Influences: Jimpster

This is song that defines my very first experiences of going out to dance, albeit to the school disco at about 5pm in the afternoon at the ripe old age of eleven. You know the kind of thingboys all standing around the outside of the dance floor, occasionally shoving one of your mates into where the girls are doing some kind of line-dancing routine to this track. This is 1983 and I was in the first year of secondary school, just getting hooked on breakdancing which was so important for me as it not only introduced me to some amazing music outside of the pop charts but was also a way to feel slightly less awkward at the school disco once I managed to get a few basics moves down.

This LP from Morgan Geist dropped in 1997 a year after we had started Freerange. I’d been listening to much more drum and bass and trip hop around this time so when I heard this it was a real breath of fresh air and re-ignited my interest in minimal, jazzy, techno. There seemed to be a new wave of heavily jazz-influenced techno LP’s coming out from the likes of Kirk Degiorgio and Ian O’brien which joined a lot of dance between the different electronic music scenes. I saw Morgan play a live-set around this time in London and remember being blown away by it too.

This was the first LP which I remember listening to over and over literally hundreds of times in a row over the period of a few weeks. It must have been during the summer holidays of ’85 as I remember playing Spy Hunter on my ZX Spectrum and having the LP on in the background and just never getting bored of it. This particular track has a wonderful tropical feel along with deep, lush chords and some crazy FX and sampling. Pure bliss from the genius mind of Trevor Horn.

Those beats, that moody synth line, those chiming sine waves, then after 5 minutes in comes a mutant breakbeat that sounds like it’s been beamed down from outer space. Like many of the Detroit heavyweights it’s the way Carl Craig always injects so much funk into his machines that makes him such an innovator and someone I always looked up to as a novice producer just starting out.

Here’s another amazing LP track from the mid-80’s which I remember being completely obsessed with. I was already becoming more and more interested in synths and programming beats and the stunningly beautiful chords and synth programming from Richard Barbieri were very inspirational for me. Incidentally I would later become friends and get to play together with Richard during my time in the live outfit The Bays which seemed unreal with him having made such an impact on me from this LP and his time in the band Japan.

As the early 90’s rave scene in the UK exploded and the music seemed to get harder and faster, KLF came up with the perfect antidote in the form of their ambient masterpiece Chill Out. Their LP Space was equally as wonderful but the trippyness of Chillout, along with the segued, continuous mix tracks and random use of samples from Elvis Presley to farmyard sheep and Tuvan throat singing made it an LP that I’d keep coming back to and must have listened to a 100 times. Mostly cruising around the country lanes of Essex in my mates Triumph Acclaim.

I really loved his Mr Fingers LP Introducing but whereas that had a much more polished, poppy sheen, Sceneries Not Songs from 1994 really appealed to me because of it’s more basic approach and the fact that it’s all instrumental. Even though I’d never come close to Larry’s delicate melodies and simple harmonies it felt to me like this kind of simple production and almost naive and playful sound was within my grasp with the studio equipment and keyboard skills I had at my disposal.

I bought this record in 1992 and it was probably one of the tracks that made me realise I was far more enamoured with the deeper house sounds of New York and New Jersey than all the crazy breakbeat releases which were taking over the raves in Essex and London. I was starting to get offered some local DJ gigs and this track was a kind of template in terms of the sound I would try and base my sets on. Inevitably, this meant playing more in back rooms and chill out areas but I was more than happy to be getting out and playing. Nathaniel X is one of the guys behind this production and I still love all his releases to this day and even his current tracks are deep, raw and full of attitude proving that if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it!

A list of my influences wouldn’t be complete without a bit of Herbie. I remember being about 6 or 7 years of age and loving looking at the sleeve of the record in my Dad’s collection. I never even played it at the time but just loved looking at the neon VU meter alien head and thinking how awesome it looked. Later on I’d become obsessed with the music too of course! But for now I want to include his track Raindance which still sounds like it could have been made yesterday or in 50 years time! The use of the ARP2600 for the crazy rhythmic ring-mod synth percussion really compliments the amazing musicianship and I’ve always been drawn to this fusion of man and machine.

Around ’87 and ’89 I had an older friend who was collecting a lot of amazing music and made some great mix tapes. Very eclectic, mainly weird electronic stuff, dub, early house, industrial and some hip hop. He introduced me to so much great music and I’ll always be indebted to him (shout out to Nick Hamilton!) but Adrian Sherwood’s incredible On-U Sound label and the myriad collectives, collaborations and off-shoots made the biggest impact on me. Albums from the likes of Dub Syndicate, African Headcharge and this one from Singers & Players opened me up to dub music in general as the minimal production and crazy sonic trickery drew me in in a similar way to the electro of the early to mid-80’s.