Forty Minutes Of Jezebell

A Jezebell mix for this Sunday to go with their weekend takeover at The Golden Lion in Todmorden with the emphasis on dancing. Jesse and Darren's music, edits and remixes have been one of post- 2021's joys starting with Thrill Me in November 2021, taking in various EPs and singles, an album and most recently Cream Tease (wordplay and sexual innuendo are a Jezebell speciality. Personally, I'm not a fan of innuendo- if I see one in my writing I whip it out, straight away*). 

Forty Minutes Of Jezebell

• Bibbles (Pots And Pans Mix)
• Re- birth
• Perfect Din
• Citric
• We All Need (Jezebell's Ghost Train Mix)
• The Jezebell Spirit
• Darren's Theme

Bibbles is by Brighton Balearica duo Andres Y Xavi, a single on Higher Ground in February 2024. Jezebell did three remixes, the Pots And Pans Mix being my favourite, all manner of whirrs and clicks and abstract rhythm sounds.

Re- birth first saw the light of day on the Diavol edit label and then on Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1, a shimmering, shuffling, woozy piece of edit work. 

Perfect Din is from Shelter Me, a compilation released in April 2024 to raise funds for Crisis, a homelessness charity. 

Citirc was one of four tracks released as the Weekend Machines EP, machine funk for cyborgs to strut their stuff to. Hand claps, hi hats, guitar riffs, synths, all synced up for endless, beautiful repetition.

We All Need is one of the songs on A Certain Ratio's It All Comes Down To This album, one of 2024's best records. Jezebell's Ghost Train Mix came about when ACR's Martin Moscrop was record shopping in Berlin and found and bought a copy of Jezebellearic Beats Vol. 1. 

The Jezebell Spirit takes one of the key tracks from David Byrne and Brian Eno's groundbreaking 1981 album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts and Jezebells it, the 808 cracking away under the sampled American TV preacher. My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts is a seminal album, a record streets ahead of almost everyone else in the early 80s. 

Darren's Theme is from Cream Tease, a track and EP with its tongue firmly in its cheek and possibly its trousers undone as well. A snatch of vocal from Karen Finley's Tales Of Taboo, a 1986 song with a lyric that could be described as sexually explicit. 

* Thanks are due to Kenneth Williams for this joke obviously

Cream Tease

What does Wednesday bring? It brings four slices of X rated, road tested, dance floor bangers from Jezebell, Jesse and Darren blurring the boundaries of edit/ remix/ new music and in single entendre mode. Cream Tease opens with Hung and ends with Donkey with The Big Time and Darren's Theme sandwiched in between. Hung is slo mo and crunchy, a grinder. There are voices chanting half way through, flickers of call and response. The Big Time kicks on, faster and harder, streamlined and in full flow, Visage taken for a whirl around the floor, pulses raised with an arena level breakdown and power chords, spinning so fast now we're barely in control. 

Darren's Theme is more basic, a reducer- late 80s jack rhythms, a siren, and a snatch of vocal from Karen Finley's Tales Of Taboo, snarling 'oh let me suck your...'. Later on the reply comes. Karen Finley's Tales Of Taboo is so X rated that even listening to it in the car on your own, you feel like you should be apologising to somebody for what they can hear. Just a two second sample from it carries the same illicit surge. 

Tales Of Taboo (Radio Mix)

Don't let the part in brackets fool you. That isn't a daytime radio friendly version. 

Cream Tease finishes itself off with Donkey, an edit/ mashed up version of Don Quichotte, high camp/ Europop 1984 single by French outfit Magazine 60, the vocals flipping between French and English, Jesse and Darren demonstrating there are no stones they will leave unturned in their endless search for the goods. Get your Cream Tease at Bandcamp. 

Saturday Theme Sixteen

Today's Saturday theme is one of the great Theme records, a song which turned spring 1988 upside down- a joyous, ecstatic, sampledelic splash of neon colours, smiley face, acid house crossover mayhem. A song guaranteed to fill a dancefloor, at any occasion, still. Theme From S'Express is one of the best records of the 80s and if I was forced to put together a list of my favourite fifty singles (or something similar) it would undoubtedly feature highly. 

Theme From S'Express

Mark Moore and Pascal Gabriel constructed the track largely out of samples. Moore was a DJ, Gabriel a producer (who had recently co- written Bomb The Bass' hit Beat Dis, another sample- heavy smash in both the clubs and the charts). Moore turned up with a bag of records, they sequenced the parts they wanted onto cassette and turned everything up to ten. 

A few years ago at his A History Of Dubious Taste blog Jez pulled together the songs that provided Mark Moore with his source material which is where I got most of the mp3s I've used for what follows. I've attempted to sequenced the songs that S'Express sampled for Theme From S'Express into one continuous mix- it was a bit of a challenge, getting the sequence and the segues somewhere near right. It starts and finishes with some spoken word science fiction, goes all disco and New York, borrows from acts as diverse as Sam The Sham and Gil Scott Heron, some early 80s synthpop and the genuinely jaw dropping, X rated Tales Of Taboo by Karen Finley, a song that once heard is never forgotten. 

Theme From S'Express Samples Mix

• Laura Olsher: The Martian Monsters
• Rose Royce: Is It Love You're After?
• Peech Boys: Don't Make Me Wait
• TZ: I Got The Hots For You
• Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson: The Bottle
• Crystal Glass: Crystal World
• Alfredo de la Fe: Hot To Trot
• Sam The Sham And The Pharaohs: Oh, That's Bad, No That's Good
• Debbie Harry: Feel The Spin
• Karen Finley: Tales Of Taboo
• Stacey Q: Two Of Hearts
• Yazoo: Situation
• Gene Roddenbury: The Star Trek Dream

Drop That Ghettoblaster

Something a bit more in your face and full on, full frontal even, than yesterday's ghostly Rootmasters song. This 1986 release by Karen Finley was sampled by S'Express (where this post's title was borrowed from and also the phrase 'suck me off', which somehow Mark Moore managed to disguise slightly by smudging the first vowel sound and then sneaking onto Radio 1 and Top of Of The Pops). Over a rapid fire drum machine and then some long keyboard chords Karen opens fire (Karen was a performance artist and poet and is currently a professor at New York University). She starts out with 'you don't own me bastard, you fucking asshole' and then crams in pretty much every insult, sexual reference and swear word she can think of, also taking time to include your Granny and Belgian waffles. It's a tour de force performance and was produced and co-written by Mark Kamins (who most famously worked with Madonna in the 80s).

It is still pretty jaw-dropping to hear and should probably only be played loudly/audibly if you are very confident in those who are around you. Most definitely Not Safe For Work.

Tales Of Taboo

Here, so you can place those vocal samples in context, and also because this is one of the greatest records of the 1980s (and of any decade in fact) are S'Express having a lot of fun on Top Of The Pops.

Enjoy This Trip (And It Is A Trip)

Surely one of the greatest singles ever made, S Express (Mark Moore)'s Theme From S Express introduced acid house and sampling to a mass audience in 1988- it was number 1 in the UK for two weeks. Borrowing liberally from Rose Royce's Is it Love You're After?, it is dance music heaven.

Kind of ridiculously, I love the 'lyrics'

'Enjoy this trip
Enjoy this trip
And it is a trip
And it is a trip

(Countdown is progressing)
Uno, dos, tres, quatro

S Express
S Express

I got the hots for you

Chop me off, chop me off, chop me off (this bit always sounded more explicit to me)Jump on that ghetto blast off (or is it Drop that ghettoblaster? I can never quite make it out)Come on now slip it to the music, now scoot (Not wholly sure about this bit either)Oh, that's bad
No, that's good'

If one of pop culture's sacred wordsmiths had written these, they'd be held up for all to see. As it is they're vocal samples that sum up the joy of the record, the scene, the dancing. But they sound pretty profound to me. I'm not joking.

Edit; the Karen Finley record Tales of Taboo that part of the vocal is sampled from makes it abundantly clear that it is not 'Chop me off' but 'Suck me off'.

Theme From S Express.mp3