In praise of 808 State's Gorgeous (which is gorgeous)

Here is a theory.

If a band calls their album Gorgeous, then everyone thinks it's gorgeous. Witness the scrabble at the record shop counter as dribbling music fans demand to feast on something gorgeous. "Look at this gorgeous album!" you scream at the haggard shop assistant. "It's called Gorgeous!"

Here is how that plays out in practice.

808 State calls their album Gorgeous. People are kinda fine with it, but are still wedded to previous album ex:el. Meanwhile, album tracks Sexy Synthesiser and the UB40-sampling One In Ten sound odd in the long-receding wake of novelty chart rave. Select magazine calls Gorgeous "over-familiar" and gives it three stars.

I have to say, though: Gorgeous was MY album. It came out in 1993, a year in which I was absorbing all the techno like a big shape-throwing sponge. It was my musical 'coming of age' year. Synthesisers WERE sexy. Calling something gorgeous DID make it gorgeous. I even wore the album's t-shirt to ribbons.

There is so much to commend about this album. The sun-soaked steel drums of Plan 9. The deep forest samba of Contrique. The hippy indie vocals on Europa being the most 1990s thing ever. The Loop Guru-style stomp of Southern Cross. And Colony being an out-and-out banger.

Following up 1991's ex:el was tough. That album had Bjork and New Order's Bernard Sumner. While Ian MacCulloch's vocals on Gorgeous's Moses had a Sumner-esque waver to them, serving to remind you of the previous album, Moses was much more of an earworm than any vocal on ex:el.

On ex:el, In Yer Face and Cubik landed with such a thump in the charts, their reverberations were felt for years. Gorgeous was softer somehow, more mature, and there was nothing that would obviously trouble the top ten. This was nice because it felt like my secret underground album: an eccentric collection of post-Balearic bangers (new)built especially for my CD player.

Gorgeous is great, and I have an affection for this album that's probably tied into my 1993 musical awakening. But I reckon I'm right. It's underrated. It might not have sultry lift music or James Dean Bradfield, but it's full of phat sounds. With a ph. And when people talk about pH scales, they're talking about science. Gorgeous is scientifically great.

I demand we reassess this album's status in the pantheon of techno history. Go up to that record counter. Feast on something gorgeous. Dribble all over the "card machine broken" signs and flyers for student club nights. Make sure the shop assistant knows you're serious. "I want gorgeous," you chant. "I want gorgeous. I WANT GORGEOUS." Recite this blog post as security bundle you onto the pavement outside.

You want Gorgeous. Say it. SAY IT.

Further Fats: A good week for old LPs - and if you say 'what's an LP', I'll set fire to your mp3 player (2008)

Further Fats: Zombie'ites! Going underground with Transglobal and Banco De Gaia (2017)

Zombie'ites! Going underground with Transglobal and Banco De Gaia

I'm off to see Transglobal Underground at Band on the Wall tonight. Their 1993 album 'Dream Of 100 Nations' has always been a favourite: full of forthright pan-Afrasian techno, and a great introduction into the world of Nation Records, Natasha Atlas, Loop Guru and Dreadzone. Fusion techno that's as agitated as it is celebratory.

Below, I've plopped down some YouTube embeds for you to listen to, all taken from that album.

Banco De Gaia is DJing too: his 'Last Train To Lhasa' album is a modern ambient masterpiece that, thanks to dreamy samples, changed the way I heard choo-choo trains forever. The same way The Orb made fluffy clouds magical for evermore.

Put aside your chores - grouting the cat can wait. Listen to Banco De Gaia's Kincajou below.

So much of my blogging seems to look back to the 1990s, and this post is no different: but I'm proper looking forward to seeing this lot right now in 2017. The world needs their trippy madness more than ever before.

Bleep Years day four: Loop Guru: Jungle A (1994)

Today's random year for Bleep Years is 1994, no doubt well before you were born, oh youthful reader.

1994: Loop Guru: Jungle A

If the early 1990s was about dance culture having co-genetical rumpy pumpy with other forms of music, then nobody did it better than Nation Records. The London label crunched world music with post-rave head-beats and in the process brought us Natacha Atlas, Asian Dub Foundation and Fun-Da-Mental (the label's founder). Nation fans from back in the day will also remember collaborations with Jah Wobble and Mercury-winner Talvin Singh.

They will also remember Loop Guru, a duo who took a less commercial path while others hippety-hopped up their tablas (a technical musical term - ahem - look it up). Loop Guru's Duyina is one of the most original debut albums of the decade, all twisted with short loops, transcendental spirituality and a straight-faced quirkiness that seemed to twin Asia with the hidden side of a distant, mysterious land.

The third album track Jungle A matched a lazy chant with a basic Soul II Soul beat and has probably risen to the bubbling surface of my brain most months since I received the album as a promo from Nation Records 18 years ago. The experimentation and uncommercial stubbornness of the track defined my musical taste many years to come. I was barely in my 20s and yet I was looped up for life.

Although they've not had much space on this blog before, Loop Guru became so important, I even named a radio feature after them last year. The track doesn't appear to be on YouTube so have a listen on Spotify: Loop Guru – Jungle A