Respected reissue label, Be With Records, is celebrating its 10th year in business. A commemorative book and compilation album are available to preorder. Since the imprint’s catalogue is vast and already very carefully curated / cherry picked, when looking back there’s an awful lot of quality to cover. I’m planning to tackle the task, time-permitting, with a series of personal posts…

Way back when I was at Test Pressing, Rob Butler contacted me and Paul / Apiento. Launching the label, he was looking for suggestions. In the beginning his plan was to identify classic and lost albums that had previously only been available on CD and press them to vinyl. The model has since shifted, expanded to now include all manner of rarities, regardless of format. For a long while I wrote about pretty much everything Be With released, however when they did big deals with folks like the legendary KPM library music house, and jazzmen like Ian Carr, it became impossible to keep up.

Rob’s own musical roots appear to lie in soul, R&B, and hip hop, but diverging into all sorts of tributaries in order to dust off famous and sought after breaks. Sometimes purposefully, sometimes by chance, these have crossed over into Balearic Beats…

MARTI CAINE / POINT OF VIEW

Love The Way You Love Me is lifted from Marti Caine’s 1981 BBC “Light Entertainment” LP, Point Of View. Some people have a soft spot for the British TV host / singer / comedian’s quirky Snowbird City, but everyone is smitten with this surprisingly sleazy smash. Produced by largely unsung UK Disco Hit maker, Barry Blue, and the repress comes with sleeve notes by Bill Brewster, who was one of the first to re-discover the record and champion it yonks ago. 

PETER LUDEMANN & PIT TROJA / THE NOW GENERATION 

Originally recorded by German engineers / musicians Peter Ludemann and Pit Troja in 1983, for Munich label, Coloursound, The Now Generation is a super accessible – and sought after – missive from the expansive and daunting library music canon. From a set sub-titled Percussive Underscores, the first, and title, number starts us off, immediately racing. A shot of synth-y, Euro, disco. like Arpadys, Discocross or Space. The second, Panama, is perhaps the album’s funkiest piece. Totally infectious despite being little more than tumbling, galloping  rhythm and slapped bass, it was a Daniele Baldelli play, and I’ve heard it bitten and looped all over the place.

The third, Inorganic Matter, is slower, sparse, but just as cosmic. Its bass strings twanging a loose 12-bar boogie. Grease Paint is similarly creeping, chunky, funk. The fourth, African Nightclub, can be found on Prins Thomas` 2007 mix CD, Cosmo Galactic Prism. Where the Norwegian uses it to segue between Zombi`s Sapphire and his own rework of Belgian post-punk band The Honeymoon Killers. With carnival cowbell, cuica and timbales, it`s one of several tumbling invocations. Each performing their drum ritual at a differing tempo. 

The musical outlier is the electronic and “ambient” Chemical Threat. Whose synths sing, ring, create strange twists of sound. Conjuring a futuristic and alien landscape located somewhere between a John Carpenter score and Louis & Bebe Barron`s Forbidden Planet soundtrack. The standout is Mechanical Heart. Clipped jazz guitars – that recall Haircut 100, Orange Juice, Marche Commune, or Richard Schneider Jr.`s Hello Beach Girls – and bongos. Building to a great solo. This is the reason I coughed up my dough.

ALEC MANSION

It was the Boogie aficionados at Manchester`s Wet Play who hipped Be With Records to Alec Mansion. Be With`s Rob describing the Belgian singer`s 1985 sought-after, self-titled, sophomore LP to me as “early Phoenix produced by Dam-Funk.” Said that Alec was “aiming for a sound that encompassed The Whispers, Chic and Prince.”

Since I`m English and not very sophisticated on listening a whole list of other gems sung in French ran through my head. Maya`s Lait De Coco. Pierre Maizeroi`s Leve Leve. Guy Cuevas` Obsession. Christophe Laurent`s Nuits Brésiliennes. Etienne Daho. The “foreign” language enough to give it an exotic, a Balearic, bent. But this is basically Soul, with enough hooks to make it pop.

I can hear the blue-eyed Rare Groove of Ned Doheny – who Be With coincidently have extensively reissued and taken on tour. And the playful tongue-in-cheek jazz chops of Blockhead, Chaz Jankel. Chops provided by Dan Lacksman and Marc Moulin. The musicians behind Telex and Placebo, whoe supply the fat synthesised bass-lines and subtle electronic detail. The closing instrumental, Knock-Out A Knokke Le Zoute, could be Uku Kuut. Maintenant is smooth, smoochy boogie.

LETTA MBULU / NOMALIZO

When I left the UK for a new life in Tokyo, back in 2006, Soft Rocks’ Chris Galloway gave me a list. At the top of the tunes that he wanted me to find for him was Letta Mbulu’s album, Sweet Juju. Originally released in Letta’s native South Africa, under the title, In The Music The Village Never Ends, only the Japanese had licensed it for a vinyl pressing. The artefact had become highly prized primarily for the priceless rare groove tempo-ed, swaying shuffling, spirit-lifting pop of Nomalizo.

MALCOM MCLAREN & THE BOOTZILLA ORCHESTRA / CALL A WAVE

In 1989 producer William Orbit and DJ / S`Express main man, Mark Moore, forged a cracking – but sadly short-lived – collaboration. Orbit had been brought in to remix Moore’s chart hit, Mantra For A State Of Mind, and from there the two then, together, refashioned French duo Les Rita Mitsouko, and reimagined a couple of incredible Prince tracks. The Future and Electric Chair would  both be rinsed in acid house / Balearic clubs and go on to become classics. 

Orbit and Moore’s major joint endeavor, however, was to be enlisted by pop culture visionary / maverick / Machiavellian hustler Malcolm McLaren to refine and reshape several songs from his album, Waltz Darling. The proper follow-up to 1984’s opera-obsessed Fans, the original recordings featured a cast of clubland faces – from Paris and NYC, super models, Bootsy Collins, and Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart. 

Moore and Orbit tackled Something’s Jumpin’ In Your Shirt, fronted by Calvin Klein campaign star and movie director Tim Burton’s wife-to-be, Lisa Marie, and created the definitive version of McLaren’s Deep In Vogue. Their brilliant Banjie Realness mix updating The Salsoul Orchestra’s Love Is The Message for nearly 10 fabulous minutes. Then came Call A Wave, where the pair fix fluttering, fragmented vocals and fractal frequencies to a replayed Barry White riff.

Borrowing the refrain from Barry’s steamy I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby, with the phat, funky keys pitched somewhere between a harpsichord and a clavinet, the mysterious Gina Cie is set swimming in a serene sonic sea, surrounded by singing whales and dolphins, plus licks from Jeff Beck`s guitar. Sent on a divine dive of dizzying strings and seductive, but serrated, sirens. Their Return To Deep Ambient Mix is a wealth of whale song and these enchanted ethereal exclamations. Removing the beats, the medley, now manufactured from panpipes and panted, heavy breathing.

These mixes were promo-ed on a 12” double-pack, which featured further reworks by Massimino Lippoli. His DFC version was an Andrew Weatherall favourite, and so also became a favourite of mine. With a similar vibe to The Grid’s Floatation – which Mr. Weatherall had a hand in – it’s sexy, seductive, ethereal and trippy. New age paradise house.  

I found my copy – in one of those fantastic heart-stopping, double-take, memorable moments that you only get with physical digging – in the treasure trove that was the basement of Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange. In the early `90s I’d regularly weekend with friends in the city, clubbing and buying records. The Exchange in particular had carefully, expertly, stacked racks, packed with old 12s and new promos that were sought-after, prized and impossible to find in London. Often adorned with enthusiastically scrawled sales stickers explaining exactly why you needed this tune, and frequently signed off with a smiley face. It was very likely Balearic Mike who served me. 

PINK RHYTHM / MELODIES OF LOVE 

Freeez formed in the late 1970s, around the core of John Rocca, Andy Stennett, Peter Maas, and Paul Morgan. Pulling in jazz players David Allison, Laurie Brown, Gordon Sullivan, and Geoff Warren, for the fusion of their 1980 debut LP. When I was in my mid-teens and locked to pirate radio, their hits, Flying High, and Southern Freeez, would spin as I “barrel-rolled” about on a Thursday night at Streatham Ice Rink. When hockey boots, and the ability to skate backwards were essentials in finding a “date”. We`d single them out, those girls that wobbled, and screamed as they trundled around the edge. Scared to let go. Offering them a helping hand. Making them go too fast, and scream louder. Southern Freeez remains one of the sexiest records ever made.

Pink Rhythm were one of John Rocca’s post-Freeez projects. As the chart-topping jazz-funk outfit fell apart, in 1985, together with former bandmates Andy Stennett and Peter Maas, he issued three singles, two of which Be With gave their bespoke treatment. Melodies Of Love is smile-inducing, pop boogie, kinda cute, with a huge electronic B-line and a very, very catchy chorus. Taking it`s cues from Larry Levan / The Paradise Garage and mid-tempo`d Italo. The likes of Mike Francis, Loui$ Pink Footpath, and Byron`s Too Much. The Saint`s Morning Music. India is a similar, but less instant instrumental. More of a warm-up heater than “Melodies..” end-of-the-night sing-along anthem.

JUDITH RAVITZ / BOLERIO

In 1983 Israeli pop superstar Judith Ravitz joined forces with Jorge Ben’s backing band, A Banda Do Zé Pretinho, to reimagine a set of the Brazilian maestro’s songs, with the aim introducing them to a new audience. The uptempo Boiadeiro brilliantly bumps and jumps at a breakneck pace, driven by vocal chants and snappy acoustic strumming. Funky and punky, like Elli Medeiros dancing with Ramuntcho Matta. Energetic, and percussive with a bongo break, rock guitar solo and cool clavs. There`s a version of Taj Mahal that`s nearly as Disco as Mr. Stewart`s. A synth-y take on Zazuera. Dia De Indio drops Isabelle Antena into a sundown drum circle.

Be With Records’ 10th anniversary book and compilation can be preordered here.