Forty Five Minutes Of Colourbox

A few days ago I posted Colourbox's Tarantula and the wonderful Pandit Pam Pam v Darkinari cover version of it (out two days ago here). Eduardo sent me this video he made on Friday, filmed on the forty five minute flight between Sao Paulo and Rio. 

Today's forty five minute mix is some Colourbox tracks thrown together/ skillfully sequenced, a celebration of a band who threw soul, reggae and dub, electro, industrial and sampling together into a big stew and came up with some genuinely pioneering records between 1982 and 1987.

Some biographical details first.  Colourbox were formed in London in 1982, brothers Martyn and Steve Young, Ian Robbins and singer Debion Currie. Currie and Robbins left a year later, after the first single was released (Breakdown/ Tarantula) and singer Lorita Grahame joined. They signed to 4AD, a street counterpoint to the ethereal, indie/ gothic sounds of the rest of the 4AD line up (Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil) and released three albums, all called Colourbox, and a slew of great singles. In 1987 Colourbox and AR Kane collaborated as M/A/R/R/S and between them, despite a rather difficult studio relationship, created an international hit- Pump Up The Volume. Pop star fame and long running legal bother over Pump Up The Volume and sample clearance led both Martyn and Steve Young to abandon Colourbox. 4AD issued best ofs and  box sets and in 2000 Andrew Weatherall included them on his 9 'O' Clock Drop compilation. Steve Young died in 2016. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Colourbox

• Looks Like We're Shy One Horse
• Baby I Love You So (12" Mix)
• Breakdown
• Say You (12" Mix)
• Edit The Dragon
• Tarantula
• The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme
• Arena II

Looks Like We're Shy One Horse, packed with gun shots and Spaghetti Western samples, was the B-side to Colourbox's 1986 Baby I Love You So single. The slowed down dub section at the end is genuinely thrilling after six minutes of drum machines, guitars, keys, samples, river dredging bass and South London via the Great Plains.

The A- side was Baby I Love You So, a cover of a Jacob Miller and Augustus Pablo song from 1974. King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown was constructed around the dub version of it. Colourbox's cover is a dub version it its own right, a masterful and superbly produced slice of 80s British street sounds with a bassline that you could chew. 

Breakdown was Colourbox's debut single, released in 1982 with Debian Currie on vocals. Tarantula is industrial synth with a detached, numbed vocal. Breakdown is New Wave synthpop, a very of its time song but one that should be better known than it is. 

Say You was a 1984 single, a cover of a U- Roy song from 1976, one of those reggae songs that has a complicated back story with umpteen versions, dubs and covers. Colourbox's version is sweet 80s electro dub- soul. 

In 1985 Colourbox released their first full length album- Colourbox (a mini- album called Colourbox came out two years before). It included Just Give 'Em Whiskey which I wanted to include here but couldn't find a digital version and a cover of Keep Me Hangin' On, the Motown classic. William Orbit plays guitar on Manic. The first 10, 000 copies with a second album, also called, wait for it Colourbox. The mini- album had versions and tracks extra to the first including Edit The Dragon, an electro/ sample piece that in some ways sounds like one of Pump Up The Volume's origin stories. Arena II is a different version of Arena, a mid- 80s soul/ torch song that could have been huge. 

Official Colourbox World Cup Theme was a 1986 single released on the same day as Baby I Love You So. The track was recorded to coincide with the 1986 Mexico World Cup and was nearly chosen by the BBC as the theme music for their coverage. It is Martyn Young's favourite Colourbox song and came in a sleeve that had Jimmy Hill on one side and Bobby Robson on the other. England went to the 1986 World Cup, managed by Bobby Robson and Jimmy Hill was the anchor in the studio- they reached the quarter finals where they lost to two pieces of Diego Maradona audacity.