it's all good…

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Let’s kick Friday off with this monster Shaft sampling hiphop track from 1988. My hiphop collection is rather pathetically small but this climbed aboard the Pink vinyl train, made a beeline for the jacuzzi in the first class carriage and caused a big splash.

Some of the busiest rhymes ever made by man
Are goin’ into this mic, written by this hand
Are comin’ out of this mouth, made by this tongue
I’ll tell you now my name, my name is Young

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My first Italo Disco record – I can now claim entry to the club of European continental groovers. Have put up two versions because I first heard it on a mix by James Bucknell (see this post) and not until I heard it on a different mix with the vocals, was I aware that it’s ‘correct’ speed was 33rpm. However it still sounds equally at home being spun at 45rpm, (albeit pitched down at -8% to keep the bpm reasonably mixable in a house/disco set) reminiscent of tracks by The Human League.

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This is one low slung end-of-night dirty grinder of a tune; part of me was reluctant to put this up and let this little sleazy secret be discovered. Nestled away on the ‘Drivin’ Hard‘ album, I’m actually stepping on ck’s toes a little as he ‘discovered’ this track but saw sense and traded it with me for some other anonymous twelve that I can’t remember. I’m sure there is another copy out there with his name on it; a crate dig away in the musty corner of a charity shop, amidst really bad secondhand clothes.

Written by the drummer, Roger Odell, the drumming is laid back yet tight, add a dirty keyboard sound, mixed with a bit of vocoder-laden lyrics, add a sprinkle of female backing vocals (provided by Gill Saward and Jackie Raw aka, according to the cover notes, the U.K. Sluts) and you’ve got a bona fide soundtrack to a coke binge, now where’s my mirror…

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A song that must have formed part of the soundtrack of my very formative years as I’ve always recognised it as something I liked even if I didn’t know who it was by or what it was called. It was a hit back in 1982 but it shouldn’t be judged as ‘an eighties track’ as, in my opinion, there is a timeless quality about the fusion of eastern and western styles even if Monsoon were labelled as a ‘concept band’ by some as it works extremely well.

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Strange quirky track, the way the male vocals are delivered can take some getting used to but it’s a fun latin disco tune. Play it to folk who don’t take themselves or the music they listen to, too seriously.

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Any tune that has the lines “Gimme a freaky kinky nation with a total female population, I can deal with that situation, I don’t care about my reputation” is surely worth further investigation. One of the better known eighties electro tracks where the vocoder-laden ‘egypt, egypt… egyptian lover’ vocals comes from that has been used on other records. I haven’t got a large collection of electro but this release was a good one to start building on.

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Back in the early 80s my dad was a single man about town again, down at the nightclubs and discos at the weekends and must’ve been a bit of a soul boy. He was fond of this tune, he had it on a different release to the one below but always played this track; it subsequently ‘fell’ into my collection and err, was got ruined in The Great Mouldy Record Storage Disaster (sorry dad, I’ll get it on a mix for you).

Anyhow, I’ve tracked down and bought it on a superior one-sided pressing and here it is for you. A really apt title, this is the ideal soundtrack to a late night/early morning drive around London. Maybe you’re on your way home from the nightclub with your girl or just out ‘cos you’re an insomniac, whatever, I’m sure all the graveyard shift radio djs back then would have this in their playlists.

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Break out the hash cakes and indulge to this electronic dub reggae journey.