Cal Gibson and I connected a few years back. He’d been checking the blog, and knowing a little of his background – making music as Neon Heights, writing for Jockey Slut – I asked him if he fancied contributing. His “super reviews” have now become a fixture. Articles packed with positivity. Something to look forward to. At the time Cal had a couple of fledgling musical projects on the go, and one of them, Secret Soul Society, has gone from strength to strength. This week, Italian guardians of the “nu-Balearic” flame, Hell Yeah!, are all set to release Keep The Mystique, a 15-track SSS LP – a selection / collection of mid-tempo moments that straddle several musical camps. There’s Cal’s trademark synthetic soul / boogie, built from blurred, borrowed, loved-up loops. Worlds of wobbly, wonky echo, rocked by levels of reverb, phasing, and delay, worthy of fellow travellers The Idjut Boys – which, into the bargain, betray his deep-rooted passion for reggae and dub. The uplifting, gospel goosebumps of Talkin Bout Love would be a fine example. The Island, is another. Its wistful vocal, full of wishful thinking, to my ears at least, recalling the sun-kissed vibe of classic “Cafe del Mar” A Man Called Adam. Cards On The Table would also make a super suitable sunset cocktail score, as, like many of the pieces, it cheerfully chugs on a blissed-out Balearic beat / Afro-Cosmic border. Some tracks, such as Searching, suggest the sort of soft rock sabotage that Seahawks used to indulge in. Others boast more robotic rhythms. Be that the epic `80s electro-soul of Tatoo You – which sounds like some lost Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis treasure – or the chunky kosmische of Whoop Whoop, its groove coloured with firework-like frequencies and pretty chimes. Nearly everything is sugared with snippets of song. Surreptitiously sampled hooks, often craftily, cryptically repurposed to underline Cal’s quest / call for mankind to be more caring, more just. The message is in the in the music…  

When did you first get into music? Were you a mod or an indie-rocker? 

Music always had a hold on me for some reason: I’ve got a really early memory of trying to crawl into some speakers, desperate to find the source of this wonderful sound. That’s kind of never left me, essentially. After a pre-teen dive into the world of rock, by 14 or 15 I was heavily under the spell of Velvet Underground – still to my mind pretty much the lodestar for music that aspires to art. Then at age 17/18 came KRS 1, Jungle Brothers, Public Enemy and De La Soul and things would never be the same again.

I know that you have a deep love of reggae. How / when did that start?

Pretty much all my musical tastes were formed by Steve Barker’s beyond legendary radio show On The Wire – still broadcasting today incredibly enough from Steve’s home in Japan. From the age of about 16 to 21 I listened religiously on a Sunday afternoon to three hours of Steve and Fenny playing King Tubby, Prince Far-I, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr, early acid house, hip-hop, tons of Lee Perry, Coxone: all thrown together in a way that was incredibly liberating for youthful ears. Genres? Who needs them? Music is music is music and Steve Barker was the absolute don for me, as I’ve mentioned on BBTT before! Those tunes still burn so bright today. Burning Spear – Door Peep. Niney The Observer – Blood & Fire. Lennie Hibbert – Village Soul.  Forwards ever, backwards never.

When did you first get into dance music? Were you a rare groover, or was it rave that blew you away? 

I’d say both probably. Alongside On The Wire it was always people like The Jam MCs, or Gilles Peterson and what he was throwing down in terms of rare grooves: tracks like Nature Zone’s Porcupine with those huge strings, or Ju-Par Universal Orchestra’s Funky Music would be in the mix alongside, say, Teacher’s Can’t Step Twice On The Same Piece Of Water or Stex – Still Feel The Rain. Mix it up in order to get on down, basically.

Am I right in thinking that you`re originally from the Nottingham area? Aren`t you an old spar of folks like Huw “Torn Sail” Costin, Crazy P`s James “Jim” Baron? Did you all move in similar circles? Were you involved at all with the DiY crew? Are you all still in touch? Do you also know Brown Fang, John ‘Ming’ Thompson and Henry ‘Claude’ Scott? 

I moved to Nottingham in 1991 to do postgraduate studies, which kind of went out of the window unfortunately as music took hold. Nottingham’s not very big, so anyone playing or making music kind of just bumps into others of the same ilk. From the late `90s early 2000s there was plenty going on in the city: DiY of course, Crazy P, Bent, Schmoov, Inland Knights, Fug, A Million Sons, Six By Seven, The Littlemen, Osbourne, Time / Emit, Smokescreen, Magic Feet, Charles Webster, Venus, and The Bomb, and literally hundreds more. It was a very fertile time. Nottingham seemed to be part of a global underground of music makers and scene shakers.

What clubs did you go to? Which DJs did you follow?

Venus was insane – the Flying Records nights were a big favourite –  and then The Bomb, where we would often play in the back room or upstairs while Derrick Carter, or Sneak, or Charles Webster, or Rick and Pete (Digs & Whoosh), would lay out the 4/4s in the main room with Dave Congreve. Its all pretty hazy, but it was all rock solid stuff. DiY used to do a night called Serve Chilled at The Cookie Club which was always great, and Bounce at The Bomb was another DiY production that always popped.

Were you a DJ before you began making music?

I used to play three or four times a week, alternating between local gigs and then as we started putting out records national and international gigs. For some reason we were quite popular in Eastern Europe and Russia, so for a few years I’d be nipping over to Moscow regularly to play at Propaganda and Club Kult, or going to Lithuania and Estonia to play with Rhythm Doctor in Tallin. We played Fabric a few times, Big Chill, Rex club in Paris, Miami, San Francisco. Nottingham and San Francisco always had a link at that time: DiY primarily, and Charles Webster.

I was a resident for a while at a club called Sugar, in Leamington, alongside Si Long from Wobble and Rhythm Doctor: each week they’d have Mr C, or Ian Pooley, or Cosmo: again, proper stuff. I’d play deep house in clubs, and then whatever I liked in the smaller gigs, which I usually preferred. Club Kult in Moscow was my favourite: you really could play absolutely anything and they’d go nuts. Upstairs at Fabric with Rob Da Bank was always fun, too.

When did you start making music?

I started in the mid-90s after meeting a guy in India, when I was out there, who had a sampler and a drum machine. I’ve travelled across India and Nepal a couple of times. When we got back he showed me what to get and I was off.

What kit did you have when you started out?

I had a little Emu sampler to begin with, and pretty much used to do everything in that. Later we had a studio in Nottingham, underneath a traveller’s hostel, which became a second home for a few years. That was obviously kitted out rather better, albeit still pretty minimalist.

How does that compare with the kit you have now? 

It’s back to basics again now, with the studio long gone. A laptop, guitars, midi keyboard, soft synths. 

Your Anasazi E.P. from 1996 goes for a lot of dough now. How did that come about?

That was through the music technology course at Square Centre Studios, which everyone in Nottingham seemed to go through – shout to Robin and John! We did the course and put out a shared twelve inch: I think my track had a Screamin Jay Hawkins vocal sample on there if I remember correctly.

How did you hook up with the other guys – Simon White, Tom & Gareth Bailey – in Neon Heights? 

Neon Heights was originally me and Simon, with Zoe Johnston singing on our first album, then Tom and Mandisa and the band joining for our second album, with Tom and myself doing our third album with various guests.

Your first records were self-released. What made you decide to start your own label? 

So Simon and I met on the music technology course and started making disco edits – Disco Heights Volumes 1 & 2. We then cut these in Nottingham at Chris King’s house – Chris was in KWS, a local Notts group, and happened to have a record cutting lathe in his house – and drove them down to London to get them pressed up. We stickered them up at Tim ‘Love’ Lee’s flat, and then drove them around the central London record shops, selling them out of our car. We probably sold more records doing that then we ever did when we got properly set up!

From Disco Heights, we started Neon Heights to make our own music, swiftly joined by Hot Toddy, DJ DuJour – aka Shrinkwrap, and Frankie Valley, among others. We then started recording for other labels like Glasgow Underground, Silver Network, Tronicsole, Yellow, DiY, Sunday Best, Afro Art and Imperial Dub.

Neon Heights became a pretty big deal. When did people first start to take notice of the music you were making? Were there any DJs in particular who championed your records?

Rob Da Bank and Chris Coco were always very supportive. Kevin McKay at Glasgow Underground took an early punt on us (and hooked us up with Larry Heard which was a career highlight for me). Fatboy Slim got us to do a remix, and we remixed Jill Scott which was great. At one point Pete Tong had us on his show with an essential new tune and it looked like things were kicking off. We then spent ages finishing off our second album and waddyaknow…the moment had passed!

The sound you were making initially – to my ears – was dubby disco-inspired deep house – a bit like smoother, more polished version of the Idjut Boys. Again to my ears, it seems like a direct forerunner to the sound of The Revenge and 6th Borough Project. Did you, do you know those chaps?

The Idjuts and Harvey were on a similar tip, and used to come and do our friend’s nights in Nottingham. Craig Smith would come and play at Sugar, so we crossed paths there. Disco was certainly where we started from, disco and deep house – as on our first album for Glasgow Underground. From there we went a bit more downtempo, live band style for our second album, A Hot Trip To Heaven. We took the live band to Fabric in the main room: not sure it really worked in that environment though. Too subtle maybe…who knows?

How did you hook up with Glasgow Underground? You`re also tight with Manchester`s Paper Recordings. How did you make that connection?

Glasgow Underground I knew through Kevin and I both writing for Muzik magazine, and me sending him our stuff. Paper have been long time mates. Ben in particular being a lovely chap. The Crazy P / Hot Toddy connection probably kicked that off.

Were there any particularly memorable Neon Heights live gigs?

Fabric was interesting in terms of trying out the band stuff in club spaces. The Big Chill was always great either DJing, or playing live. We played live for the Blue Room on Radio 1, and we had a great live gig at Club Kult in Moscow – during which the vodka flowed extra copiously. All good stuff if slightly terrifying when you’re as shonky a guitar player as I am and you’re playing alongside proper musicians who know what they’re doing. I’ve just about recovered.

All the while Neon Heights was up an running you were also working as a music journalist. You once told me a funny story about having breakfast with Afrika Bambaataa. Can you tell me more about the publications you were writing for? 

I wrote for Magic Feet, Jockey Slut, Muzik, iDJ, and a couple of small pieces for The Face. Jockey Slut was probably the most fun – interviewing Harvey or The Ballistic Brothers or Leo Young – I was kind of the leftfield disco correspondent I guess. Shout to Paul and Johno: great to see them back!

Neon Heights called it a day in 2007, after around a decade of releases. Was this just a case of folks having families, and priorities changing? Are you all still in touch? Did you continue making music solo? Are the others still making music? 

It all kind of tailed off a bit. Simon dropped out to start a family after the second album, Tom and I soldiered on to make our last album – and our super-niche Yap Zeeland offshoot, but Tom also had a family and things just started slowing down. It was fun while it lasted, for sure, but there’s only so long you can go on not making any money at all!

My understanding is that you kind of dropped out of the “industry”, both the music making and writing, and that you now have a day-job involved in caring for others. Was there anything in particular that prompted this move? 

Just the necessity to make money! I’d lived the life pretty full on for over a decade and just burnt out. I stared working with people with learning disabilities and enjoyed the change: I then started advocating for people with dementia, brain injuries, and learning disabilities, and I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s challenging but rewarding: social justice remains a big life driver for me.

When we connected, a few years ago, you`d started a couple of musical projects – Secret Soul Society, but also Scruffy Soul Recordings. Is Scruffy Soul currently on hold?

It is: it was originally me and The Found Sound Orchestra in Australia, but they are super busy in real life so that kind of fell away which is a shame as I love their stuff!

One of your regular collaborators is Jules Brennan. Jules is way over my way – ish, in Kyoto. How did you hook up?

Jules is an old Nottingham friend: we made music together many years ago in Nottingham. When I finally joined social media I saw that he was on there and said hello. He’s insanely talented musically and can play anything: his solo stuff has been hitting hard with the jazz crews. 

Does Jules appear on the new album? Are any other collaborators involved?

The new album is largely just me, samples and soft synths, with executive guidance from Marco at Hell Yeah! Its primarily a year of not sleeping well, going downstairs to turn on the DAW and see what happens. Music as therapy for ageing ears and minds! 

The opening track, however, Cards On The Table, has a wonderful vocal from Japanese singer Sato who I previously worked with with Jules as The Boogie Brothers on Paper Wave. 

Are you continually tinkering, in free moments? Do you have anything else with Hell Yeah, or any other labels, lined up?

I do usually do something each week, just to scratch the itch. When we moved to Wales a few years ago it was a struggle as I don’t know anyone here: the music, my family, and my dog, kind of became my support structure. The older I get the more I realise the importance of mental health and how it affects us all: as a male I recognise it’s something we definitely need to talk more about.

I’ve been remixing Aura Safari for Hell Yeah!, there’s a new disco E.P. coming on Rare Wiri, and a new E.P. on Paper some time this year. It’d be nice to do some more for Hell Yeah! so who knows….we shall see! I do keep wondering about DJing again, but I’m not sure I have the cojones any more…happy to just tinker away and then send it out there to anyone who cares to listen!

Secret Soul Society’s cracking collection, Keep The Mystique, is out this week on Hell Yeah!