kind Of Heaven singles, both out in 1990).
Hypnotone were Martin Mittler and Tony Martin. Their 1990 album was recorded at Spirit Studios in Manchester and released on Creation. The vocals on Dream Beam and Potion 90 were by Denise Johnson and led to her getting the gig with Primal Scream and singing on Screamadelica. Dream Beam then gained two remixes of its own, one from Balearic legend Danny Rampling and other, a sparser version by Ben Chapman (both posted here previously). Until fairly recently I didn't know that Dream Beam had a video but here it is in all its dayglo glory...
Hypnotone's album opens with Dream Beam and has the essence of 1990 running through its grooves. Italia is Italian house via Tariff Street M1, house pianos, bouncy bass and a rattling 808. Vocals on this one are by Pauline.
The last track on Hypnotone was Sub, a very nice, end of night, coming down kind of tune with some sublime synths.
Two slices of early 1990s dance music to whisk us away from December and all those pre-Christmas irritations. First up is a song I've posted before but only recently saw the video for the first time.
Released by Creation in 1990 Dream Beam is a wonderful slice of house music, bleepy and spaced out with vocals from Denise Johnson. It was this song that got her the gig with Primal Scream and led to her singing on Screamadelica. Tony Martin's production is perfectly in tune with the times- he put an album out too, also called Hypnotone, which is worth pulling out from the shelf or looking out for if this kind of thing is your bag. Dream Beam is also on Creation's definitive 1991 Keeping The Faith compilation, along with Fluke, Weatherall's MBV remix, World Unite, Sheer Taft, Love Corporation, Primal Scream and a couple of others. Keeping The Faith is among the very best things the label ever released.
I saw Hypnotone perform at a mini-festival in Sefton Park, Liverpool (I think it was summer 1990). Larks In The Park was an annual affair starting in the early 80s. Famously in 1985 The Stone Roses and The La's played the same night. Hypnotone went on way after dark. We were on a grass bank across the boating lake from the stage and the bleeps came from the bandstand, drifting across the water towards us, followed by Denise's voice. Everyone was very chilled and happy. It was one of those moments.
I posted Papua New Guinea by Future Sound Of London fairly recently, back at the end of August. August seems like a long time ago now. This is another video I'd never seen before until recently, FSOL playing Papua New Guinea on Top Of The Pops in 1991. And playing it live. Papua New Guinea is one of those records that takes you away from it all.
Weatherall's remix takes things up several gears, a thumping kick drum over that throbbing synths and the rushing rewind sounds. Tom toms. Seagulls. Chanting.
I was having a conversation online recently about the wonders of the Various Artists compilation album, which at certain times has been a real work of art. There are others I could go on about at some length but these are the three that immediately come to mind, all released within a few years of each other (and all tied together as well).
I've written before about Creation Records 1991 dance/house compilation Keeping The Faith but it is a perfect example, a well put together round up of similar minded artists and tracks defining a moment in time. From the opening minutes where Fluke take off on a Pan Am to Philly through to Hypnotone, a pair of Primal Scream remixes, Weatherall's definitive remix of My Bloody Valentine, Love Corporation, J.B.C., Sheer Taft, Danny Rampling's The Sound Of Shoom and World Unite here isn't a duff track and it is full of great moments. The Tears For Fears sample in J.B.C.'s cover of We Love You sums up how far Creation Records have shifted in 1991- 'dj's the man you love the most'. World Unite by World Unite is a majestic ambient house dub excursion- bubbling synths, up vocals with an eye on the dancefloor. The only thing I know about World Unite is that it was written by Potter and Stacey. And I love it still.
In the mid-to-late 80s Creation excelled at budget compilations, often a way to keep the wolf from the door and keep the cash coming in. At a knock down price of £1.99 1988's Doing It For The Kids was an essential purchase- The Jasmine Minks, Felt, Primal Scream (early indie version), The Weather Prophets (their song Well Done Sonny is below), The House Of Love, The Jazz Butcher, Biff Bang Pow!, My Bloody Valentine, Momus, The Times, Nikki Sudden, Pacific, Heidi Berry, Emily, Razorcuts. It is almost the complete picture of post-Smiths indie. And completely untouched by what was already brewing that would lead to Keeping The Faith. A snapshot of a time.
The last one is this one, Retro Techno/Detroit Definitive Emotions Electric, a 1991 double album of the futuristic sounds of Detroit, a pulling together of the work of Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, wall to wall techno classics that still sounds like its ahead of everyone else. From Model 500 at the start of Disc 1 Side 1 through to the massive drums, rhythms and bleeps of The Groove That Won't Stop, this is better than most 'proper' albums. The closing track is a sublime version one of dance music's set texts, the unreleased mix of Strings Of Life by Rhythim Is Rhythim.
Well that- the referendum, as if you didn't guess- was a total disaster. It's a strange day indeed when I can't get any satisfaction from David Cameron resigning. We're screwed. Completely.
The Sound Of Shoom released this single in 1991, later compiled on Creation's Keeping The Faith compilation (a very important record round these parts). The Sound Of Shoom was a production name for dj Danny Rampling, the man who started Shoom, a somewhat influential acid house night heldin a leisure centre in Southwark. The lyrics to I Hate Hate sound a bit trite and hippy-dippy now but fitted perfectly into the times and the song is in fact a cover, a soulful housed up version, of a 1974 Northern tune by Razzy And The Neighbourhood Kids.
And, to everyone out there who's peddled hate over the last few months, enough with the hate yeah?
Fat chance.
I posted this song way back, one of my favourite records of the period 1990-91- Cascades (Hypnotone Mix) by Sheer Taft. It came out on Creation and was on the killer Creation dance comp Keeping The Faith. Cascades is an acid house influenced, hypnotic and trippy adventure from the imagination of Glasgow's Sheer Taft. I make no apologies for posting it again- you'll love it, if you don't know it already.
The picture above shows Sheer Taft with Bobby Gillespie at Glasgow Barrowlands in 1991, presumably at Primal Scream's gig there on the Screamadelica tour. The day before yesterday there was a comment left at the Wordpress version of this blog (which is just a back up version really, in case blogger ever pulled the plug on this one which has happened to other bloggers in the past). The comment was left by the man himself, Sheer Taft, in response to another anonymous comment asking if there was an earlier version of this song and how much input Hypnotone had. So Taft has helpfully cleared it up for us.
'The
original version was recorded by myself (Sheer Taft) and Andrew Innes from
Primal Scream in a flat in the east end of London. We then recorded further
versions of the same track at a studio in Fulham. Hypnotone ie Tony Martin
was involved along with me in remixing the track with a great deal of input by
Thrash from the Orb answer a few suggestions from Brian Enough who was working
in the same studio in Berwick Street at that time.'
Thanks Sheer Taft. It freaks me out a little when the people who make the music comment on the blog but it's good too.
We are going away for the weekend, it being a Bank Holiday. We are camping. In a tent. With a load of other people. In tents. A few weeks ago when the sun was shining and the temperature was nudging 18 to 19 degrees, this looked like a brilliant idea. Now the wind is blowing, the night time temperature is close to zero, rain keeps sweeping in, and there was hail falling from the skies yesterday. It doesn't seem such a brilliant idea anymore. it seems a bit stupid. I'll let you know how we got on when we get back- supposedly on Monday. Have a good weekend.
In recent years Primal Scream have taken to playing the two versions of Come Together together live, Come Together coming together. Opening with the Weatherall remix and then going into the Farley one.
There was a lesser known third remix of Come Together by Hypnotone (a Creation dance act who made the ace Dream Beam single), released as a white label and on the 1991 Keeping the Faith compilation. The Hypnotone remix is far noisier and ravier, more chaotic with distorted synths and shouty vocal samples. Love it. What Bobby and the band need to do now is work this version into the live show and stretch Come Together out even further, three comings together for the price of one.
In a handy piece of internet synchronicity Daniel Avery has just remixed the song for BT Sport, who are showing matches live from the new football season (irritatingly called the EPL by some numpties, otherwise known as 'the greatest league ever in the history of football'). There's a 25 second clip below which obviously is of little use to man or dog but longer and different versions apparently do exist.
Watching the documentary on Creation Records on BBC4 on Friday night reminded me of just how many great bands and how many great records Alan McGee's label released, certainly in the period before signing Oasis (after which it all went wrong). It was a little flawed as a documentary, and full of 'we were so crazy, we took so many drugs' but overall the music and the misfits in the bands shone through. So I thought we'd have a few Creation inspired posts starting with Love Corporation, Ed Ball's dance project, included on the still magnificent 1991 compilation Keeping The Fath. Alan McGee invented acid house, didn't you know?
I posted a different mix of Hypnotone's Dream Beam ages ago, the Ben Chapman version with it's huge bleepy intro. This version was by remixed Danny Rampling and on the Creation does dance Keeping The Faith compilation. Rampling keeps the big vocal, gives us synth stabs rather than pianos and a well Balaeric rhythm to hypnotise us, as the vocal sample says several times. A friend of Bagging Area reckons the over-riding thing about records like this one was the sense of possibility in them. He's not wrong. I saw Hypnotone play Dream Beam at the Sefton Park festival in Liverpool in summer 1990, sitting by the pond in almost complete darkness. It's stayed with me ever since. Tune, as people used to say.
While things are all Screamadelic in various pockets of internetland I thought I'd post this- the Terry Farley mix of Loaded, which appeared on the Creation dance compilation Keeping The Faith (various Keeping The Faith tracks have been posted here at Bagging Area during the year). In this reworking of Weatherall's Loaded Terry Farley pretty much keeps Loaded as it was and puts Bobby's vocal from source track I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have back over the top. When I previously posted a Terry Farley remix a regular reader left the comment 'I'll remain anonymous for this one- great track but Terry Farley is an elitist knob'. Bagging Area cannot comment on this claim. Mr Farley remains unavailable for comment.
A few months back I posted some tracks from the still brilliant sounding Keeping The Faith, a compilation of dance, dance-rock, dance traitors, rock traitors and dub-disco put out by Creation records back in 1991. So far we've had Fluke, JBC, Sheer Taft and Hypnotone. Primal Scream and My Bloody Valentine in remixed forms were the best-known artists on the album. This is World Unite by World Unite. I can find out nothing about World Unite other than that their names were Stacey and Potter, and they released this single, World Unite with a remix on the B-side. But it doesn't matter- this is a gorgeous slice of early 90s dance music, with some very of-the-time positivity lyrics, some world-music backing vox/samples, and the lovely ambient dub stretched out over seven and a half minutes. This is so early 90s it almost comes out of the speakers wearing white jeans, a curtains hair style and saucer-eyed, telling you it loves you. And it does.
This is one of my favourite records, one of the period's most under-rated bands, the opening track to Creation's Keeping The Faith lp, dance-rock-acid house-crossover, and one of the most euphoric records ever committed to vinyl. From the opening chords, to the 'put your hands up high' vocal, to the bass, to the soaring synths... everything about it. Sheer bliss.
A week or two ago I posted a couple of tracks from the 1991 Creation Records dance compilation Keeping The Faith. As chance would have it this came up on the mp3 player during this evening's trek down three motorways to get home. Sheer Taft, according to discogs, were Thomas Taft of Greenock and Ingrid Kudos. They released another single Atlantis (which I havn't got, and don't think I've ever heard) and an album Absolutely Sheer (ditto previous bracket). This is Cascades, remixed by previous postee Hypnotone. Dubby, electronic, Creation house. Sounds pretty good to these ears.
Following on from yesterday's post about Keeping The Faith this is Hypnotone's Dream Beam, not the version that appears on that compilation, but the Ben Chapman remix, probably the better version. In Sefton Park in Liverpool they used to hold a festival (Lark In The Park I think it was called). Not being a permanent resident of Scouseland I only went once, not the year the Roses and the La's played unfortunately, but I do remember sitting by the pond/lake and the intro to this record bleeping and booming out across the night. It sounded huge.
By 1991 Creation Records had caught the dance music bug and released a cracking compilation called 'Keeping The Faith'. It rounded up various Creation dance acts, rock acts gone dance, rock acts remixed by dance acts and was all quite nepotistic. It was a well loved album in these parts, not least because it featured Weatherall's jaw-dropping remix of Soon by My Bloody Valentine, but also Philly by Fluke, Primal Scream's Come Together remixed by Hypnotone, the Terry Farley remix of Loaded using the original Bobby Gillespie vocal, and tracks by Love Corporation, Sheer Taft and World Unite, all of which soundtracked the times perfectly. Listening to many of these tracks today still puts a massive smile on my face, even if some havn't dated that well. The track featured here is JBC (Creation stalwart The Jazz Butcher) covering a hoary old Rolling Stones sneer-fest We Love You, including that great 'dj's the man you love the most' sample. And in those days he certainly was.
