Forty Five Minutes Of Colourbox

A few days ago I posted Colourbox's Tarantula and the wonderful Pandit Pam Pam v Darkinari cover version of it (out two days ago here). Eduardo sent me this video he made on Friday, filmed on the forty five minute flight between Sao Paulo and Rio. 

Today's forty five minute mix is some Colourbox tracks thrown together/ skillfully sequenced, a celebration of a band who threw soul, reggae and dub, electro, industrial and sampling together into a big stew and came up with some genuinely pioneering records between 1982 and 1987.

Some biographical details first.  Colourbox were formed in London in 1982, brothers Martyn and Steve Young, Ian Robbins and singer Debion Currie. Currie and Robbins left a year later, after the first single was released (Breakdown/ Tarantula) and singer Lorita Grahame joined. They signed to 4AD, a street counterpoint to the ethereal, indie/ gothic sounds of the rest of the 4AD line up (Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil) and released three albums, all called Colourbox, and a slew of great singles. In 1987 Colourbox and AR Kane collaborated as M/A/R/R/S and between them, despite a rather difficult studio relationship, created an international hit- Pump Up The Volume. Pop star fame and long running legal bother over Pump Up The Volume and sample clearance led both Martyn and Steve Young to abandon Colourbox. 4AD issued best ofs and  box sets and in 2000 Andrew Weatherall included them on his 9 'O' Clock Drop compilation. Steve Young died in 2016. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Colourbox

• Looks Like We're Shy One Horse
• Baby I Love You So (12" Mix)
• Breakdown
• Say You (12" Mix)
• Edit The Dragon
• Tarantula
• The Official Colourbox World Cup Theme
• Arena II

Looks Like We're Shy One Horse, packed with gun shots and Spaghetti Western samples, was the B-side to Colourbox's 1986 Baby I Love You So single. The slowed down dub section at the end is genuinely thrilling after six minutes of drum machines, guitars, keys, samples, river dredging bass and South London via the Great Plains.

The A- side was Baby I Love You So, a cover of a Jacob Miller and Augustus Pablo song from 1974. King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown was constructed around the dub version of it. Colourbox's cover is a dub version it its own right, a masterful and superbly produced slice of 80s British street sounds with a bassline that you could chew. 

Breakdown was Colourbox's debut single, released in 1982 with Debian Currie on vocals. Tarantula is industrial synth with a detached, numbed vocal. Breakdown is New Wave synthpop, a very of its time song but one that should be better known than it is. 

Say You was a 1984 single, a cover of a U- Roy song from 1976, one of those reggae songs that has a complicated back story with umpteen versions, dubs and covers. Colourbox's version is sweet 80s electro dub- soul. 

In 1985 Colourbox released their first full length album- Colourbox (a mini- album called Colourbox came out two years before). It included Just Give 'Em Whiskey which I wanted to include here but couldn't find a digital version and a cover of Keep Me Hangin' On, the Motown classic. William Orbit plays guitar on Manic. The first 10, 000 copies with a second album, also called, wait for it Colourbox. The mini- album had versions and tracks extra to the first including Edit The Dragon, an electro/ sample piece that in some ways sounds like one of Pump Up The Volume's origin stories. Arena II is a different version of Arena, a mid- 80s soul/ torch song that could have been huge. 

Official Colourbox World Cup Theme was a 1986 single released on the same day as Baby I Love You So. The track was recorded to coincide with the 1986 Mexico World Cup and was nearly chosen by the BBC as the theme music for their coverage. It is Martyn Young's favourite Colourbox song and came in a sleeve that had Jimmy Hill on one side and Bobby Robson on the other. England went to the 1986 World Cup, managed by Bobby Robson and Jimmy Hill was the anchor in the studio- they reached the quarter finals where they lost to two pieces of Diego Maradona audacity. 

Tarantulas

I've written about the music of Pandit Pam Pam several times previously. Pandit Pam Pam is the name Eduardo Ramos uses for his music a style he describes as 'unsettling punky ambience' but it goes way beyond whatever you might think that sounds like. 

Eduardo lives in Sao Paulo, is inspired by European electronic music but is also obviously very much affected by Brazilian and south American music- those two influences combine to give his music very distinct sound and flavour. At the start of January he released a two minute track called Pause Rafraichissant, a soundscape that fades in with some ambient drones and synth FX, a very subtle and detailed track that you can listen to in two ways- you can let it wash over you as a background ambiance, a calming audio presence or really listen to it, paying attention to the small changes in pitch and tone and the static that replaces it at the end. It's at Bandcamp here. 

It has recently been carnival in Brazil, the Mardi Gras celebration that marks the beginning of Lent. Eduardo's wife Bianca and young children developed a love for an old song by Olodum, Farao Divindade Do Egito, a song about ancient Egyptian pharaohs and spirits. Eduardo took the song his family were dancing to and did an edit, turning it into 'a dark, Balearic, dubby dream'- his words and I can't find any better way to describe it. The Pandit Pam Pam Deep Into The Bowel Of A Dub is at Bandcamp here. It's an infectious and affecting listen and a bit of a groover too. 

Eduardo's on a roll at the moment- out tomorrow is a new track he's done as Pandit Pam Pam together with Darkinari, a cover of a Colourbox song, Tarantula. The Pandit Pam Pam/ Darkinari version is a treat, a deep dub bassline and wandering trumpet doing a dance, entwined and interlocked, the bassline descending, the trumpet weaving. Eduardo says that it was inspired by Andrew Weatherall, that he keeps making tracks that he'd like to have played for him, hoping for some kind of cosmic validation from the man. I think that if Andrew were alive, he'd have played Tarantula on his much missed NTS show. Find it at Bandcamp- I love it, it's highly recommended. 

There's another new one, Familinea, lined up for a March release, a six minute ambient beauty but we'll come back to that nearer the time. 

Colourbox's original version of Tarantula came out in 1982, their debut single along with Breakdown on the A- side, on 4AD. It was reworked the following year with producer Mick Glossop. Vocals on both versions were by Debian Currie who left in '83, replaced by Lorita Grahame. Tarantula is post- punk/ synthpop, drawing from their love of reggae and dub and also industrial synth music, dystopic dub disco with a numbed out vocal from Debian. It was later covered by 4AD supergroup This Mortal Coil. 

Tarantula

Colourbox went onto make a load of great records- their 1986 dub/ soul single Baby I Love You So and it's B-side Looks Like We're Shy One Horse are 80s peaks (and both much loved by Mr Weatherall), their 12" Official World Cup Theme/ Philip Glass single is a good one. Their self titled album, a 1983 mini- album and a 1985 full length one, both contain much to enjoy and in 1987 they joined forces with AR Kane for a one off  single as M/A/R/R/S, Pump Up The Volume, a seminal moment in UK sample/ dance music culture.