Super selections and wonderful words by Balearic Mike.

I’m squeezing every last ounce out of British Summertime, here in Hove… I’m definitely not taking these final few glorious days of sunshine for granted. Carmel on the other hand… 

Carmel – And I Take It For Granted – London Records / FFRR 1990

This is a beautiful, accidentally Balearic pop classic from the Manchester jazz trio, Carmel. Ignore the 12” mix, and skip straight to the 7” one, for a gorgeous, sun-dappled, slice of jazz-pop in the style of those Balearic heavyweights, Sade and Matt Bianco. It’s produced by Brian Eno, and has absolutely no right to be this Balearic, but it bloody well is! It even has a line with the word ‘ecstasy’ in it, and one with ‘house’ in it, for even more bonus-Balearic points:

“Every touch you make is ecstasy… Every time I feel you in my house…”

This is about as good a piece of ‘bargain-bin’ Balearic as you are ever likely to come across. A cheap as chips UK release, and a truly lovely piece of music.

Womack & Womack – Life’s Just A Ballgame – 4^th & Broadway / Island Records 1988

This is another bargain-bin Balearic classic. Although there was a huge fuss about the also very wonderful Frankie Knuckles ‘Paradise Ballroom Mix’ of MPB (Missin’ Persons Bureau) a few years back, with prices going through the roof, and sparking a timely reissue on the Melodies International label, I’ve always preferred this release, which you can pick up for a bout 60p on Discogs.

I can’t recall exactly how I came to know this track. I think it may have featured in a Danny Rampling chart?* It’s a glorious, slightly sub-house tempo, bass-driven beauty. It actually sounds like the kind of house records that started to appear in the late 1990s and early 2000s, produced by people like Joe Clausell and Jephte Guillame, and on labels such as Spiritual Life… so only about a decade ahead of the curve.

Although the vocal is pleasant enough, it’s the Dub that works best for me. The bass-line rolls, and rolls, the percussion is crisp, with liberal use of cowbell, and a beautiful flute part floats in and out. It’s an absolutely gorgeous track, which sounds like it was produced with The Loft of Body & Soul in mind.

I picked up my copy on a visit to a great little secondhand record shop in Oldham Mumps. It was Moonboots who pulled it out of the racks and passed it to me. The records were at the back of a massive secondhand furniture shop. It was like a permanent jumble sale. An all-time top 10 digging spot, now sadly long gone.

*Yeah, it’s considered a Shoom classic – Rob

This is one of the greatest singles ever released, and it turned 40 last week… OH MY GOD HOW CAN THIS BE 40 YEARS OLD!!!

Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Relax – ZTT 1983

Released on 24^th October 1983, this is certainly one of the greatest, most important, and controversial records of the 1980s, and like several others that belong in this exalted category, it was the work of probably the producer of the decade, Trevor Horn. Trevor had caught a video of Frankie Goes To Hollywood performing an early version of Relax on Channel 4’s pop juggernaut, The Tube. 

Although Trevor later said this original version was “more of a jingle than a proper song”, he saw enough in the performance to make Frankie the first signing to his new label, Zang Tumb Tuum. However, things did not go well, and after three failed attempts to record the song, one using Ian Dury’s Blockheads, Trevor was on the verge of giving up… until one night, while very high, he and Steve Lipson, J.J. Jeczalik from Art Of Noise, and keyboard player, Andy Richards, had one last attempt. The results were astonishing.

At an earlier session the lads from Frankie – Mark O`Toole, (Brian) Nash and Peter “Ped” Gill – had told Trevor that they wanted to sound like a cross between Donna Summer and Kiss… and that’s sort of where this track is. It’s all electronic, obviously heavily influenced by European / Italo disco, the music of Bobby “O” and Patrick Cowley, but it also has a dash of glam rock. You can hear the stomp of The Glitter Band’s Makes You Blind, or, The Skatt Brothers camp sleaze classic, Walk The Night. It’s not Hi-NRG as such, although it did help to establish the blueprint for the UK strain, and was cheekily ripped off by Ian Levine for Evelyn Thomas’ “oven-ready” anthem, High Energy, released in the spring of 1984.

Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford heard the new version and instantly loved it, recording their vocals the same night. Unfortunately, this meant that none of the music recorded had been played by any of the actual band. The only sound used, was of them all jumping into the swimming pool at The Manor Studios, which would feature heavily in the 16 minute ‘Sex Mix’, which again was completed on the same night.

Since Frankie were the first signing to the new label, Horn was obviously desperate to have a hit. “It’s a classic”, Lipson told him, but it wasn’t an instant classic, taking its own good mystical time to slowly creep up the charts. It wasn’t until the first week of 1984 – 9 weeks after its release – that it entered the top 40, earning a coveted slot on Top Of The Pops. And then BLOODY HELL!

Relax leapt to #6 the following week, before UKIP supporting div, Mike Read announced on air that he was refusing to play it anymore because he found the sleeve and record “disgusting”. Unbeknown to this singer of mildly racist calypso records, the BBC had also decided that they were going to ban it, but just hadn’t announced it yet. This seems a bit odd, since they’d already played the record A LOT, including broadcasting it into literally millions of homes on TOTP the previous week, but hey-ho! This was almost certainly exactly what Paul Morley, the Machiavellian mastermind behind ZTT’s marketing, had wanted all along. After the BBC ban, the press coverage went into overdrive, and the record went up to #2, and then the following week to #1, where it remained for 5 weeks.

Relax was also a huge club record – and remains so to this day – and it eventually sold nearly 2.5 million records in the UK alone. This makes it the biggest selling debut single in UK history – not counting Band Aid. It stayed in the British charts for 50 straight weeks, including climbing back up to the #2 spot for 2 weeks in July, where it joined the band’s follow up single, Two Tribes, in occupying the top of the UK chart (“Two Tribes” spent 9 weeks at #1).

Relax then spent a further 13 weeks popping in and out of the charts as 1984 closed and 1985 began, which, combined with another #1 single, #1 album, and about 1 billion ‘Frankie Say’ T-shirts, really makes 1984 Frankie’s year.

It’s no exaggeration to say that Relax has become as much of a classic as I Feel Love, the Donna Summer record that was such an inspiration to the band. Like I Feel Love, it still sounds like the future. Chris Blackwell of Island Records once said that it was the best sounding record he’d ever heard. Trevor Horn was one of the masters of the 12” remix, certainly in the pop world, and he went to town for Frankie. As well as the 16 minute Sex Mix, which hardly contains any of the actual song, just lots of splashing and zipping sounds, he also did a shorter 8-minute mix, and a ‘New York’ or ‘U.S. Mix’, which is actually the version on my 12”. However, almost all of the 12s released say ‘Sex Mix’ on the label, which is confusing, and annoying, especially if, like many, you want to collect every version. ZTT became masters of marketing, with cassette only versions, remixes, and oddities strewn throughout the catalogue.

I’d like to leave you with this quote from Mark O’Toole, from the “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” album liner notes…

“Everything I say is complete lies. Like, when people ask you what ‘Relax’ was about, when it first came out, we used to pretend it was about motivation, and really it was about shagging.”

Relax – possibly the best record about shagging ever made?

Detroit house legend, Derrick Carter, tells a great story about his own search for the “Sex Mix” in the sleeve notes to his Choice compilation – Rob

For more from Balearic Mike you can find him on both Facebook and Instagram – @balearicmike. 

Mike has a Mixcloud page packed with magnificent, magical, music, and you can catch him live on 1BTN, from 12 noon until 2 (UK time) every 1st and 3rd Friday.

You can also check out the super silk screen prints of “Balearic Wife” over at @jo_lambert_print