Super selections and wonderful words by Balearic Mike.

It was Bjork’s birthday the other week, and this record celebrates it 30^th anniversary this year, so happy birthday to them both … 

Bjork – Debut – One Little Indian 1993 

What an incredible way to start your solo career. Although hugely respected as a member of The Sugarcubes, I don’t think anyone really expected such an incredible record from Bjork. It had been 3 years since The Sugarcubes’ last record, punctuated by Justin Robertson’s amazing remix of Birthday, and Bjork’s collaboration with 808 State, Oops. I remember being back at some after-party, and Kelvin Andrews asking me if I`d heard Debut yet. He had an advance promo copy, and warned me to ‘Get on it – loads of great tracks you could play in a club’… and so, I duly did… along with most of the dance music community, as it turned out. 

One Little Indian and Bjork obviously realised what they had with this record. Some of the coolest dance music producers of the time were offered their pick of tracks to remix, and over the subsequent months the UK’s clubs were rocked by the sounds of Underworld’s remix of Human Behaviour, David Morales, Justin Robertson and Fluke remixes of Big Time Sensuality. I nearly always went with Justin’s remix, or occasionally Fluke’s. Masters At Work, Graham Massey and Fluke’s remixes of Violently Happy, were also huge over the coming months. Justin told me that he’d asked if he could remix Venus As A Boy. He wanted to take it in a similar direction to his rework of Birthday – all dub reggae, Balearic vibes, and was quite gutted when they turned him down. Especially when he learned that they’d given that remix to Mick Hucknall instead!

It’s hard to explain quite what a revelation Debut was. The album is sheer pop-dance-experimental perfection. This was a new kind of pop music that had absorbed the most exciting musical developments of acid house and rave culture. It perfectly encapsulates a really exciting moment in time, and yet it doesn’t sound in the least bit dated. Quite an astonishing feat for you first go! The album isn’t entirely house music adjacent though. You also have the gorgeous jazz standard Like Someone In Love, with its beautiful harp accompaniment. The album is pioneering in just how far into the world of electronic music Bjork was willing to go. Of course, she would go much, much further in an experimental electronica direction on subsequent records. Some might say too far. I love Bjork’s first three albums, but after that I tend to lose interest a bit, although I do have a few of the later LPs.

Although most of the material on Debut leant itself nicely to pumping, 4-to-the-floor dance remixes, not everything was destined to be an arms-in-the-air, reach-for-the-lasers moment. On a lovely promo only 10”, Andrew Weatherall, Gary Burns, and Jagz Kooner aka The Sabres Of Paradise, turned in a pair of luscious, dreamy, ethereal remixes of One Day. On the A-side we got the 52.5 BPM ‘Endorphin Mix’, although in truth it’s almost beatless, using Bjork’s full vocal. On the B-side there’s the 105 BPM ‘Springs Eternal Mix’, which is my favourite. This utilises only some freestyle vocal vamping over a throbbing, and is a beautiful and delicate, piano-led, slo-mo techno track.

Back in the olden days, DJs would do clever shit with 2 copies of a record. This is back when your technics decks were gas-powered, and no one had heard of that internet thing, mp3s or CDJs. I had 2 copies of this lovely 10”, so that I could layer parts of the vocal mix over the much longer, mainly instrumental mix on the flip. Nowadays you could probably mash these mixes together on your mobile phone, making edits in real-time, live. You tell kids these days about the hardships of olden times DJing and they just don’t believe you. I remember when all this were fields!

One of the finest hip hop LPs of the 1990s, also recently turned 30 years old recently… 

A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders – Jive Records 1993 

Was the golden age of rap the late 1980’s, or the early 1990s? Midnight Marauders makes a good case for the later. The album manages to fuse the best elements from both of A Tribe Called Quest’s previous LPs. It contains the incredible, imaginative, eclectic, sample heavy style of People’s Instinctive Travels…, and combines it with the bass-heavy sound of The Low-End theory, to a quite astonishing effect. Q-Tip, by this time, was one of hip hop’s most respected producers and beat-diggers, and on Midnight Marauders those skills are to the fore. He showcases not just his knowledge, and the depth of his record collection, but also great imagination. The inventiveness with which he manages to meld such a diverse range of sounds together is incredible. Nowhere is this skill more on show than on the album’s lead single, the fantastic Award Tour. Built around a bass-line, replayed from Jade’s 1992 R’n’B smash, Don’t Walk Away, Q-Tip re-pitchs samples from Weldon Irvine’s We Be Gettin’ Down, Charles Earland’s Lowdown, and Milt Jackson’s Olinga, and then ‘borrows’ the vocal hook from Malcolm McLaren’s Hobo Scratch, to create a perfect sonic collage. Other highlights include the wonderful Sucka Nigga, underpinned by a sample of Jack Wilkins Red Clay, and the mind-boggling use of a snippet of Minnie Ripperton’s vocal gymnastics from Inside My Love, which is used almost as a background drone.

The album sounds fantastic, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s one of the first hip hop LPs to be pressed on double vinyl. As albums had expanded, length-wise, to fill out the extra room on a CD, the sonic quality had plummeted. This record solves that. Leaving all the hiss and crackle on a lot of the samples, also means that 30 years of play hasn’t had much of an impact to the sound. It also looks great, with the Afrocentric lady from The Low-End Theory now accompanied by 71 hip hop luminaries, including Chuck D, Ice T, De La Soul, Beastie Boys, Jungle Brothers, and just about anyone else you can think of.

“Keep Bouncing!” 

My favourite album by this rather good band turned 35 last month… 

R.E.M. – Green – Warner Bros. Records 1988 

To be honest, I had no idea that Green was released in November 1988. R.E.M. – and this type of music in general – were barely on my radar at that point in time. Instead it transports me back to the summer of 1989, which was when I fell in love with the album.  Although they’d been making music together in their hometown of Athens, Georgia, since 1981, and despite a stunning debut performance on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1984, in support of their 2^nd album, R.E.M. were a strictly cult band in the UK – until the release of The One I Love, in 1987. This single, and the subsequent LP, Document, coincided with me going to art college, in September 1987, where lots of the arty, older indie / alternative kids really, REALLY liked the band! So I heard R.E.M. in the two indie / alternative club nights that were the only safe haven for art students to go to in Warrington circa 1987 – and then, later, in the indie / alternative club nights I would be forced to endure as an art student in Brighton as well. Remember, acid house and dance culture really hadn’t taken off in the UK except in major cities – still very underground in 1988, despite tabloid hysteria. However, it wasn’t until I met a new friend called Becca, who was studying on the WMCP* degree course with another friend, Juliet, that I really started to take an interest in the more guitar orientated side of music.

Becca and I started to make each other tapes – a sort of cultural exchange, if you like – me pummelling her with house and hip hop, and her likewise introducing me to lesser known `60s stuff, early C86-type bands, post-punk, and always lots of Frank Sidebottom. It was probably a good time to embark on this project, as bands like Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, etc., were pretty easy to get into if you were coming from a dance music background. This R.E.M. album, though, really hit me. I can understand why, listening to it again. R.E.M. were at the peak of their powers, still raw and exciting, but beginning to really experiment, bringing new musical styles and instruments into their sound. They’d just left their independent label, and signed to a major, and you can kind of hear that they might become huge, without really having to compromise. Green is a mix of big, anthems, jangly guitar-led rock numbers – Orange Crush, I Can Turn You Inside-Out, which really recall of The Byrds, particularly when Michael Stipe and Mike Mills harmonise their vocals –  the weird pop numbers – Pop Song ‘89, World Leader Pretend – and finally tracks with a more acoustic, folk / Americana vibe – Hairshirt, You Are Everything. I think this might be the first album where Peter Buck plays the mandolin, paving the way for their massive breakthrough album, Out Of Time, in 1991.

I bought Green, and the R.E.M. compilation album, Eponymous, at the same time from Rounder Records in Brighton’s Shambles Square, in the summer of ‘89. It’s still an early – possibly first – issue, with the spot-varnished sleeve revealing the number ‘4’ over the letter ‘R’. It’s just one of about 1000 incredible records that seemed to soundtrack that magical summer.

*Wood Metal Ceramics & Plastics, a degree course populated almost entirely by beautiful young women who all wore dungarees and liked welding – honestly, there was like one bloke on the course.

This ultra-wave of underwater funk was released 45 years ago…

Parliament – Motor Booty Affair – Casablanca Records 1978 

Motor Booty Affair is possibly the last really great P-Funk album. It’s certainly, the last really exceptional Parliament LP. There would be two more ‘OK’ Parliament records, and the following year Funkadelic would release Uncle Jam Wants You, which is also pretty great, but by then George Clinton’s Mothership was already starting to fall apart. Lawsuits, drug addiction, and solo records were all in the post.

What a joyous record this is, though. Continuing Parliament’s journey toward a more up-tempo, disco-funk sound, it features two of their biggest hit singles, Rumpofsteelskin and Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop), which went to #1 on the US Billboard Soul Singles chart.

The album has the usual insane P-Funk ‘concept’, this time based in the underwater city of Atlantis, where the dull duo from the zone of zerofunkativity, Sir Nose De-Void of Funk and Rumpofsteelskin, do battle with Mr. Wiggles, aided by Giggle & Squirm, who are all Ultrasonic Semi Bionic Clones Of Dr. Funkenstein! The LP also includes some of the last tracks written by the team of George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and Bernie Worrell, before things went pearshaped. My personal favourite is album opener, Mr. Wiggles, where our new hero introduces himself. It’s an utterly ridiculous P-Funk nursery rhyme which never fails to make me smile:

“Check me out, I can slide between the molecules of wetness like an eel through seaweed, one slithering idiot.” 

The album has an all-time great cover, with the original US pressing containing a pop-up city of Atlantis, with pop-out cardboard figures of some of the albums key characters. The inner sleeve boasts one of the most iconic P-Funk images, that of George Clinton surfing on two dolphins, which was used as the cover of the first Parliament compilation LP I ever bought. There’s also a picture disc!

“Go Wiggle!” 

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