YouTube: Q-Tip On The Needle Drop

It’s an old trick but nice to see Q Tip showing out. Love to our friends at Breath on this one.

[Apiento]

You Tube: Hermeto Pascoal

Am just visiting a friend in Stockholm and she showed me this. This is a Brasilian albino flautist who, according to wikipedia, was described by Miles Davis as ‘the most impressive musician in the world’ after they worked together. Apparently he is known as ‘o bruxo’ (the sorcerer) and often uses nature as a basis for his music. Anyway, this is probably super known but stick with the video as it gets better and better. If you get on You Tube you’ll see he also has a piece called ‘music from the beard’. Anyway, nature, flutes and water bottles. Balearic.

[Apiento]

Under The Radar No.9: Mission Control – Outta Limits

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I was round the guys house that engineered the Bang The Party releases and we were going through his records. Within the standard genre sections (disco, funk, dub etc…) he had a further category for Murk. I liked that. Not really ‘Under The Radar’ but here’s my favourite Murk moment anyway.

[Apiento]

Labels 003: JPR Records Inc.

The year, going by the label, was ’92. My mind is all about fuzzy around those times as a lot was going on, but we were working in Ladbroke Grove and music was good. House music was alive and well and slowly other bits and pieces were appearing referencing further back than I’d gone before. I remember Dwayne Dawson from Amato Distribution giving me an old disco, funk and soul cut-up reissue/bootleg (I think ‘Bits N’ Pieces’) and me not getting it. Then these JPR Records appeared, supposedly from the US, but actually coming from W10.

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They were the first records I’d heard that joined everything up by taking those Kenny Dope-style drums and basically running them under a re-edit adding synths replaying the original parts. They were definitely key to opening the door to a world of music that I hadn’t really thought about bar T-Connection and the big Salsoul/disco anthems. They cut into records like Maze ‘Twilight’, The Jones Girls ‘Nights Over Egypt’ and ESG tracks (I’m pretty sure the Patti Jo re-release wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the Hope release (JPR 003)). Anyway, soon after the disco revival hit full swing. Well compiled Salsoul catalogue re-issue comps appeared on import, the Garage and Loft classics boots appeared, Black Cock records arrived and Ashley made ‘New Jersey Deep’. The more switched on magazines started writing articles on Larry Levan et al and off we went.

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Disco is seen as a staple now but back then it wasn’t really on the radar so much so the JPR label was pretty important to me and maybe a few others of my age. It also reintroduced the idea of the re-edit. Some tracks stand up better than others to my ears, though that’s just the nature of beats, but as a moment in time and influence on their future they are good to hear. Phil Mison and a few others are still breathing life into them and they are pretty cheap right now if you have your Discogs switched on. Anyway, here are the first three releases.

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(EDIT – As I said this is a personal take on that time but everyone’s is different. Tim H said the following, ‘In my memory, Jump Kutz did more to kick start the disco edits, but maybe they were all happening at the same time. In my eyes the real influence was Norman Jay/Paul Trouble and Zoo gigs and radio shows.’ – Ed)

[Apiento]

Under The Radar No.8: Revelations – First Power

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Shout to Kevin Hurry on this one.

[Apiento]

Tokyo Tracks 001: Copa Salvo – Wave & Imperador Do Samba (Plant/RD Records)

I’m sitting in a jazz café, or jazz kissa, at the junction of a four-lane highway about five minutes away from my kids’ sports (taiso) club. Sneaking in a coffee while they vault boxes and dodge ball. Seems a pity to drown the jazz out. Sometimes I pop in here in the morning and it’s melancholic covers of standards and suicide-inducing lounge versions of pop classics. Catering to the mums taking solace in stimulants after the school run and before the next round of chores. Now, in the afternoons, it’s office workers on the skive and students asleep in their books to a soundtrack of Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. I guess if the owner could see me put my ear-pieces in he’d be offended. But the writing’s got to be done somewhere. And I can’t write without listening. Someone who meant a lot to me once said music is fuel.

I hear a Latin piano line full of the urgency of life. Understood by Mayday and Morrisey alike. Flamenco. Not the Gipsy Kings, but Pigbag doing over Paco De Lucia. A melodica carrying on like Lee Oskar’s trancendentary blues harp or Astor Piazzolla’s accordion. With a story to tell. A busy town square. 3 AM. The air thick with the promise of fighting and fucking. Sips of gut-rotting espresso while a Dexy-driven bordello band cynically play for a clientele for whom they are merely an accompaniment to the transactions being made. Their slept-in suits and blackened eyes privy to a thousand stories every night. Whores dance, drink and hitch up their skirts amid shouts of encouragement and cash changing hands. I’m back walking through the Old Town practically too drunk to stand, trying to hold onto something that has already gone.

Time, she goes by like a wave.

Copa Salvo: Wave
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Copa Salvo: Imperador Do Samba
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[Dr Rob]

Radio Show: Coldcut Deconstruct ‘Paid In Full’

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[Tim Hayter]

Mix: Pete Reilly (Soul Jazz Soundsystem) – Can You Get To That

Happy to welcome Pete Reilly of the Soul Jazz Soundsystem back with a mix of his favourite soul and funk records. Quality stuff.

1. Cyrille Neville: Gossip
2. Al Green: You Say It
3. Marilyn Barbarin: Reborn
4. James Brown: The Boss
5. Betty Harris: Break In The Road
6. Garnett Mimms: As Long As I Have You
7. Bobby Bland: Ain’t No Love
8. Gwen McRae: 90% Of Me
9. Bobby Womack: Across 110th Street
10. The Minits: Still A Part Of Me
11. Roy Ayers: Life Is Just A Moment Pt.II
12. Ann Peebles: Tear Your Playhouse Down
13. Funkadelic: Can You Get To That
14. The Sisters Love: Give Me Your Love
15. Mary Wells: You Beat Me To The Punch
16. Allen Tousaint: The Chokin’ Kind
17. Millie Jackson: Hurt So Good
18: Sly Stone: If You Want Me To Stay
19: The Dixie Cups: Iko Iko

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[Apiento]

Just Because: 003

Taken from Anton Perich’s NIGHT, April 1979. Love No.9 in the disco list…

Thanks to Phil.
[Apiento]

Just Because: 002

[Apiento]

Wally Badarou’s Back!!! ‘Fisherman’ Out Now!

If you’ve been following Test Pressing for a while then you would know we are massive fans of Wally Badarou – from his keyboards on many classic Compass Point recordings (from Grace Jones to Joe Cocker) through to his wonderful solo albums on Island Records. So, it’s been a while, but Badarou has returned from a brief hiatus (well a long one), with a new release ‘Fisherman’.

In Wally’s words, “Here is ‘Fisherman’, a 15 minute imaginary conversation between an african fisherman and the surrounding elements. What started as a tutorial test on a newly acquired synth, landed in this Fela Kuti meets Booker-T meets Herbie Hancock type of marathon; this clearly is ‘vintage’, entirely auto-produced as usual, with my trusty analog synths and drum-machines of the times past.”

The releases will be split into different parts for initial release before being collated into a ‘physical collector sets’. His reasons for doing this are explained thus, “I want each piece to be given proper attention. With conventional album releases, only 2 or 3 so-called ‘singles’ get focused on, most of the time; I have always felt for those many pieces that the industry deemed simple ‘album tracks’: there is never such thing for a genuine artist. By releasing the pieces in 3 distinct genres alternately, I hope I can depict best 3 worlds that still shape my life in music: classical, tropical and urban. The resulting trilogy – that “The Dachstein Angels”, “Hi-Life” and “Chief Inspector” respectively pioneered for example – will not be immune from cross-influences. Yet, I am longing to offer 3 views on a common subject, 3 different sets of experiences, fully identifiable in their style and their fabric.”

Fisherman is available here on digital release.

[Apiento]

Mix/Piece: Dr Rob – Toyko-to kissa #1

Test Pressing is happy to welcome to the fold Robert Harris a.k.a Dr. Rob who used to live on these shores but is now in Tokyo with family. Rob is going to be posting the mixes from his Tokyo-to kissa series as well as writing whatever tales he feels like sharing and covering the Japanese scene. And while here – if you are ever trying to track down some rare Japanese vinyl Rob’s your man.

Tokyo to kissa #1

Things were changing as I left the UK three years ago. I figured as a family we had nothing to lose in moving to Japan. But I still found myself, that first year, doing the odd late night solo with a two litre carton of cheap sake. Not missing people or places, but missing times long passed. This mix was made one of those odd nights. I’m listening to it again as I go to pick up my Mum up from Narita. Out over Disneyland. Out over Chiba. Twenty minutes from Tokyo, after the ferris wheel, after the race track, I have no landmarks. Save the music.

Popol Vuh weeps into the world, accompanying Werner Herzog`s wrath of God and pre-dating Eno and Lanois’ “Apollo” and Jack Nitzsche`s “Starman”, both either blatant rip-offs or remarkable coincidences. B.J. Cole’s langid pedal steel sings the lonely song of the humpback whale. A dive into the blue. Bowie and Eno (again) sing the Popol Vuh, a sax betraying their Rock n` Roll roots. I`m not sure if Bowie was referencing Kerouac or those that keep strange hours. Inhabit the night. Outside of the day. I guess the only Beat who still had any currency back then was Burroughs. Bob James stumbles about in a very un-Ireland cod-reggae lilt. Still, the strings hold pictures of green hills. Tokyo is many things but green it ain’t. A breeze blows shiny bird scares in a field of rape scorched by sun. A view once taken for granted. The other side to “Tinsel Town In The Rain”’s disco melancholy. Some songs should be listened to sparingly for fear of getting lost in regret. Upwards and onwards we go. Dr Nishimura told the guy at Flower about The Soft Machine who then passed it on to me. Land of cockayne. Generation of swine. Hugh Hopper RIP. Thomas Dolby sings of obsession. The things we blame love for. A dark mirror holds a secret. Lead soldiers and the scar I wear above my heart. One ballerina too many. Music box wistfulness plays for the lovely but barmy in-and-outta rehab would-be Catwoman Sean Young. Somebody blows a “Betty Blue” line but the “Betty Blue” stories will have to wait for a more appropriate time. A book, maybe. Fuck attack ships on fire. Bladerunners’s dirty `50’s noir of a future isn’t so far from Tokyo`s neon, where red beating robot hearts cover the high rise and all the action takes place in small underground holes. Parties in basements. All night noodle bars set in railway arches. Unmarked hotels.

“Bara Willie”`s crazy synths fill my ears as I come into Narita’s security check. It’s been over two years since I got on a plane. Three years since I`ve been home. Dave Sylvian’s brother and the other guy from YMO, the one with the drip dry eyes, try hard not to sound wounded. And end up resigned. Betsu-ni translates roughly as “not necessarily”. A Big Hard Excellent Fish hits me with the early 90s. A box room in a shared house. Baked potatoes and beans for tea again. Weekends from Thursday night to Monday morning. A bag of pills to sell. The escape from Thatcher’s Britain provided by Acid House about to go pear-shaped. There would be casualties. And we hadn’t managed to change anything. “Where were you?” This last line transforms a list into a poem of wrongs and disappointments. The drugs fucked everyone up. I once went by the nickname of “Bobby Love”, generally, for the love I sold. In tighter circles it was a reference to a failed Rik Mayall sitcom. An E-listed celeb. Davro said “I’d be nowhere without the fans”. “Bobby love, you are nowhere.” PCO do the soundtrack to a thousand building society and bank ads. Arto Lindsay`s DNA guitar spirals free.

I get to the North Terminal and I`ve got John Daly’s mix of “Feel The Earth” on to try to wake me from my past. Hypnotic percussion gives way to nasty acid snarling. Airports are such a transient place. I always feel like picking up a stranger. All that death in the air. Death, excitement, and relief. Coming out of limbo. Waiting in Arrivals, over-hearing conversations as the KLM flight unloads I`m wondering if it`s possible to speak Dutch with an American accent. I try to guess where people are from as they come through the gate, based on how they are dressed. Most of the people traveling to Japan are young, which means they all look like cunts to me. Silver week and its festivals are just around the corner. I guess a few of them must be in bands.

Mum’s gone now. We had two weeks of pushing her up mountains in Nasu and Karuizawa in a chair she wasn’t in three years ago. Flu outbreaks, Japanese panic and school closures mean I’ve had little time for anything other than the kids since then. Isolated`s a place. Nasu’s isolated. Nothing but forest. Tall thin trees that shut out the sun. Nothing but forest, and sporadic outposts of old people. Lonely’s just a word. It’s up to you the meaning you attach to it. With a head full of memories and music it don’t mean much.

Lacrime Di Rei – Popol Vuh
Window On The Deep – BJ Cole
Subterraneans – David Bowie
Women Of Ireland – Bob James
Heatwave – Blue Nile
Lotus Groves – Soft Machine
I Scare Myself – Thomas Dolby
Bladerunner (love theme) – Vangelis
Bara Willie – Les Amabassadeurs Internationaux
Betsu Ni – Yukitori Takahasi
Imperfect List – Big Hard Excellent Fish
Perpetum Mobile – Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Amore – Ryuichi Sakamoto

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EDIT: Rob also hosts a show on Samurai FM which is highly recommended. Check it here when you get a minute. Nice one – Ed.

[Dr Rob]