Friday, June 14, 2019

this is what yalla been waiting for



this is what i been waiting for - waiting a bloody long time to identify this long-tantalising mystery tune offa my pirate tapes

stumbled upon its identity quite by chance a few days ago

"The Most High" is on the same EP as this classic



more on the elusive Wots My Code in a post to come...

7 comments:

Charlie w said...

Dubplate, perhaps the greatest one hit wonder in Nuum history. The lead riff is almost the perfect encapsulation of the London ravescene in the early 90s, but made by Oxfordians! And Wot's my Code is a brilliant, brilliant name, amongst a genre that had many amazing producers monikers.

SIMON REYNOLDS said...

yeah with that and the "this is what yalla bin waiting for" tune, that is two immortal tunes to their credit. not bad for such a short lived outfit. i was wondering if they were from Oxford on account of the tune with Oxford in the title!

great name true - no apostrophe in the Wot's though! Wots My Code - even better!

Charlie w said...

Ha! Never clocked the lack of an apostrophe. Yes, it is even better without it.

Would love to hear if you have any thoughts on the main riff that comes in at 1.06 on Dublate. It's always spoken to me deeply as something almost ineffable, something that captured that beautiful, short lived moment. An acknowledgement about the power of Ecstacy in helping create this movement but how it's time to move on, grow up and reflect something more "real" but still powered by those lessons learned from Ecstacy. I don't know, perhaps it's best leaving it as ineffable!

SIMON REYNOLDS said...

yeah it's a great riff - sort of a throwback to house of just a few years earlier, i guess

it reminds me of a bit of 'house is a feeling' thing in Cloud 9 / Nookie-Ray Keith 'You Got me burning up' - which perhaps has the same message: it all started with house music, let's never forget - and never forget (as you say) what Ecstasy showed us, in terms of a dream of a better way. it becomes a sort of secular gospel - the Promised Land, which we actually visited for a while, even if it's impossible to live there.

when i interviewed Navigator in 96 or 97, for Energy Flash, he said this thing that stayed with me which was that jungle started with house music. i didn't use it in Energy Flash but when 2step happened, i remembered it, and connected to the diva thing running through the whole of the continuum. the uplifting female vocal (sometimes male, but usually female) - something which never completely goes away (well it did with techstep, with neurofunk) but even in the darkest rawest 93 stuff you always had some divas in there, and even during the ragga-jungle heights there'd be souly vocals in anthems like 'The Burial Tune' or things like Da Intalex

i like the idea of jungle (and all the sounds that follows) as this music of multiple ancestries, and at various points it chooses to stress one in particular as if it really was The Origin - like Jamaica, or old skool hip hop - but the other ancestries always reassert themselves at some point.

i spoke to Navigator incidentally at his workplace, which was a jewellers - i think it might even have been in or near Hatten Garden - it was like the workshop, in back, so not glitzy at all, a place of graft and craft - i was slightly surprised that a top MC would need a day job

SIMON REYNOLDS said...

after mentioning Da Intalex and wanting to hear "What You Gonna Do" and then remembering that Marcus Intalex had died, i looked him up and saw this:

"Kaye began as a House DJ."

Charlie w said...

https://youtu.be/F1Hwuu0V9Ak

In this video to promote his new album, Navi goes back to that same Hatton Gardens jewellers

SIMON REYNOLDS said...

no way! amazing.