Yes Daughter, She Can Boogie

Jungle was the first time I can remember not ‘getting’* a new genre of music. Without tapping into the hive-mind that is Wikipedia, I remember jungle as a feverish foregrounding of fast beats teamed with all sorts of strange noises, basically the mutant child of techno and the more alien reaches of On The Corner.

Drum and bass on the other hand came marginally later, 6 months in dance music actually qualifies as on aeon and I remember it as a smoother, gentler version of jungle. Still with those skittering beats right up front in the mix, not where you expect them down below, to the point where the beats themselves become the melody, but softened.

By 1995 I was 23 and in the wrong place, geographically, recreationally and rhythmically for anything cutting edge on the dance front, but I did get a toehold on drum and bass via Alex Reece.

I got hold of a promo copy of Feel The Sunshine which was released on Blunted Records** and really liked it straight away. There were elements of 1537-faves Massive Attack in the female vocals and the music was clever, rhythmic and subtle. Feel The Sunshine really didn’t sound like anything else I owned.

Deborah Anderson*^ is a great presence on the ‘Feel The Sunshine’, her sweetness of tone and slightly eccentric Björkian emphasis on certain word endings gives the track real interest. The beats and melody guide rather than drive you through the song and I suddenly feel very sophisticated and worldly wise. It’s a track to soundtrack a sunny day in the cool part of a city, where everybody is happy, has a nice haircut and is wearing exactly the right retro trainers.

The vocal mix is better than the original mix and the B-side ‘Jazz Master’ is really excellent in its’ own right. The tune doles out exactly what the title promises, a great jazzy dance track, overlaid by that ever present drum and bass sound. Can a track with a programmed rhythm section ever be truly jazz, rather than a false-flag attack on the genre? possibly not, but this certainly borrows enough stylings to satisfy shallow little me.

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My other slice of Alex Reece is Candles from 1996. This is a seriously smooth ride scaffolded by those twittering two-step beats. With a delicious soul vocal by Carmen Ejogo^, this is a seriously seductive late night track. Those beats dialled down a notch but still up there pulsing away. I hear similar keyboard stylings to a lot of the G-Funk hip-hop that was around then too^^ and it sounds good in this context. Like the soundtrack to the sort of achingly hip bar I’ve never even seen.

Just when I worry that my taste must be lurching towards the Sade end of things, I realise it truly is as out of the three remixes on the Candles 12″, I prefer two that are even smoother than the album mix. ‘Candles – Playboys For Life Remix’ almost eliminates the vocals, speeds the track up and somehow still manages to sound sleek and foxy, possibly via the sax break. Whereas ‘Candles – DJ Pulse Radio Edit’ is pleasantly like gliding down a honeyed slide. It certainly makes a pleasant change from the shouty obsolescent adolescents that make up most of the 1537.

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I never actually got around to buying the best Alex Reece track ‘Pulp Fiction’ and so I include Candles and Feel The Sunshine here as representatives of all those artists/genres/microsubgenres I meant to explore fully but finite finances and fickle fixity of purpose prevented.

These are two very very good records though, even if you aren’t wearing the right retro trainers.

1070 Down.

PS: Because I like you:

*as opposed to, not liking but still understanding one.

**possible covert drug reference there, good job the logo didn’t just have a great big subtle dope leaf on it! Oh.

*^daughter of Jon Anderson. Yes, that Jon Anderson of Yes. Yes daughter she can boogie?

^briefly married to Tricky and who now, via Alex Reece and Deborah Anderson, provides us with the often feverishly sought link between ‘Siberian Khatru’ and Coretta Scott King, via Ejogo’s depiction of her in, the quite brilliant, Selma.

^^which I didn’t much care for because I like my hip hop served angrier and more political, as a rule.