Happy Birthday Julie Tippetts!

Raising a glass to Jools on her birthday with a few performances and some stellar recordings you may have missed.

One For The Weekend: Skeletons

An overlooked gem in the Do Right! catalog is the Smile album by Ben Lamdin's Skeletons. Check out "Guadeloupe" below.

Nostalgia 77 gets dubwise overhaul from Prince Fatty

Prince Fatty Meets Nostalgia 77 in the Kingdom of Dub is out now on Tru Thoughts.

In the words of Ben Lamdin aka Nostalgia 77...

"I met Mike Pelanconi via a mutual acquaintance in the spring of 2005. Our friend dealt in rare ideas on subjects ranging from the occult to the ephemeral. A self made man, his passion for the heady pursuits of the mind fascinated, engaged and united us. Afternoons were often spent in his central Brighton office discussing politics, film, and not least music, and that gilded palace’s fading empire.

"I myself was still a novice and could only claim to be learning the craft of music making, while Mike, though still a young man, was already a veteran of the industry and had taken refuge in Brighton to recover from the gruelling demands of running his own premises in Wood Green. In the Brighton mix room, the snapshot of the Neve control room at Wood Green took pride of place on the wall, Pultec equalizers flanking Mike like grey-blue henchmen. He confronts the camera like an audiophile Neal Cassidy.

"As I had just formed the first live incarnation of Nostalgia 77 I recruited Mike to do our first live recording. Live at the Jazz Cafe was the band’s second gig. We were full of enthusiasm for the music and, although rough, the recording has a great energy. The dub of Zombie Dance comes from this session... It showed us the worlds of dub and jazz could clash with powerful results. 

"From this point it seemed like a door had opened into the world of recording, on one side of me powerful musicians and on the other an eccentric and talented engineer; and we set about organising a residential trip to a barn in Wales. Returning to Brighton with the hard disks full, we assembled some classic tools, EMT plate reverb, Pultecs, Fairchild and a Studer 2 track machine for mixdown. The resulting album, Borderlands – released under the Nostalgia 77 Octet name - set me clearly on a new path, leaving the 1210s and samples on one side in favour of manuscripts and microphones. The hit was strong and the high enduring.

"Pelanconi's alter ego Prince Fatty, long in gestation, was gaining more and more strength. During this time Mike was still working for the industry, 'flipping burgers', as he used to say. But it was clear that it was the dub that kept the studio ticking and the spirit of rebellion that powered Fatty's soundsystem-distressing productions. Legends started appearing at the villa studio. Coffee on the step would now be taken with reggae greats like Little Roy, Alcapone, Winston Francis. 

"Our collaboration continued; I would take my projects to mix at Mike’s:  Nostalgia 77, The Broken Keys, the Konkoma record for Soundway... jazz for Jamie Cullum and so on. Meanwhile Prince Fatty productions for Hollie Cook, Mutant HiFi and Little Roy, and his own projects and dub LPs, continued apace. The rhythms piled up - probably there is already more recorded than can ever be released.

"This record is a snapshot of the worlds of jazz and dub colliding. Not for the faint hearted, these tracks, bastards as they are of two estranged parents. Two such different styles in many ways, or so they have become, but jazz and dub share so many roots as is plain to hear in the swing of New Orleans, the Jamaican mento or ska, the prophesies of Sun Ra or the praises of the Nyabinghi. But perhaps what truly unites lovers of these two musical dynasties is the spirit of rebellion that lies at the heart of both. 

"As the music industry slowly becomes more and more a pale shadow of the industrial complex it serves, true characters become fewer and farther between and the character of rebellion harder to ignite. If old musical styles are to continue to sound relevant they must capture the true spirit of the form, not just ape the sound and tropes of the style. In all walks the people are there, working for an alternative sound, propelled by a creative imperative rather than motivated by profit, cache or kudos. Be it the rockers, retro rastas, soul boys or electronic pioneers, it is precisely at times such as this that we need the non-conformist spirit, the righteous and rebellious, the eccentric and the freaky. We need less Bruce Bannerman more Hulk, less Jekyll more Mr Hyde, less semi-skimmed more FAT."

Midweek Mixdown: Nostalgia 77

Here's an ace Ben Lamdin mix of leftfield jazz from Nostalgia 77 and Impossible Ark pals

Relics 2 by Nostalgia 77

UK's Rhythmagic Orchestra finally resurfaces

Since five years have now passed since Ben Lamdin (Nostalgia 77) and Hugo Mendez (Sofrito DJ Collective) first put together the Rhythmagic Orchestra with fellow UK-based members of the Heliocentrics, Plumstead Radical Club, the Alex Wilson Band, Jazz Jamaica, Ska Cubano and the Nostalgia 77 Octet to pay tribute to Afro-Latin jazz greats which inspired them so it's about time they issued a follow-up to their smokin' three-track 12" vinyl debut.
After spinning through some of Hugo's dusty tropical treasures over a bottle of rum, they decided on an appropriately diverse selection of mambo madness, deadly descargas and cha cha craziness which N77 arranger Jonny Spall has charted for the latest Rhythmagical expedition into dance jazz dementia. Those who missed their out-of-print first EP on Impossible Ark will be relieved to know that they've included their dancefloor destroying cover of Nina Simone's African Mailman along with a hard swingin' version of the Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo standard Manteca which you can check below.



To celebrate the long overdue release of the self-titled Rhythmagic Orchestra album (you can get the limited vinyl version via mailorder here), Hugo Mendez has assembled a smashing 40 minute mix of old-school Afro-Latin heat from Cuba, Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Congo, Guadeloupe, Senegal, Dominican Republic and the USA which you can enjoy until you get your hands on that dope new Rhythmagic Orchestra platter.  
Here's the track list for Hugo's fantastic Rhythmagic Partout! mix.

Vincent Casino – Mambo de Paris
Joey Lewis Orchestra – Tema del Papelon
Arthur Sterling & Pucho – Darin’s Mambo
Elmo Garcia Orchestra – Brooklyn Mambo
Guapacha – El Retoson
Luis Grinan y su Orquesta – Cosas Bonita
Orchestre Esperanza – Pas Bel
Cachao y su Orquesta – Descarga Mexicana
Orchestre O.K. Jazz – Cha Cha del Zombo
Chiquita Serrano – Marijuana
Los Caraibes – Cuando Llegare
Amara Touré – Lamento Cubano
Duo Los Ahijados – El Hombre Misterioso

Skeletons out of Ben Lamdin's closet

What I found particularly intriguing about Ben Lamdin's recent Impossible Ark label sampler A Compilation is that despite employing essentially the same artwork that was used for the Impossible Ark collection entitled "The New Sound of British Jazz" and released only in Japan a few months prior, there were drastic changes to the track listing. The updated release is almost a completely different disc.

The fantastic songs which made the Japanese set such a delight, namely Film Blues by Nostalgia 77 Session with Keith & Julie Tippett, Free Spirits by the Drop In Sessions,  Blues For Kate by The Friction Dynasty, Afrodesia and Manteca by Rhythmagic Orchestra and Come Home To You by the Voices Of Time were all replaced by mostly inferior tracks by Jeb Loy Nichols (who's Country Got Soul series suggests he's a much better compiler than singer/songwriter) and Sigurta Casagrande.
The only significant improvement to the revised label survey is the addition of an Afro-jazz tune called Positive Force by the mysterious Skeleton. Evidently, Skeleton is not a real group, more of a studio fabrication created by musician, engineer and record selecta Benedic Lamdin aka Nostalgia 77 who also runs Impossible Ark when not producing or remixing Elizabeth Shepherd recordings.

“Skeletons is a made up band," explains Lamdin. "I kid you not – it doesn't exist. These musicians never stood in the studio together, they just passed through my house or left some scraps of sound behind after sessions we were working on.  This record is like a guy, pieced together and ready for the bonfire.

“Some of the music here started life as commissions for a library music company, pastiches and forgeries paid for by the current vogue for a certain style of African jazz. Once I'd done a few though I couldn't stop, it was my default preoccupation, something for me once I'd finished working on other people’s albums.  It was relaxation, something that didn't matter whether it worked or not. The whole LP was made like that, done in the time between recording jobs.
“To me the whole thing has been a self indulgent forgery, an act of mindless fun. If it sounds good then it's because I just enjoyed the music and enjoyed myself.”

Based on the other Skeleton recordings I've heard, the swinging Mulatu and the downtempo Mr. Mystery – both done in a 70s Ethio-jazz style reminiscent of Mulatu Astatke, and the soulful Alice Russell-voiced getdown Adam and Eve, it sounds like the forthcoming Smile (Impossible Ark) album due on March 1 could be a boffo banger.  

Our man Lamdin will undoubtedly be spinning some of his choice Skeleton joints along with other Impossible Ark club wreckers (perhaps Rhythmagic Orchestra's update of Nina Simone's African Mailman) at his N77 night with DJs John Kong, General Eclectic and ?uesquecest at The Supermarket (268 Augusta) on Friday (February 26). Tickets for the stellar event, which doubles nicely as a NuFunk Festival 2010 launch party, are $5 before 11 pm and $10 afterwards if there's any room left.

Nostalgia 77 Live



Nothing To See Here |

Nostalgia 77  "Hope Suite"



Nothing To See Here | MySpace Music Videos


LINKS
Nostalgia 77 Podcast  MP3
Hugo Mendez's Rhythmagic Podcast MP3
Nostalgia 77 site  http://nostalgia77.com/
N77 myspace  http://www.myspace.com/nostalgia77
Impossible Ark http://impossiblearkrecords.co.uk
Unfold Music site unfoldmusic.co.uk
Unfold myspace http://www.myspace.com/unfoldrecordings