"A mind with no ceiling" (RIP Roy Ayers) (It's "Daylight" Raving Time!)

I love Roy Ayers...

But when I say that I mainly mean I love RAMP, a Roy Ayers Music Project composed of other musicians and singers, with Roy producing and co-writing the songs, mostly with Edwin Birdsong.

And when I say I love RAMP, I mainly mean "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" and the title track of their single solitary album Come Into Knowledge. 

And mainly, even more so, I love "Daylight". Love it to the bone, to the marrow.

In the main body of his work I've not found anything I like as much as this tune - which I must have played hundreds of times at this point. 

Nate White's bass alone is miraculous... those keyb chords.... the whole track glows, it's like glistening honeyed strands of sound cross-hatching and wrapping round your head.  

My gateway drug for "this kind of thing" - the less-Milesy, smoother end of fusion, where it turns into  jazz-funk - was of course jungle.  

Jungle paradoxically enabled me to build up a tolerance for this kind of mellow mystical-tinged sort of warm-glowing softness 'n' slickness - rather than the other way around.

And with "Daylight", it was this specific track that was the gateway. 

Roni Size and DJ Die and the Bristol lot did this rather often - take a slice out of a rare groove / jazz-funk tune and build up a whole track around it. 

Here's a non-Roy example: 

Which became

It's like a combination of zoom lens and time dilation - the Good Bit is so good, but also so almost thrown away in the original track, or at least rapidly left behind - the track just goes off somewhere completely different, never to return to the Good Bit... instead it develops and builds and is, you know, good-bitty all through in its own right (stellar cast of players, arranged and conducted by Bob James, in this case)  BUT, if you've heard "Music Box" first, then you can't help wondering why does it never go back to the Good Bit? You can't help pining for its return.  Sampling and looping the Good Bit speaks to our desire to arrest time, to make a golden moment last longer.

This mode of sampling and the listening mode that developed out of it - it's a sort of anti-jazz appreciation of jazz. It subverts all the propositions and principles of the original music, the very process that generates the Good Bits in the first place. The sampler chucks away the improvisation and variations around the theme: all the lyrical unfolding and "going somewhere" that happens with the melody and the chords. Instead, the sampler fixates on a isolated section that's cut out of developmental sequence: a cutting (stem is the word, they use, right, remixers -  appropriately horticultural perhaps but is that even the right term, given that there's something axiomatically inorganic about digital logic?). The isolated bit is fetishized for its textures and warm tone, a chord shift maybe, and just the exquisite lightness of touch - but it's removed from where those original human hands took it next. It becomes mechanistic - a loop. Uncanny as a GIF.  It works through flow / anti-flow.

The souljazz sample is like a plush bit of a carpet fabric, a little patch of luxury, that is excised from a larger patterned rug.  

I wonder if Roni + crew heard "Daylight" first as an element in "Bonita Applebum" by A Tribe Called Quest? (A group I've never really got into). 

Here's something I don't recall hearing before - A Guy Called Gerald versus A Guy Called Roy. 

It appears to be  the title track of The Sunshine EP from 1991 - was this ever properly released? 

3/12 update - answer provided by Ciaran in comments: 

Here's a track sampling Roy's own version of "Everybody Loves the Sunshine"  with that thin reedy ecstatic synth-line that 4 Hero and their aliases spent a lifetime chasing... 

Another external project that Roy had a hand-in as co-producer and co-writer is Sylvia Striplin, whose "You Can't Turn Me Away" is another "Daylight"-level favorite of mine. 

This has also been sampled - I think by 4 Hero (a tiny snippet of the blippety groove) and more famously by Junior M.A.F.F.I.A.

Oh and by Smokey Joe here

Great name, Striplin

She was once a member of the group Aquarian Dream....  which is very Roy Ayers-ish.

Did not know about Roy's team-up with Fela Kuti

Ah, well that's where 4 Hero got the name for their broken beat label 2000 Black, then...

Oh and then there was this team-up with the Man himself

This is where it breaks down for me, as something that holds the ear...  the sampling procedure produces the new.... but just trying to do fusion, to play like the 70s bods they revere, or play with them.... it's redundant.  It (re)covers historical ground already covered. And after peak junglizm, it can only sound like a depletion in intensity. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's funny that the transmitter of such positive vibes played as his principal instrument the vibraphone. 

SIZEable RESPECT

 

This 12-inch does have a tribute-ary relationship to the greater artist. 

Man at Discogs says it borrrows beatige from "Music Box".... but I hear more of a resemblance to "11.55" on this side

Ah this on the flip does have the "Music Box" feel about it  - that sort of skittery whirr - perhaps hence the apologetic title "Sorry" !

you could feel the tension

Was playing the 4 Hero / Scarface "Seen A Man Die" rmx  and the missus pipes up "this sounds like Last Poets"

I say, you want to hear an actual Last Poet does jungle track? 

Opening soundbite is from this Last Poets solo project Hustler's Convention by Lightnin' Rod aka Alafia Pudim aka Jalaluddin Mansur Nuriddin - soundbite located at 10.44 mins

I think the "Roll Out" version was my preferred mix by a whisker - but both Die & Size sides got played to def that almost-a-year we spent in Belsize Park in '94. Joy would have heard the bass rumblizm coming through the wall between our workspaces.

She recognised the tune instantly.

Such thick, dense, roiling, seething choppage! Moody, murky, maruading, menacing minimalism.  

That near-year in Belsize started with this beaut, which was getting near-constant play on the pirates in wintry early months of '94 

"that dream is over"

Fusion-ripplige sourced here

 

peace of mind piece of memory

one of those early 94, back in the UK (after living in NYC for 18 months) tracks that blew my mind - sounded so fragrant, so spring breezy on the pirates in January, February, March - listening in the kitchen in the Belsize Park flat

"Music Box" = my kind of jazz jungle - sparing

never thought til now to wonder where the sample is from




this one, from the same sort of time, another favorite with a similar vibe, but less chilled - more disjointed - a panicky bliss



but no one seems to know the sample sources

once, after we'd moved back to America,  so later into the Nineties, I was calling up some doctor's office or official building of some sort or other, and got put on hold - and then I heard it, as muzak - the original sample-source as used by Gappa G and Hyper Hypa!!!!  it got played over and over (they kept me waiting a long time)

but there was no way to find out then  - no Shazam

I think the Ron version was the mix that got the play and that I particularly loved but there were many others

Some rate the Bizzy B highly





Hyper Hyper getting remixed by Hype - could be confusing



Think there was some kind of double-pack, two 10-inches in a gatefold job maybe

ah i was right 

i have it but i'm not sure with the pic sleeve

now is this the original or the Ray Keith? (the labels got mixed up apparently)




This (people seem to agree) is the actual original original mix



it's great - only a notch behind the Ron version

And then this...



(there were also a bunch of later remixes i discover, from after the enshitenment of d&b, so with useless skitter beats underneath)

I don't know anything about Gappa G and Hyper Hypa

How interesting!

"DJ/Producers from Luton, UK. Played on Herts pirate radio station Perception FM." 


Luton - not far from where I grew up. Another Hertforshire/hardcorecontinuum connection (Omni in Hatfield, Moving Shadow in Stevenage, Source Direct / Photek in St Albans, others too I think)

Perception FM! Had no idea there was ever a Herts pirate -  I would have stayed up all night secretly at my parents, on visits back to Berko, to tape it, if I had known. 


They did loads of other tunes, Gappa and Hyper

This is the next best after "Information Centre"




But I came in with "Music Box"

What about its remixes?



Is that the only one? It's very subtle. I suppose how could you improve on perfection? (not that this has stopped umpteen remixers in any number of genres I suppose).

I must have got it only on CD (the last track on Drum & Bass Selection 1, that Breakdown comp)  because I have no recollection of its vinyl incarnation with this Krust tune on the flip

sub-lovers (feel so good feel so very good)

love the dreamy bit that starts at 2.19

whole thing is magic, consummate

think Sub-Love did a whole bunch of very solid tunes that never quite caressed the Sublime like that one

this one from the same EP - Twisted Techno - has a nice bit of (well-known) dub-sonar echo-bleep - that lurches out of the roots-sway into a Belgian pummel tunnel  - actually some very nice sections later  (one quite LFo) - yeah, scratch the first from-memory verdict: this is a classic tune, using best phases of the 90-91-92 surge, all merged together very effectively. ruff cut breaks and sidling bass-ooze



and the EP closer very effectively uses the same vocal-hypergasm from Blame/2 Bad Mice "Music Takes" but with a different stab-pattern



Okay, this is a solid-gold classic EP, the other three tracks just the barest smidge behind lead track "Hyperactive". This one is slightly pedestrian but does the job in 91 style.




Okay on to the next EP - One by One.

Title track



Yeah I remember this one - a bit "warbling bird wuthering on".  It's very similar to the Rhythm Section sound - as indeed are most of Sub-Love's tunes. And i seem to recall reading somewhere that Sub-Love did do PAs at big rave and were getting into that Rhythm Section rave-act live-draw zone.  Actually this is a more than solid  peak hour big tent rave anthem, with a riff in the middle that is genius  -  one of those itchy subdermal-swarming type timbre-tones that ignites the fever.

"Maniac Music" - more excellence - rattles along furiously and some rootical but frantic bass shaking the foundations. then the mad rummaging eurotekno-riff.  Good creepy-sexy processed android lover vocals. Then out of nowhere, a blissy Balearic piano



The rather plainly named "Drum and Bass Programme" is the most interesting track here with some mad swirling soundtrack-based riffs stirring up a tempestuous, Bronte-esque feeling - then it goes all rub-a-dubby. Special tune.



Seems their naming-tunes inspiration ran out before their making-tunes inspiration did, because the desultorily titled "D.J. Bonus" is actually a nifty little rumpus. This YouTube sourced off a very scratchy copy though.



Third EP "Underground"   completes a 1992 run of releases that adds up to a very fine 12 track album.

Darkness descending on "Underground" with some eerie chords, a vocoder voice, and a great shivery chatterer of a riff. This one is a bit like their equivalent to 4 Hero's "Journey to the Light". But i'm also think they were giving Hyper-on Experience a run for their money, in the maximalist quasi-orchestrated ardkore stakes.  Ooh gosh and then a chiller-thriller of a icicle stab. Throwing everything but the kitchen sink in - every trick to trigger your pleasure centers.



"Change My Ways" - really not sure about that prog-rock guitar flourish that kicks things off, and then it goes off in a very strange lurch-slam groove with a blaring vaguely elephantine sound - and the overall effect is bombastic rather than boombastic. But they are allowed one really peculiar tune by this point I think - and it's definitely an oddball offering.  Hits a nice chuddering-juddering groove midway - then some scratchage - and I'm reminded of DJ Trax and I'm thinking also this group should have been on Moving Shadow. There's that same peak-Shadow quality of absurd generosity, ideas being thrown out willy-nilly, tracks that go through multiple sections. This one seems to have about 11 segments to it!



"She Moves" - lithe 'n' writhy with some nice-nasty snaking teknoriffage




This is where the energy flags a bit... Cool use of creepy "you are sleeping, you do not want to believe" lady-sample (where have I heard that before?  Moon Wiring Club? Is it Madame Blavatsky or some Gurdjieffan biddy?) (no of course not, silly me, it's the lady at the start of The Smiths's "Rubber Ring" - and apparently from "Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead" a flexi-disc that came with the book that document Dr. Konstanine Raudive's research into the 'electronic voice phenomenon'!)... The rest is a bit pell-mell and untogether.

This 12 inch is listed after the three EPs on Discogs, but since a remix of the lead track on the 12 inch appears on the Twisted Techno EP, i'm assuming this is actually the debut single - also from 92 - especially as it has a bit of a fledgling, not-there-yet feel. Then the three EPs must have followed. Discogs not infallible shocker.



flipside


1993 and one last blast from Sub-Love - except it's a damp squib, the touchpaper soggy and unsparking  A sense of flinching from the full plunge into the darkside -  and perhaps a touch of vacillating, both-sides-of-fence taking on trance's clinical sheen. Worse though is that there's a misconceived and not-pulled-off-at-all go at writing an original song as in a sung song, rather than a track. And there's a proper vocal here - prey to all the thin-ness that often comes with those kind of moves in the H-zone.



And that was that- until 2011 when Sublogic put out some unreleased tunes as two pricey slabs o'vinyl





"Coherent Flow" is an amusing title









One of these  Sublogic reissue / first-time-issue ardkival tunes did actually have had some kind of very limited white label release at the time - uncredited, but by the group's main man, Jody Wisternoff



Pretty cool that one and nice use of the Lennon or is it Ferry "Jealous Guy" as rave-trigger - "i began to lose control".

Overall though the material on the two Sublogic issues - as you'd expect given this stuff didn't get a release the first time round -  does fit  my first spoke-too-soon verdict at the start: that everything apart from "Hyperactive" was "good but nowhere near as good". Still it adds up to near enuff a whole other LP's worth of solid tuneage  - stuff that will please those with an insatiable appetite for "this kind of thing".  

(By the way, there seems to be little consensus or consistency about how to spell the group's name - on the early record labels it's rendered either as Sublove  (or SUBLOVE) as if all one word OR as Sub-Love. On Discogs, they do it as Sub Love. But on the Sublogic releases, it's Sub-Love.


Oh one more thing - Kniteforce put out the Legacy EP,  a remastered selection, with remixes by other legends like Liquid and Hyper-On Experience, and which includes an unreleased original mix of "One by One"




Now I knew there was a fact buried in my brain that was nagging away at me... something about what Sub Love became... or what came out of them...

The other dude in the group, present on the first couple of those EPs of '92 is one Daniel Kausman - later known as DJ Die.

Well that is a pretty excellent thing to have done, or been - a mainstay of a top outfit in two very different stages of the nuum.

For these are some of my all time favorite jungle tunes





And he was part of Reprazent as well, right? Not too shabby, not too shabby at all.

And then Wisternoff - again I knew this, but forgot it - was the main man behind Way Out West, a more pop dance proposition with a breaksy element. I can't remember any of their tunes but they did pretty well I seem recall in that boom-era of second-half-Nineties ukdance.