Various Artists
Royalties Overdue
Mo' Wax
Melody Maker, June 18 1994
by Simon Reynolds
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Headz 2
(Mo Wax)
Village Voice, 1996 (remixed slightly for Faves of 1996)
by Simon Reynolds
In the age of compilation gigantism, Headz 2 dramatically ups the ante. Mo
Wax's latest anthology consists of not one but two separately sold double-CD's (or two quadruple albums, boxed like Wagner's Parsifal), which contain nearly five-and-a-half hours of music spanning not just trip hop but leading innovators in drum & bass, techno, art-rap and electronica. Before I even saw these dauntingly oversize collections in the stores, I was put off by the air of hubris and self-congratulatory connoisseurship hanging over the project. When I saw them, the deluxe vinyl sets instantly reminded me of those calfskin-bound, gilt-inlaid editions of Dickens (sold through mail-order ads that appeal to "your unstinting pride"), which remain unread on the shelf but testify to an
interest in being cultured. In Headz case, the word is subcultured.
Despite their garish abstrakt covers, the vinyl Headz also resemble headstones,
perhaps because Mo Wax supremo James Lavelle has herein constructed a kind of mausoleum of late '90s "cool". Appropriately, the music itself is sombre and
subdued, mostly cleaving to the trip hop noir norm: torpid breakbeats, entropic
sub-bass, dank dub reverb. (When it comes to non-junglistic breakbeats, give me the rowdy, rockist furore of the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and their amyl brethren, any day). The same Mo Wax kiss-of-def that resulted in Luke Vibert's only uninteresting release to date affects contributions from the likes of Danny Breaks, whose abandons his normal hyper-kinaesthetics for the idling headnooding tempo of "Science Fu Beats". (Perking the track up to 45 r.p.m improves this, and several other tracks, considerably).
Mo Wax belong to what you might call the "good music society", or more
precisely, they belong to a specific "good music society" which dates back to
the "eclectic" list of influences on Massive Attack's "Blue Lines" (wherein PiL,
Mahavishnu Orchestra, Isaac Hayes and Studio One coexisted in smug
self-congratulation). The sensibility is pure fusion: "it's all music, man",
"what kind of music don't I like? -- just bad music!". Every area of music has
it own "good music society", its little cabal of cognoscenti, what Kevin Martin
calls the "taste police": Junior Boys Own for deep house, Creation (in the late
Eighties at least) for leather-trousered rock, Grand Royal for white American
B-boyism. Each maintains a canon of cool, and as with all canons, what is
excluded is as significant as what is included. What is excluded tends to be
both the vibrantly vulgar and the genuinely extremist/out-there: neither The
Sweet nor Stockhausen make it. (Although Pierre Henry, bizarrely, has been
canonised --as a pioneer of E-Z listening alongside Jean-Jacques Perrey!!!).
Headz 2
(Mo Wax)
Village Voice, 1996 (remixed slightly for Faves of 1996)
by Simon Reynolds
In the age of compilation gigantism, Headz 2 dramatically ups the ante. Mo
Wax's latest anthology consists of not one but two separately sold double-CD's (or two quadruple albums, boxed like Wagner's Parsifal), which contain nearly five-and-a-half hours of music spanning not just trip hop but leading innovators in drum & bass, techno, art-rap and electronica. Before I even saw these dauntingly oversize collections in the stores, I was put off by the air of hubris and self-congratulatory connoisseurship hanging over the project. When I saw them, the deluxe vinyl sets instantly reminded me of those calfskin-bound, gilt-inlaid editions of Dickens (sold through mail-order ads that appeal to "your unstinting pride"), which remain unread on the shelf but testify to an
interest in being cultured. In Headz case, the word is subcultured.
Despite their garish abstrakt covers, the vinyl Headz also resemble headstones,
perhaps because Mo Wax supremo James Lavelle has herein constructed a kind of mausoleum of late '90s "cool". Appropriately, the music itself is sombre and
subdued, mostly cleaving to the trip hop noir norm: torpid breakbeats, entropic
sub-bass, dank dub reverb. (When it comes to non-junglistic breakbeats, give me the rowdy, rockist furore of the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and their amyl brethren, any day). The same Mo Wax kiss-of-def that resulted in Luke Vibert's only uninteresting release to date affects contributions from the likes of Danny Breaks, whose abandons his normal hyper-kinaesthetics for the idling headnooding tempo of "Science Fu Beats". (Perking the track up to 45 r.p.m improves this, and several other tracks, considerably).
Mo Wax belong to what you might call the "good music society", or more
precisely, they belong to a specific "good music society" which dates back to
the "eclectic" list of influences on Massive Attack's "Blue Lines" (wherein PiL,
Mahavishnu Orchestra, Isaac Hayes and Studio One coexisted in smug
self-congratulation). The sensibility is pure fusion: "it's all music, man",
"what kind of music don't I like? -- just bad music!". Every area of music has
it own "good music society", its little cabal of cognoscenti, what Kevin Martin
calls the "taste police": Junior Boys Own for deep house, Creation (in the late
Eighties at least) for leather-trousered rock, Grand Royal for white American
B-boyism. Each maintains a canon of cool, and as with all canons, what is
excluded is as significant as what is included. What is excluded tends to be
both the vibrantly vulgar and the genuinely extremist/out-there: neither The
Sweet nor Stockhausen make it. (Although Pierre Henry, bizarrely, has been
canonised --as a pioneer of E-Z listening alongside Jean-Jacques Perrey!!!).
Bonus hateration
The return of WANKLE
(from Retromania blog)
The first was bad enough - so I guess I'd assumed that that would have been it
But no, no, they persisted after Psyence Fiction (yuk wot a title) - there's something like FIVE subsequent UNKLE albums!
And what's worse is that they get increasingly rocky, involving such as Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age
Like Lavelle started buying into this really naff idea of rock rebellion and intensity and authenticity
Like a less tastefully executed version of the Death in Vegas approach - a studio assembled simulacrum of rock, without the actual rhythmic engine of band-energy powering it
I guess it shows the odd lingering prestige of rock - and especially the punk strand within rock - as the ultimate stand-in for rebellion and individuality, which continues to exert its thrall over people who've come up through hip hop or dance music, and whose creative procedures are radically different
For some reason deep in their hearts their burning desire seems to be to collaborate with Noel Gallagher (as with Goldie circa Saturnz Returnz on "Temper Temper") or Pete Doherty or somebody like that, despite being light-years ahead sonically of those guys.
Give this a butchers if you fancy a cringadelic experience
The other thing I gleaned from the doc - and Lavelle's embrace of rockism - was that he'd managed to convince himself that being a curator really is the same as being a creator - that's there's really nothing to writing songs, creating a distinctive band-sound, a band-voice.
All you need is some famous pals, and some connections - and taste, and attitude
Simply convening the ingredients would somehow generate vibe in itself, hey presto, through the magic of chutzpah
Wrong!
Hubris 101: not knowing your limits, the nature of what you are actually good at (in his case, arguably at any rate, branding, packaging, spotting talent in others i.e. Shadow, Krush, building a buzz)
Yet despite this, UNKLE is still going - there's a new album out soon - The Road: Part II/Lost Highway - a "filmic" affair whose cast includes the Clash’s Mick Jones, Dhani Harrison, Editors’ frontman Tom Smith, The Duke Spirit’s Leila Moss, Mark Lanegan, Keaton Henson, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Jon Theodore and Troy Van Leeuwen, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds vocalist Ysée, Brian Eno collaborator Tessa Angus, producers Justin Stanley and Chris Goss, BOC, spoken-word contributions from legendary Scottish actor Brian Cox, and more
First single
Press release:
“Once you have walked the road, everything becomes clear,” says Elliott Power on the Prologue to the sixth album from genre-bending pioneers UNKLE. ‘The Road: Part II / Lost Highway’ is the sound of an artist forever in transit on life’s journey of discovery.
“My work has always had an eclectic essence and soundtrack-influence in its structure,” says Lavelle. “If you go through the back catalogue, there’s a continuity between the motion and the ambition of the sound. Ideally, you’re constantly collaging and sampling elements of what’s relevant at the time to create something new.
“Now, there’s a lot more freedom. When I first started, the walls between genres in front of you were a lot greater to climb. We’re at a much more open-minded and eclectic place with music now.”
"I started doing a show on Soho Radio last year, which made me think about playing records in a different way,” says Lavelle of his life after ‘Part I’. “It wasn’t about trying to make people dance in a nightclub. It was a breath of fresh air, and about playing a more eclectic mix. ‘The Road Part 2’ was made in the same way – it’s a mixtape and a journey. You’re in your car, starting in the day and driving into the night. The language of it was for it to be the ultimate road trip.
He continues: “It’s the mid-part of a trilogy. The first record is like you’re leaving home; you’re naive and trying to discover. There are elements of my early days in there, as well as a bit of everything since. There’s an optimism and excitement to it, as there was with me having to direct this project alone for the first time.
“This record is the journey. You’re on the road, out there in the world. There are let downs, highs, lows, love, loss and experiences. The third record to come is basically about coming home; wherever that may be."
With the album split into two acts each with a beginning, a middle and end, the trips from light to dark, from brute force to tenderness make for both the full arc of the adventure and suites to be enjoyed separately. It’s a bold, assured and confident collection – from the Americana of ‘Long Gone’, to the Kanye West ‘Black Skinhead’ - inspired ‘Nothing To Give’, the alt-orchestral rush of ‘Only You’ to the guitar-heavy mantra of ‘Crucifixion/A Prophet’ and the electronic child’s lullaby of ‘Sun (The)’ – via covers of ‘The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face’ made famous by Roberta Flack and the ‘guilty pleasure’ of the euphoric ‘Touch Me’ by Rui Da Silva. Helping to travel further down the myriad avenues of UNKLE’s sound are the full spectrum of collaborators and guests.
‘The Road: Part II/Lost Highway’ welcomes The Clash’s Mick Jones, Dhani Harrison, Editors’ frontman Tom Smith, The Duke Spirit’s Leila Moss, Mark Lanegan, Keaton Henson, Queens Of The Stone Age’s Jon Theodore and Troy Van Leeuwen, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds vocalist Ysée, Brian Eno collaborator Tessa Angus, producers Justin Stanley and Chris Goss, BOC, Philip Sheppard and artist John Isaac among others – as well as spoken-word contributions from legendary Scottish actor Brian Cox (who used to be Lavelle’s landlord) and Stanley Kubrick’s widow Christiana, who leant her trust and voice to Lavelle following his acclaimed exhibition to the seminal director. The two names who crop up most throughout the record however are rising West London singer and producer Miink and experimental rapper Elliott Power.
“They’re just both so incredibly talented, and everything I love about London right now,” says Lavelle. “I’ve been playing a lot with going back to sampling and going back to certain aesthetics from when I was first buying records and DJing, then to mix that with something contemporary. They’ve helped me create this ‘Bladerunner meets London Soundsystem’ kind of vibe.”
But then, Lavelle has always been an artist as inspired by the past as he was racing towards the future.
“The way that things are now are what we were always doing with Mo’Wax,” says Lavelle. “The legacy was that we broke down barriers, took down everything culturally-lite and put it into something. Now street culture is the predominant visual culture of the world. It’s mad to think that Supreme is more popular and recognised than Louis Vuitton. Every major label and rapper is making sneakers and toys. At the time it was seen as vanity and gimmicky, but look at the way culture is now. That’s what we started.”
The striking artwork of the hooded knight that adorns the sleeve on 'Lost Highway' is by celebrated artist John Stark – renowned for drawing upon magical realism and using the more mystical elements of the past to reveal something profound about the present.
"It’s about the yin and yang, night and day, the rolling journey," says Lavelle of the artwork. "Here's a Ronin-like, lone warrior. It represents what it means for me to be going out into the world and finding myself."
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