Mini Cooper

Swapping Christmas for chug, with 56 minutes of Bedford Falls Players aka Mark Cooper.

 

A trio of top notch releases from this year, remixes, re-edits and rarities from 2016 to 2022, all guaranteed to get you from a stumble to a shuffle, maybe even a shimmy.

I was a latecomer to Bedford Falls Players (I say that about a lot of artists, don't I?) but I was a swift convert, a big fan of the insistent rhythm, well-placed samples, melancholy chords and dub effects that characterise Cooper's work. 

 

I'm just about keeping up with Mark's current endeavours, whilst diving further back into the BFP catalogue, unearthing more gems along the way.

1) Chudley's Chemical Chug (Single Version): Bedford Falls Players (2016)

2) Railton Ruckus (Bedford Falls Players Remix): Rude Audio (2021)

3) Electric Loop: Bedford Falls Players (2022)

4) Simulated Emotions (Bedford Falls Players Emotive Remix): From Beyond (2021)

5) Fallen Off The Sample (Re-visited): Bedford Falls Players (2024)

6) Beautiful Chaos (Dub Mix): Bedford Falls Players (2024)

7) Face à La Mer (Bedford Falls Players Acid Re-Rub): Les Negresses Vertes (2022)

8) Agent Cooper Coffee Dreams: Bedford Falls Players (2024)

 

Mini Cooper (56:56) (KF) (Mega)

How Are You Feeling? It's A Beautiful Morning!

Keeping with yesterday's uplifting vibes, today's selection is a clutch of songs (mostly) from the early 1990s, packed into an open top car and taken on a remix road trip. Feel the sunshine.

Any such compilation and Andrew Weatherall is almost certain to be found. Here he, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns pop up twice as Sabres Of Paradise. First up is their masterful collaboration with One Dove on Transient Truth, seven minutes of sonic sweetness underpinning Dot Allison's voice. 

Secondly, all double bass funk and squelchy synths, is Red Snapper's classic Hot Flush from 1995. The music couldn't be more different from One Dove, yet Andrew, Jagz and Gary lend both an emotional heft that just can't be described in words. Well, not be me, anyway. This track originally featured on the EP of the same name, collected the same year on the Reeled And Skinned compilation which is an essential introduction to Red Snapper.

Either side of these tracks are a couple of groovy numbers. In reverse order, Fortran 5 are rinsed good and proper by Alex Paterson and Kris 'Thrash' Weston of The Orb. I loved the original album version but The Herbal Supper Mix is a feast of heavy bass, SFX and samples ("one spliff a day keeps the evil away") with Shola Phillips' sweet vocals weaving through. 

Fluke serve up Groovy Feeling, the 1993 single offering half a dozen remixes all named after ice cream varieties. The version here retains the vocal licks and bubbling beats that characterise the Fluke sound.

They pop up again later in the selection with a sublime remix of Beautiful Morning by Sensation, one of my favourites of theirs. The original song was a lovely indie-pop number but Fluke transform it into an energising, irresistible uptempo anthem that has me involuntarily shouting "yeah!" along with singer Johnny Male pretty much every time. Which can be embarrassing if I'm wearing headphones in a public space.

Also feeling the groove are Finitribe, who were so impressed with Justin Robertson's remix of their single Ace Love Deuce that it was the definitive version used on 1992 album An Unexpected Groovy Treat. The additional treat is that the album version is a minute or so longer than the one found on the 12" and CD single. If you're a fan of Justin Robertson's work from the early 1990s, you will not be disappointed.

Underworld come in towards the end of this mix and in such style. I can't remember which came first but their remixes of Water From A Vine Leaf (included here) and Human Behaviour by Björk just blew me away when I first heard them. Twelve minutes of beautifully structured electronic music that was built for the dancefloor yet for me has always worked as songs in their own right, away from the club environment. In both cases, the addition of a unique female vocal is that little push over the edge. In this case, it's Beth Orton (though I think I can hear Karl Hyde in there somewhere too, deep in the mix) joining William Orbit on an epic journey.

Sticking with William Orbit and taking a slight step back into the last year of the 1980s with a mix that pointed to the future. Balearic beats before I had a clue what that even was. Les Negresses Vertes were a Parisian band that I'd seen pop up on TV (the last gasps of The Tube, I guess) but I didn't know much about. I got this remix of 1989 single Zobi La Mouche on a secondhand copy of Beat This! a compilation of dance label Rhythm King originally given away as a cover-mounted CD with Sky Magazine in 1990. William Orbit is joined by fellow Torch Song collaborator Rico Conning, all acoustic strums and rousing calls that scream 'party!' I feel like I've glugged a bottle of red wine and jumped up on the table to dance just listening to it...

 

1) Transient Truth (Album Version By One Dove & Sabres Of Paradise): One Dove (1993)

2) Groovy Feeling (Nutty Chip Cornet): Fluke (1993)

3) Hot Flush (Sabres Of Paradise Remix): Red Snapper (1995)

4) Groove (The Herbal Supper Mix By The Orb): Fortran 5 ft. Shola Phillips (1991)

5) Ace Love Deuce (Justin Robertson Mix) (Album Version): Finitribe (1992)

6) Beautiful Morning (Fluke's Magimix): Sensation (1993)

7) Water From A Vine Leaf (Underwater Mix Part 1) (Remix By Underworld): William Orbit ft. Beth Orton (1993)

8) Zobi La Mouche (The Fly) (Club Mix By William Orbit & Rico Conning): Les Negresses Vertes (1989)

 

1989: Zobi La Mouche EP: 8

1991: Groove EP: 4

1992: An Unexpected Groovy Treat: 5 

1993: Beautiful Morning EP / Welcome To The Future²: 6

1993: Groovy Feeling EP: 2

1993: Morning Dove White: 1 

1993: Water From A Vine Leaf EP: 7

1995: Hot Flush EP / Reeled And Skinned: 3

How Are You Feeling? It's A Beautiful Morning! (57:27) (KF) (Mega)

Nothing Can Stop The Masters At Work

I have a ton of remixes by Masters At Work aka Kenny 'Dope' Gonzalez & 'Little' Louie Vega, so it was a bit of a surprise to find that they've barely featured on this blog. Some redress today then, with a 10-song, 70-minute selection of remixes from 1992 to 2003.

Masters At Work immediately get down to business with a remix of their own side project, Nuyorican Soul, which bravely tackled Rotary Connection's I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun in the late 1990s. I featured this remix and multiple other versions of the song last September.

 

The selection closes with an equally brave rework of I Feel Love by Donna Summer. I've chopped the pounding intro from the full length eleven and a half minute original, cutting in for a (hopefully) smoother segue from Les Negresses Vertes, but it's a monster track nevertheless.

 

Trawling the MAW pages on Discogs for info, I spotted a comment from imad909 who summed it up as well as anyone can: "Years will come, years will go, but the work these two have put out will remain". 

 

I'm succumbing to the urge to dance even as I sit here typing this. Be warned, this groove is highly contagious.

1) I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun (MAW Remix) (Cover of Rotary Connection): Nuyorican Soul ft. Q-Tip & Jocelyn Brown (1997)

2) Show Me (Masters At Work R & B Mix): Ultra Naté (1994)

3) Reaching For The Stars (Masters At Work Mix): Fantastic Plastic Machine ft. Incognito (2003)

4) Time To Make You Mine (Kenlou Supa Mix): Lisa Stansfield (1992)

5) Helpless (The Kenlou Remix): Urbanized (1992)

6) Around The World (Mellow Mix): Daft Punk (1996)

7) Nothing Can Stop Us (House Mix): Saint Etienne (1992)

8) Very Important People (Masters At Work Main Mix): GusGus (1999)

9) Après La Pluie (Main Vocal) (Rukus Dubba): Les Negresses Vertes (1995)

10) I Feel Love (Masters At Work 12-Inch Mix): Donna Summer (1995)

Nothing Can Stop The Masters At Work (1:11:22)

I Wanna Go To Paris With You

Inspired by yesterday's French DJ mix, the first Dubhed selection of 2022 features a dozen Paris-themed songs. Along the way, you get two artists genuinely from Paris (Les Negresses Vertes, Anne Pigalle), a couple of would-be tourists (Friendly Fires, Adam & The Ants) and a completely made-up, retro-fitted 1990s band (Brits Abroad aka Julian Cope & chums, which you can read about in a 2015 post by The Vinyl Villain). As you might expect, the latter is not a paean to the questionable 1972 film by Bernardo Bertolucci, but a tribute to the soft drink exploits of a (fictional) touring band, e.g.

 

It was not the penultimate Tizer in Hull,

It was the last Tango in Paris 

 

The selection wraps up inevitably with Adam & The Ants' debut single, which wasn't a hit first time around. However, the song enjoyed 13 weeks in the UK singles chart and a peak of #9 when re-released at the end of 1980 on the back of the success of Antmusic.

1) I Love Paris (Cover of Lilo): Les Negresses Vertes (1990)

2) Paris: Tacks, The Boy Disaster (2006)

3) Paris 1919 (String Mix): John Cale (1973)

4) Souvenir d'Un Paris (French Version): Anne Pigalle (1985)

5) Paris (Album Version): Friendly Fires ft. Au Revoir Simone (2008)

6) Haliod Xerrox Copy 3 (Paris): Alva Noto (2007)

7) Paris Four Hundred (Album Version): Mylo (2003)

8) Last Tango In Paris ("Originally released in 1990"): Brits Abroad (2014)

9) Plaster Of Paris: Pixies (2016)

10) Paris s'enflamme (French Version of Paris Is Burning): Ladyhawke (2008)

11) Paris In Flares: The Housemartins (1987)

12) Young Parisians (Single Version): Adam & The Ants (1978)

I Wanna Go To Paris With You (44:13)