[more obscure classics from the vaults of my 20+ yr dj career]
West India Company were formed by Stephen Luscombe (Blancmange) and included Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yaz, Erasure etc..) and Pandit Dinesh amongst others. They mixed western electronic sounds with Indian instruments and vocals - hence the name. But it wasn’t ’til legendary producers Andrew Weatherall and The Orb’s Alex Paterson got together back in 1990 to remix one of their tracks that I took any real notice..
The long dark intro, bouncy bass, teasing tablas and subtle sample-laden soundscape all melt together into the perfect track for a late night outing under the West Coast full moon. Which is exactly where I used to drop this dreamy and subtlely lysergic groove. Ok so the wicked full moons are long gone, but I have a renewed appetite for the early works of Mr Weatherall and Paterson. More to come…….
[another selection from the archives of my musical youth]
We’re heading back to 1982 again, a time long before CDs, mp3s, the internet, and the scary armchair convenience of the iTunes music store. A time when you couldn’t even listen to a snippet of a record before you bought it - at least not at my local record store. How times have changed, eh..?
Although you could easily end up with a dud, there was also a certain excitement in risking your cash on an obscure piece of vinyl you’d never heard before. And sometimes - with little else to go on - the decision whether to buy (or not) came down to one thing -
the cover art.
Yes indeed. Which is the main reason I ended up with this gem of a single. The fact that it was put out by Crass (my favorite indie-punk label at the time) also helped a little, but seeing as their releases often ranged in sucession from mind-blowing to un-listenable there was no guarantee you wouldn’t wanna smash their vinyl over your head once you got it home..
But what’s life without at least a lil’ risk? Lucky for me the Cravats were not only musical, they were also quite eccentric. And I like a little eccentricity in my music..
A little character..
A lil’ flavor..
And these guys didn’t just have a lil’, they had buckets full. They’ve often been described as “art-punk” but I’d say that’s because their music really defies categorizing. It’s certainly not cliche punk rock noise - there’s a jazzy vibe in there, some addictively angular grooves, some dystopian synth action, topped off with some seriously demented vocalizing not previously heard outside of a Victorian era insane asylum!
The band split up a good while ago, but it turns out they’ve started making music together again, including some tracks with Phil Hartnoll from electronic music legends Orbital. And seeing as it’s no longer 1982 you can now check out all kinds of crazy band info *here* on the internet. Ah yes, how times have changed..
this one’s an old white label outta the UK, released in the early nineties. Features samples of Malcolm X - a controversial, righteous, intense, gifted and highly insightful man. Like I need to tell you who he was..
and believe it or not it’s also just over 17 years since our first wicked full moon out on Baker Beach. Those wild & nomadic gatherings may have only lasted about 5 years, but they inspired a whole lot of other folks to get involved in the dance music world, from the many other West Coast full moon parties that followed in our wake, to the still going ‘Sunset’ parties here in the Bay Area, to the many musicians, dj’s and artists who gathered together under the moon’s glow and let the psychedelic and revolutionary nature of those beautiful nights seep into their creative output..
We may have all moved on from those heady days, and the music has most definitely mutated over the years, but the spirit still remains. As it will long after people are gone from this planet. So join us for some full moon fun this Tuesday 9-2am in the VOID..
go to 90hz.org to listen and chat or use the flashplayer below..
[another selection from the vaults of my musical youth]
The Pop Group were a bunch of musical post-punk no-wavers from Bristol in the UK, who between 1978 and 1981 released several singles, and two albums - “Y” and “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?”.
I picked up “For How Much Longer…” sometime after it’s release in 1980. It was noisey, percussive and politically inspired, but somehow seemed more exotic than alot of the other post-punk music I was listening to at the time, partly due no doubt to the singer Mark Stewart’s often deranged vocals..!
After they split the darkly exuberant Mr Stewart formed “Mark Stewart & The Mafia” and released a bunch of music on Adrian Sherwood’s experimental “On-U Sound” label, while other members went on to form bands Pigbag, Head, Maximum Joy, and Rip Rig & Panic. I’ll post some of their music here in the future..
The Pop Group may have only been around for 3 years, but they left quite a mark on their local city, being widely acknowledged for helping create the Bristol music scene that followed, and influencing such notable Bristol bands as Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky etc..
It’s also safe to say they had a noticable influence on the modern disco-punk sound that includes such bands as LCD Sound System, Outhud, Chik Chick Chik etc..
The Pop Group’s original vinyl releases are hard to come by these days, but thanks to those musical boffins at Soul Jazz records in London you can pick up a compilation album of The Pop Group and Mark Stewart that they released a couple of years back. Check it here along with more info about the band..
Anyways here’s a video of them performing “She is Beyond Good and Evil” from 1979..
