Aisha’s The Creator originally appeared in 1985, in dubwise form, on the Mad Professor LP, Dub Me Crazy Part 5: Who Knows The Secret Of The Master Tape?*

Here retitled, Fast Forward Into Dub, Aisha, acapella, is thrown into echo, before the track starts with its tropical chimes, and chords – which are forced into feedback, and then clipped short and sharp. The drums in places doubled by delay.** 

Aisha’s actual song, a righteous Rasta hymn of praise, wasn’t released until a year later. On a 12, flipped by a track called Dancing Time.*** Electronically edged reggae, with a distinctive lead guitar lick, The Creator, is best known for its often sampled, and so instantly recognisable haunting, chanted vocal hook. 

“Ahh-ooh-waah-ooh-waah-ooh-waah-waah.”

Aisha’s album, High Priestess, hit stores in 1987, and the first record to sample The Creator’s charms was Krush’s House Arrest – a pioneering, chart-topping, piece of UK house, produced the same year. At the controls were FON Studios’ Mark Brydon and Robert Gordon. The latter, the godfather of bleep. 

Krush’s use of The Creator was limited to 2 brief bursts, but the chant was / is a crucial part of Depth Charge’s Bounty Killers. According to legend J. Saul Kane started Depth Charge in 1989 partly in protest at rave’s rapidly rising tempos. Restricting his tunes to around 90 BPM. However, jungle and hardcore DJs famously responded by spinning his records at 45, not the intended 33rpm. At its “correct” speed Bounty Killers quickly became a London Balearic favourite. A crazy collage of music, dialogue, and sound effects lifted from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western, For A Few Dollars More – plus a little of Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter – set to a go-go-not-go-got beat. A mind-bending mix of juice harp, stampeding horses, brass punches, and shotgun blasts. Cavorting cowboys (yeehaw!!!). Topped off with the trippy synth from Xena’s `80s electro smash, On The Upside, and Aisha’s sometimes similarly gated vocal. There’s something sort of “industrial” about its banging and crashing – like Double Dee & Steinski meet Big Audio Dynamite meet Age Of Chance. Sampling Shaolin way, way before the Wu Tang Clan, its serious, serious subs are borrowed, and slowed, from label mates Bizarre Inc. 

After Mr. Kane, in 1992, came The Orb’s Blue Room. Now this was the biggie. This was the tune that put Aisha’s hook in everyone’s head. Took it out of Boys Own-related beanos and on to Top Of The Pops. The Orb at this point were in their second incarnation / configuration – no Jimmy Cauty, but Alex Paterson partnered with Kris “Thrash” Weston. Blue Room, a 39 minute “single” also features Alex’s frequent collaborators, Miquette Giraudy and Steve Hillage – of System 7 – plus Jah Wobble on behemoth bass. His riff kinda jazz fusion, rather than reggae, providing the foundation that everything else – the bubbles, waves, lasers, and air raid sirens – rests, rides, upon. This collision of “found” sound sources, I suppose, in theory, isn’t too far removed from the modus operandi of J. Saul Kane, though the results are very different. The resulting “ambient house” musique concrete, in my humble opinion, is what The Orb do best. Nobody does it quite like them. Painstakingly put together, but not academic, or antiseptic, instead full of a nose-thumbing subversive sense of humour. 

On the 12, the track’s cut in 2, and its Part 1 where Aisha does her stuff. Echoed and stereo-panning, she introduces the chugging 4 / 4, and then beacon-like guides us through the layered aural labyrinth. There really is tons going on. Manouvering the multiple drum breaks, disco finger clicks, and tumbling timbales. The Looney Tunes ricochets, and Hillage’s serene 6-string whale song. The wah wah riffs, sonar blips, and music box chimes. Synthetic ripples and splashes. She has us surfing the whole shebang as if it were a sonic sea of tranquility. 

Since The Orb there have been multiple samplings / sightings of Aisha and The Creator, these very likely due directly to the exposure granted by Blue Room. The artists, by and large, operating in the arena of drum & bass / jungle, or progressive house. The Drum Club, Congo Natty, Bliss Inc., 2 Kilos, and The Invisible Man. 

However, The Creator has also cropped up in some Brazilian rock and the odd bit of Romanian rap. 

The newest one to me, though, personally, is Trance Vision Steppers’ Oh George. The work of Hanover’s Felix Wolter, this was released on CD in 2002, but just got a vinyl pressing care of cool London label, Mysticisms. A deft dose of Jah Shaka / sound system-influenced deep house – as opposed to dub techno – Aisha appears twice, in a respectful nod toward another of Felix’s key musical inspirations. 

Aisha’s The Creator has just been reissued on a jukebox 45 by Ariwa. Mad Professor’s Fast Forward Into Dub can be found on the flip. 

Notes 

*I bought my copy of Who Knows The Secret Of The Master Tape? from Keith in Daddy Kool on Soho’s Berwick Street. Every time I went in the shop I seemed to come out with a different Dub Me Crazy LP. 

**There are at least 2 different dubs – one on the LP, and one on the 7. 

***It was the terrific Tom Dubwise who tipped me off that this 1986 version is a dynamite 11  / 12 minute discomix. I desire, but don’t own, a copy of this mythical beast.