Medicine 8 – The ‘Ransom Note’ Mix

 
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Music
 

Medicine 8 are back.

The project of brothers Liam and Luke May started around 30 years ago in their South London stomping ground.

Their sound, which blended electro and acid house with rock sensibilities, saw the pair release a healthy string of records all the way through to the late noughties, along with a handful of remixes for the likes of Orbital, Manic Street Preachers, Nirvana and pop royalty Kylie Minogue.

 

Medicine 8 has been lying dormant over the last decade but Liam and Luke have been keeping themselves busy in the interim. As well as running Trashmouth Records – the label responsible for bringing you Fat White Family, MEATRAFFLE and Warmduscher – the pair have been keeping the hardware dream alive with Decius, the sleazy acid house outfit they founded alongside Paranoid London’s Quinn Whalley and Lias Saudi, long running label mate and frontman of the Fat Whites.

In April the duo marked their first new music since 2016 with a remix of May Lavie’s ‘The Poem’ for our R$N sub-label Human Endeavour. The request from label boss Rosie Ama has now jerked the project back into action and, since the release of the remix, the pair have got back in the studio under the moniker and are now giving Decius tracks a Medicine 8 make over. Looks like this won’t be the last we’ll be seeing of the project…

To celebrate their triumphant return, boy have we got a treat for you. Luke and Liam have kindly put together a two-hour long 100% Medicine 8 production mix, packed with tracks from the archive, unreleased music, banging remixes and new releases…

Please introduce yourself… Who are you, where are you and what are you

We are Medicine 8 aka & Liam & Luke May & aka Decius & we’re in South London

What does your music sound like? Can you draw what you think it sounds like for us (an image from the old internet is acceptable)?

Hmm, never been great with this question… We’re musicians, not journalists! However, I do vaguely remember answering a similar question about 25 years ago & I’m pretty sure we said we sound like Ren & Stimpy. So let’s keep it consistent.

 
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Where was the mix recorded?

Trashmouth Studios

What would be the ideal setting to listen to the mix?

A party in your living room, when you’re too broke to actually go out, but not too broke to make it a party

What should we be wearing?

Something loose, with vents.

What would be your dream setting to record a mix: Location/system/format?

If we could go back in time it would be at our favourite club in New York – Filter 14, where Clams Baker (now the frontman of Warmduscher & Paranoid London) was the promoter. It was a black box with a sound system that was meant for a club about 6 times the size. And preferably someone would record it without telling us, so we didn’t have to think about it…

Which track in the mix is your current favourite?

In all honesty, have to say the two newest ones – the remix of “The Poem” by May Lavie & the dub remix of “I Gave Birth 2 U”. We weren’t planning on making any new music as Medicine 8 now that we’re doing Decius, but since Rosie at Human Endeavour Records asked us to do a remix, we’re really getting into it

What’s your favourite recorded mix of all time?

A Daniele Baldelli Cosmic Club mix that we had since 1991 on an unmarked cassette. For years & years we had no idea who did it or where it came from. It was just left at a friends house at an afterparty & we nicked it & listened to it incessantly, all the while wondering who it was, until a fella called Nathan Gregory Wilkins introduced us to his stuff & we twigged that it could ONLY have been him that made it. . . This one’s not online as far as I can see & it’s a bit later than most of the mixes that are out there. It’s got a slowed down KLF record & a bit of slowed down MC Kinky on it somewhere too & it’s totally out there. Been meaning to upload it to YouTube sometime, just haven’t got round to it yet

If you could go back to back with any DJ from throughout history, who would it be and why?

Thinking about all those mixes from the Cosmic Club, I’ve always kind of been transported in my head when listening to them and tried to really imagine what it would’ve been like to be there, so maybe that one. Although somewhere like that, we’d probably just end up going out on the dancefloor and leaving the man to it…

What was your first DJ set up at home and what is it now?

Pair of Soundlab rubber band belt drive decks and a cheap 2 channel mixer with a cross-fader. Now we’ve just got a standard pioneer setup. There’s not a lot of point in us using vinyl to DJ with – our sets are entirely made up of our own stuff & loads of it is unreleased/work in progress & edits that we’ve made of things just to play in sets, so very little of it committed to vinyl and it’s good the have the flexibility to keep changing things.

What’s more important, the track you start on or the track you end on?

Depends where you’re playing in the night, doesn’t it? I guess most often the last track, but then in a big festival tent you can sink or swim on the first track. We learned this lesson the hard way a couple of times early on…

What were the first and last records you bought?

First record – Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam & The Ants. Last record – didn’t actually buy it, but it’s the favourite so far out of a pile of vinyl our Mum’s friend left us that we were going through the other day – eponymously titled debut album by Asha Puthli from 1973.

If this mix was an edible thing, what would it taste like?

Mangoes – some of them ripe, some with a bit of a tang

If it was an animal what would it be?

Cross between a grouchy Chihuahua & a red cat with a blue nose

One record in your collection that is impossible to mix into anything?

Don’t know, but one of the unreleased tracks in the mix – “I Like To Phone” was a pain in the arse to mix out of. We used to play it out all the time & don’t remember it being like that at all…

Upcoming in the world of…

We’re working on a series of Decius reworks & edits of our debut album Iron Stylings. Might possibly even do the whole lot. But the main event is the recording of Decius Vol III, which we’re just getting started on now.

Anything else we need to discuss?

Yeah, we’ve got loads of Decius Live shows & festivals coming up all over the place and a full UK tour to be announced very soon too.

Buy Dancefloor Designs on Human Endeavour Records.

Tracklist
1. Orbital featuring David Gray – Illuminate (Medicine 8 Remix)
2. Par-T-One – Vs INXS – I’m So Crazy (Medicine 8 Remix)
3. Medicine 8 – Universal Personal
4. Decius – I Gave Birth 2 U (Medicine 8 Dub Mix)
5. Medicine 8 – Mercury Injection (Johnny Aux Edit)
6. David James (Always) A Permanent Sate (Medicine 8 Remix)
7. May Lavie – The Poem (Medicine 8 Remix)
8. I Monster – Daydream In Blue (Medicine 8 Remix)
9. Medicine 8 – Donuts, Prozak
10. Medicine 8 – In The Swirling Foam (Unreleased)
11. Organic Audio – Nurega (Medicine 8 Remix)
12. Glass Diamond – Girls & Boys (Medicine 8’s Dub-Street Dub Mix)
13. Medicine 8 – Monkey With You
14. X-press 2 – I Want You Back (Medicine 8 Remix)
15. Love of Tainted Acid – Medicine 8
16. Medicine 8 – 50 Love
17. Medicine 8 – I Like 2 Phone (Unreleased)
18. Medicine 8 – Rock Music Pays Off
19. Medicine 8 – Ape Don’t Kill Ape
20. Medicine 8 – Love In Knotts (Medicine 8’s EOTW Mix)
21. Medicine 8 – Speaking Music, Fucking Music
22. Medicine 8 – Bone Of Her Hand
23. Medicine 8 – Cry Baby (Acid Dub Mix) (Unreleased)
24. Gus Gus – David (Medicine 8 Remix)
25. Medicine 8 – Big Dick In The Room
26. Medicine 8 – Junior Aspirin
27. Manic Street Preachers – Ocean Spray (Medicine 8 Remix)
28. Medicine 8 – Kim Chi 45
29. Medicine 8 – Love Shadow
30. Medicine 8 – Mystery Murdered
31. Medicine 8 – Gimme Special Thrills