Decade in Review : Deep
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Frank McGahon's selections from the last 10 years.
It's a tricky business, looking back and summing up the character of a decade. There are two principal problems. Firstly, cultural changes rarely track the exact turning of the decade.
Even though we have a clear picture of what ‘the 70s’ and ‘the 80s’ were like and associate them with particular musical genres, you could argue that the 80s didn't get going until 1981 and in many ways, the true musical and cultural watershed that brought that decade as we now know it to a close was 1988 and not 1990.
Conversely, one of the musical genres most associated with the 80s was the New Romantic movement - yet this style had run its course by 1980 with its mainstream assimilation by David Bowie and his ‘Scary Monsters’ album.
The next problem is when you are so close to something that has just passed, it's often difficult to see the join. There's a natural progression in music - it's often only by looking back that you can draw a line between what belongs in that decade and this. In this regard, it wasn't until the mid-00s that I began to think of 1990s music as something different in character to that which we were all playing in this decade.
That said, I'm going to make a stab at sampling the music that describe the decade for me. I call it a ‘sampling’ rather than a selection as it’s would be nigh-on impossible to pick out the definitive tracks and there would undoubtedly be many egregious omissions. There are a number of obvious, well-known tunes along with a few more obscure ones that were maybe overlooked for whatever reason. So, for the moment, here we go…
Next: Frank's top five albums, singles and more...
Five Tracks
Cesaria Evora ‘Angola’ (Carl Craig Remix) [Lusafrica]
C2’s remix of Cape Verde's Cesaria Evora hooks you in with a simple into, but soon progresses from Ms Evora's powerful Lusophone vocals to a deeper Detroit instrumental.
Afronaut featuring Son De Batey ‘Golpe Tuyo Calinda’ [Bitasweet]
Combines tough, stripped-down broken beats from West London with Puerto Rican Bomba tribal chants perfectly. Some other tough beats which will I think be seen as typifying the 00s would be Inverse Cinematic's ‘Thumper’ and Seiji's ‘Loose Lips’, best refashioned by bootleg outfit Floorplay as Loose Tips with Q-Tip's ‘Breath and Stop’ acapella.
Global Soul ‘Look Into Yourself’ (Seiji Remix) [Bitasweet]
Seiji aka Paul Dolby is a prolific producer in his own right, quite apart from his work with the Bugz In The Attic collective, he has been responsible for many great tracks over the decade. Particular highlights would be his remixes of Baltimore Jazz group Fertile Ground's ‘The Moment’ and Micatone's ‘Run’ but I'm picking his tune-up of Global Soul's ‘Look Into Yourself’. Another Bugz alumnus with a slew of releases in his own right is Daz-I-Kue who is also responsible for the series of not-quite-official re-edits under the Bloodfire stamp, the best of which is his reconstruction of Lamont Dozier's ‘Going Back To My Roots’.
Franck Roger ‘Say You Love Me’ [Seasons]
This French producer and DJ hit a rich vein of form in the mid 00s with tunes such as ‘Jeware’, ‘Remember’, and this belter on the deceased Seaons stamp. Another French house artist DJ Gregory also hit the mark with tunes such as ‘Don't Panic’ and the anthemic ‘Elle’ (which was also covered jazz style by Christian Prommer's Drumlesson).
Erik Rug and Dynamax ‘Tribute’ (Karoye Recreation) [Le Disque De Telegraphe]
One trend that is associated more with this decade than the 1990s (even though there are examples from the previous era - Jazzanova's 1998 remix of Ian Pooley's What's Your Number springs to mind) is what I'll call neo-boogie: music inspired by early- to mid-1980s boogie. Some examples include Bugz In The Attic's remix of Susumu Yokota's ‘Could Heaven Ever Be Like This’. Other artists mining this seam include Yam Who? for their own productions as well as remixes such as Stray's ‘Musick’ and Joss Stone's ‘Tell Me About It’, and French artists such as Ulysses82 and Karoye, responsible for the monster recreation of Eric Rug and Dynamax's ‘Tribute’.
Next : Frank's top five albums and more...
Five Albums
The Gotan Project ‘La Revancha Del Tango’ [Ya Basta]
From 2000, an album that went on to soundtrack a million dinner parties and BBC2 documentaries. The highlight remains ‘Triptico’. No matter how many times this has been played (and it has been played and played and played), it hasn't lost its hypnotic quality - from the first few bars, it just sucks you in. Unfortunately, its ubiquity has obscured just how fresh this marriage of house and tango sounded when it first came out.
The Detroit Experiment ‘The Detroit Experiment’ [Planet E]
In 2003 Carl Craig assembled some of Detroit's finest jazz musicians to create this fantastic collection. Highlights include ‘Space Odyssey’, which features its original composer Marcus Belgrave, the more dancefloor-orientated interpretation of Donald Byrd's ‘Think Twice’ and Amp Fiddler's late night solo twist on Stevie Wonder's ‘Too High’.
Bugz In The Attic ‘Got The Bug’ [V2]
Bugz In The Attic seemed set to make a Basement Jaxx-eaque breakthrough with the catchy ‘Booty La La’ but it just never gathered sufficient mainstream momentum. ‘Worla Hurt’ and the all-too-brief ‘Intro’ stand-out from their debut album, but ‘Got The Bug – a collection of remixes (including their brilliant remix of Zero 7's ‘Distraction’ [in 6/4 time!]) – remains the best showcase of their innovative work.
Karizma ‘A Mind Of Its Own’ [BBE]
Over the decade, Baltimore's Karizma has established himself as a producer, remixer and dj of note. There are two future 00s classics most associated with his DJ sets - Slope's remix of ‘Luv's Daylight’ and Quentin Harris' mix of Donnie's ‘Cloud 9’. Released in 2007, ‘A Mind Of Its Own’ is a perfect showcase for his take on hip hop, broken beats and house with tracks such as ‘Twyst This’ arising out of his working of the Donnie cut in his sets based around a brief sample from that track. Another track which demonstrates his ability to stretch out a long journey from the smallest of elements – in the same way as DJ Pierre did in the 1990s with his wild pitch remixes – is the epic ‘The Damn Thing'.
Chico Mann ‘Manifest Tone’ [Kindred Spirits]
Brooklyn might be home to a lot of irritating hipsters but there's lots of serious music coming out of that NY borough, tunes such as Yellowtail's raga/broken beat of ‘Pressure Dem’, or the updated afrobeat funk of Pimps of Joytime's ‘Gosalo’. In a similar style but with more lo-fi elements, I'm selecting this 2007 album from Antibalas’ Chico Mann, best tune being ‘Soul Freedom’.
Next : Frank's hero and villain...
Hero
Record labels still keeping up consistently high quality releases such as BBE, Bagpak, Tru Thoughts out of Brighton and Berlin's Sonar Kollektiv.
Villain
The banks and creditors who closed down Goya Music, the collapse of which has sadly meant the demise of excellent West London labels such as People, Main Squeeze and Bitasweet.
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