My social media timelines were full on Monday night and Tuesday with tributes to J Saul Kane who has died aged just fifty five. He'd become quite reclusive in recent years and had more or less given up making music, concentrating on photography instead, but in the 1990s he was one of the founding fathers of what became known as trip hop. His music was dusty, atmospheric and beat heavy, sampled spaghetti Westerns, martial arts films and Brazilian football commentators and he was a DJ who knew how to fill and move a dancefloor, as J Saul Kane, Depth Charge and The Octagon Man. He was a pioneer and trailblazer. Trip hop seems reductive somehow- this is cinematic electronic funk a weird hybrid of hip hop and dance music (that's pretty much trip hop I guess but J Saul Kane's music never became dinner party music which was the fate of a lot of 90s trip hop).
In 1994 I bought Shaolin Buddha Finger by Depth Charge, having heard the title track somewhere in Manchester after dark. A dark, swirling piece of electronic breakbeat with advice about how to attack a man using the titular digit, layers of samples and a massive buzzing bassline. The album Nine Deadly Venoms followed, an essential mid- 90s album and then the Legend Of The Golden Snake EP.
He was still producing great records into the 2000s. This one came out in 2004, a filthy, juddering blitz of beats, samples and undulating bass.
Back in 1995 J Saul was one of a select group of artists who got to remix The Sabres Of Paradise. There were a pair of Depth Charge remixes of Tow Truck (from Haunted Dancehall). The Sabres original was an alternative James Bond theme if 007 had come from East London and sold second hand motors rather than lived life as an international spy. J Saul broke it down even further, a grinding bass heavy swim through the murk.
Tow Truck (Depth Charge Mix II)
His music chimed with the trip hop artists and with the world of The Beastie Boys and Grand Royale and his influence on labels like Mo Wax and Ninja Tune was enormous. His passing is very sad news, especially having died so young. RIP J Saul Kane.
4 comments:
He was a true pioneer. Hearing Depth Charge on Peel around 1990 was a real ear-opener.
A sound and style that fitted like a jigsaw peice. Trip Hop is misnamed, as you say it's a cinematic genre.
I had no idea until I came here, sad moment. I put Shaolin Buddha Finger on a 90s CD compilation for the car and it's one of the kids' favourites, just for the sheer blockbusting energy of it. RIP J Saul Kane.
Devastating news and sobering that he was roughly 'our' age. So much groundbreaking to choose from, but a trio of great picks here, Adam, thank you.
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