The Leftfield mix I posted on Sunday sent me back to Renegade Soundwave, digging out their records and CDs. The Leftfield remix of Renegade Soundwave, included in my mix, caused a little bit of internet excitement with Jesse leaving the following comment on social media - 'The RSW remix is the greatest remix of all time, and maybe the best electronic club track ever.To do that much with only the dynamics - the build, the tension, the power - it's just sublime. There's hardly anything to the track, musically, maybe 2 and a half riffs, and it manages to be hairs-on-end thrilling from start to finish'. As a result I thought I should post the remix in its own right so we can all appreciate its magnificence.
There's no denying its got as much oomph, as much taut energy and sonic thump as anything else from the period. The first two minutes build to the sonic equivalent of a dam breaking as the beat kicks in- after that they keep it going, a torrent of Leftfield and RSW combined.
While I think about putting together a forty minute Renegade Soundwave mix here's another of their finest moments, Thunder from 1990. A high pitched string stab, some wobbly guitar, a breakbeat the size of Brixton and a bassline that does indeed sound like thunder. Crunchy industrial dub for a Tuesday during the October half term holiday.
I was listening to Leftism recently, Leftfield's 1995 debut album, an album that takes in sublime ambient house (Melt, Song Of Life), bass heavy dub techno pounders (Release The Pressure, Afro- Left) and eye catching guest vocalists (John Lydon on Open Up, Toni Halliday on Original). It was this Top of The Pops repeat that had me digging Leftism out, a 1995 appearance with a blonde Toni moonlighting from Curve and looking every inch the goth- dance star...
The back to back pairing of Melt and Song Of Life, tracks three and four, were the two that struck me the most this time around, a gorgeous way to spend ten minutes. The closing 21st Century Poem also had me appreciating it anew. I began a Sunday forty minute Leftfield mix and immediately had the problem of too many songs, many that are eight, nine or ten minutes long plus a load of remixes. In the end I've gone mainly for mid- 90s Leftfield, Neil Barnes and Paul Daley's glory years, tracks from subsequent albums/ versions of the group left for another time.
Fanfare of Life is a version of Song Of Life, Leftfield's fourth single, out in 1992, a masterful piece of optimistic ambient house. The Fanfare version also showed up on Cafe Del Mar Volumen Uno, a definitive mid- 90s compilation. There are a pair of Underworld remixes either of which probably could and should have featured on this mix.
Release The Pressure appears twice, once in its 2019 re- released Adrian Sherwood remix version. You can never have too much Sherwood. The Rough Dub came out on 12" in 1992, Neil and Paul with Earl Sixteen on vox, a dark and deep, epic thumper.
Renegade Soundwave were a London three piece, much underrated and unappreciated in some ways. Their singles Women Respond To Bass, The Phantom, Positive ID, Probably A Robbery, Renegade Soundwave and Brixton are all worth spending time with as are their albums, the 1990 In Dub especially. This Leftfield remix of their title track came out in 1994.
Sandals were a beat poetry/ progressive house group who I thought were great, briefly. Several singles and an album with Paul Daley and Neil Barnes producing, mixing and remixing. Nothing was a 1992 single, with the whispered line 'Old man, what have you done?' just as pertinent now as it was then. There are old men all round the globe making the world a worse place aren't there?
'The film starts/ the film ends', Toni Halliday says as Leftfield's heavy bass and beats stomp on around her on Original. Toni was the vocalist in Curve, a duo with Dean Garcia who made a run of electronic rock/ goth dance singles- they've been featured recently over at The Vinyl Villain. While the dance music guest vocalist thing quickly became standard Leftfield's collaborations with Toni and John Lydon were attention grabbing in the mid- 90s. They put John Lydon back on the cover of the music press, somewhere he hadn't been for some time. Lydon's vocal on Open Up is the stuff of legend, a reborn, angry and exhilarating vocal from the former PiL/ Pistol, stridently taking down Hollywood and the film industry. The I Hate Pink Floyd Mix is by Sabres Of Paradise slowing the song down to an industrial dub grind, a PiL influenced remix by Weatherall, Kooner and Burns.
Back in the 90s Leftfield released Release The Pressure, a thumping dub techno tune. It was originally released in 1992 and then on several occasions afterwards. The vocal was provided by reggae singer Earl Sixteen, a righteous chant of 'I've got to stand and fight/ In this creation/ Vanity I know/ Cannot guide I alone' and then, 'I'm searching to find/ A love that lasts all time/ I've just got to find/ Peace and unity'. It's a heady brew, the space of dub and the rhythms of 90s club music brought together with the organ part giving it a touch of ragga. Leftfield were masters of building a track, the tension pulling you in and then the release. The song's distinctive whistling part was sampled from Polegnala E Pschenitza on the album Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares, a compilation of Bulgarian folk songs by The Bulgarian State Radio And Television Female Vocal Choir from 1975. If you haven't heard it, it's a beguiling way to start your day.
Release The Pressure came out in multiple mixes and versions across the various formats and at different times (1992, 1995, 1996 and most recently 2017). All are worthwhile in their own right. Here's a selection starting with a seven minute version from 1995.
Release The Horns is a superb skanking horns, echo and drums version from 1992, the flipside to the Song Of Life 12". Thumping and scorching and ideal for dark nights and hot days.
This version is remixed by Adrian Sherwood, a new dubbed out remix for the 2017 re- release of Leftism. Sherwood pans from left to right, sound effects and distortion with Earl Sixteen, everything broken down and stripped back.
Some righteous fury for Wednesday from the 1993 collaboration between Leftfield and John Lydon. Leftfield were at the height in 93 mixing techno with dub and progressive house and found a variety of guest vocalists to give their music some focus. On Open Up Lydon is back at his best too, the butter advert, celebrity jungle game show, Sex Pistols re-unions and Brexit backing bollocks being some years away in the future. In Open Up he takes out his fury at least partly on Tinsel Town with the 'Burn, Hollywood, burn' line and 'open up, make room for me' refrain but the earlier lines could have been written with any number of people in mind- 'you lied, you faked, you cheated, you changed the stakes'. I don't know what Lydon's views on Boris Johnson are (and actually don't want to just in case Johnny has decided that Boris is ok). As everyone knows when the song came out there were real forest fires blazing through parts of Los Angeles and threatening Lydon's own home.
Musically Open Up is a thumping Leftfield tour de force with pounding kick drums, hi hats buzzing away at the top end, a pummelling bassline and in your face squiggles and synths. It is enormous and a massive adrenaline shot.
The 12" remix single came with versions by Sabres Of Paradise and The Dust Brothers. Sabres found the dubbier parts of the song, some metallic guitar lines and stripped it down leaving Lydon's vocal sounding even more at- the- edge than on the original mix.
In the early 90s Sandals, a four piece from South London, signed to Acid Jazz and put out a series of 12" singles and an album called Rite To Silence. They came up in conversation in a social media post a few days ago and I thought it was time to put some of their music back up here (the last time they featured was back in 2012).
Sandals came together from the club scene and various record stalls and clothes shops, eventually rehearsing in the storage room of a book/record/clothing shop they ran in London's Trocadero. They mashed together a heady stew of beatnik spoken word poetry, soul, funk and jazz, lots of percussion and bongos, some heavy grooves and early 90s clubland sounds.
Debut single Nothing, from 1992, was produced by Leftfield and predates the trip hop sound by a year or two. Samples of voices, boom- boom- bap drums and whispered/stoned street poetry.
In the same year they put out a second 12" single, produced this time by Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner of Sabres Of Paradise, with a more progressive house sound. It was remixed by DSS (David Holmes and Ashley Beedle). It opens with Country Joe's Woodstock crowd participation exercise, 'Give me an F! Give me a U! Give me a C! Give me a K! What's that spell? What;s that spell?' The techno drums come in and Derek Delves begins singing/chanting about the mess we're in, war, the environment, general madness and bad times. It couldn't be more relevant today, the best part of three decades later, if it tried. This being a 1992 progressive house remix it goes on for twelve minutes, never really letting up. Exhilarating stuff.
Also from 1992 was this one, A Profound Gas, which I played loads at the time and still sounds great today. Flutes, guitars, pan pipes, chunky drums, production from Leftfield and more beatnik poetry with some memorable lines and imagery. A Profound Gas (Vocal Mix)
The group disbanded in 1996 having had a second album rejected by London Records. It was eventually released in 2009 in Japan. A copy came my way recently and when I've fully had a chance to listen to it, more Sandals will be coming this way.
On Saturday night while The Chemical Brothers were block rocking the Other Stage at Glastonbury talk on Twitter turned to the then Dust Brothers 1994 Xmas Dust Up, a cassette given away free with the NME in December 1994. The tape was mixed by Ed and Tom, a window rattling, volume- all-the-way-up, seven song mixtape.
Side 1
The Dust Brothers- Leave Home
Bonus Beats Orchestra- Bonus Beats
The Prodigy- Voodoo People (Dust Brothers Remix)
Depth Charge- Shaolin Buddha Finger
Side 2
Renegade Soundwave- Renegade Soundwave (Leftfield remix)
Strange Brew- One Summer ('Lektrik Dawn Dub)
Manic Street Preachers- La Tristessa Durera
Just looking at the sleeve and reading the tracklist transports me back to this cassette causing difficulties for the speakers in a red Nissan Micra back in 94/95- it used to get played a lot for a while.
Bonus Beats Orchestra was Tom and Ed Dust/Chemical under another name. Depth Charge were ace, the 9 Deadly Venoms album was trip hop and big beat before either really got going, and chock full of samples from martial arts films and horror movies. I've posted Renegade Soundwave before and the Leftfield remix is particularly good. Strange Brew were a duo from Manchester, one half of whom, Jake Purdy, lived down our street when we were kids. We'd long lost touch by the mid 90s but used to knock around in a gang all the time in the mid 80s. Funny to have a little childhood, local connection with a free NME cassette. Helpfully someone has transferred their copy of the tape digitally and uploaded it to Youtube. The beats sound quite timelocked but as a whole this still sounds fairly fresh I think.
The Dust Brothers would become The Chemical Brothers not long afterwards. Their remix of La Tristessa Durera was done while still Dust and isn't subtle- squealing noises from the start, various samples from Ed and Tom's pile of odds and ends, lots of sirens and James' vocal. La Tristessa Durera- the sadness endures forever- was written by Richie taking the point of view of a war veteran wheeled out once a year on Poppy Day as a 'cenotaph souvenir', poverty causing him to sell his medal. It is one of the best early Manics songs, showing behind the eyeliner, shock quotes and bluster there was some genuine talent.
I was reminded of this at the weekend, a lengthy techno workout from 1994, Leftfield remixing Renegade Soundwave. Moody, thumpy, acidic and very, very good indeed. Sounds like part of a soundtrack to a journey by train at dusk.
Looking back at my posts over the last week shows a fair amount of dub influenced music. Today's song is in that vein too, a magnificent piece of 90s dub-house from Neil Barnes and Paul Daley.
Song Of Life was a 1992 single and also on Leftfield's 1995 album Leftism, a rousing enough piece of progressive house in itself but for my money the Fanfare Of Life version from the 12" release was the one (later on it appeared on the first volume of the Cafe del Mar series, an essential 90s compilation, one I played through from start to end last weekend when the sun shone). Fanfare Of Life takes a dubbier approach, a slower build, synths that give goosebumps and the looped vocal sample of Bulgarian singer Yanka Rupkina). The introduction of the drums at 1.36 is a moment but the breakdown not long afterwards into the dub bassline is tremendous too.
I'll try to delve a little further than early 90s dance music compilations at some point but it is the various artists groove I am currently in for this series. Cafe del Mar, a series of albums named after the famous bar in San Antonio, Ibiza, gave birth to that most derided of genres, chill out. The compilation album series runs all the way up to Volume Twenty (released in 2014) but chill had eaten itself long before then.
The first album is a genuinely great compilation, on double vinyl, a round up of songs to listen to as the sun sinks into the Med and as the drugs begin to kick in, compiled by the legendary Jose Padilla himself. The tracklist for Volumen Uno has several tunes I'd take anywhere, among them Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Music For A Found Harmonium, William Orbit's The Story Of Light, Underworld's long builder Second Hand, A Man Called Adam's wonderfully up Estelle and the skyscraping Beatless Mix of Smokebelch II by Sabres Of Paradise. Plus these two, first up a dubby version of Song Of Life...
Rummaging through a box of records at the second hand record shop the other, a box labelled House/Dance/Ambient I found a pristine copy of Leftfield's Song Of Life (Remixes) ep for only £2. So I bought it. Two of the three tracks are the Underworld remixes of Song Of Life which are excellent. The third is Leftfield's own remix of Release the Pressure, premium grade skanking dub techno.
Final Lydon post this morning- it would be silly to move on without mentioning Open Up, his collaboration with Leftfield from 1993, a high octane, pummeling piece of progressive house with a paint stripping vocal from John complaining about Hollywood's refusal to cast him in its films. Brilliantly, as the song was released Los Angeles was on fire.
Leftfield's Neil Barnes had known Lydon from North London and they approached him tentatively about vocals. Lydon leapt at it. The single came with a handful of remixes including the Sabres Of Paradise I Hate Pink Floyd Mix and a Dust (Chemical) Brothers remix.
At a later date (some royal anniversary or other) Leftfield returned the favour and remixed God Save The Queen. Not strictly necessary but I once heard this in a club and it sounded immense.
This is another song I've posted before, back in 2011 which is practically neolithic in blogging terms. I've long been partial to the Balearic dance-pop of A Man Called Adam. Barefoot In The Head is a staple of chill out compilations but that shouldn't prejudice you against the song- it is a beautiful record. Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones made up A Man Called Adam but Paul Daley worked on this too, before leaving for Leftfield.
Sally Rodgers wrote the lyrics by cribbing pagan translations of the poetry of Robert Graves (or so it says at both the Museum of British Pop Culture and wiki). It also turns out that...
'Rodgers is conducting doctoral research in modern poetics at the University of St Andrews and Jones recently gained an MSc in sound design from the University of Edinburgh. Together they continue to work as sound designers on museum, film and theatrical commissions, notably the BME - a museum charting the history of British music from the end of World War II, and The British Museum's major new exhibition Journey to the afterlife: The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Their music continues to be licensed all over the world for film, television and release.' You don't get that from ex-members of Oasis.
Just imagine- a time when the cover of the NME meant something and there was the possibility of an in-depth interview written for adults.
I'm still getting used to the fact, after a couple of weeks of on-off listening, that John Lydon has made a necessary album. The new PiL album, despite one or two mis-steps, is a real grower. The song One Drop is proof on its own- vital, angry, alive, stomping stuff. Go and find it somewhere, you won't regret it (I've already posted a song off it so shouldn't really do another). The interview clips on Punk Britannia showed he's still got it as well- sharp and witty. A real one-off is John. The last time he sounded anywhere near as good was in the mid-90s with this still thrilling collaboration with Leftfield, the number one piece of punk-house.
Some more Leftfield, this time from their second album Rhythm And Stealth in 1999, and featuring top hip-hop/electro inventor Afrika Bambaataa on vocals. Two Leftfield posts, and still no Lydon or Weatherall- something must be up.
A very nice man who lives down the road from us (who we'll call Chelsea Mick for the sake of this blog) has just knocked on to offer me a spare ticket to go to see Leftfield at The Apollo in November, and in a moment of reckless spontaneity I said yes. It's been a while since I had my bowels moved by bass, they've got a fine back catalogue, and I think are the only band to be banned by a venue for making plaster fall from the ceiling.
I've just realised we've had no Leftfield at Bagging Area. It's been a struggle but I've resisted the urge to go for either Open Up or a Weatherall remix, so here is Afro-Left (Afro-Ride) featuring Djum Djum (Neil Cole to his mum) on vocals (singing in gibberish, but very effectively). Nine minutes of dub-house madness.
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