In the 1990s, one producer excelled all others in seizing upon a spanking brand new sound concept that many others have since tried tirelessly to emulate. His name is not Sean Combs, "Mutt" Lange, John McEntire, Steve Albini, or even the RZA. You could argue that the honor of defining a decade should go to Prince Paul, but that skit thing just pisses me off now. Sure, it worked on Three Feet High and Rising but give it a rest, people! My huge shout of hearty praise for shaping the musical landscape of this decade goes to Andrew Weatherall.
It was Weatherall's remix of the lame, floppy-fringed Primal Scream dirge "I'm Losing More Than I've Ever Had" that broke dance culture out from the warehouses and into the great wide cultural open. Weatherall's remix of that track was so radically different from the source material that the band retitled the track "Loaded" and the indie-led dance boom burst forth on a generation raised on Sherbet Dib-Dabs, a clipped ear for being insolent, and the highest quality tabs of ecstasy.
In the fallout from "Loaded," record labels signed up any DJ for mixing duties who knew one fader from another. Some have fallen by the wayside-- who here remembers Dean Thatcher?-- others went onto other forms of greatness. But the fusion of indie rock and dance has never waned. The Manic Street Preachers still cadge mixes from the Chemical Brothers, as do the Charlatans UK. And the recent success of Super Furry Animals is directly attributable to Weatherall's pioneering.
Don't think that Weatherall got the remixing gig by accident. He'd been assiduously garnering a following for his DJ sets at the seminal London Balearic and acid house club Shoom where he'd enthrall clubbers (luv'd up on pure MDMA) with his mix of DJ Pierre and the Clash. So after Bobby Gillespie and his troop discovered that this alchemist could rip up their sub-Byrdsian jangle into an anthem for the ecstasy generation, Weatherall didn't have to worry about when the next pay check was coming in. Every record company wanted to cop a feel of the man's greatness.
Weatherall conjured up classic after classic, such as his mix of the Grid's "Floatation," which remains one of the most sublime of Balearic 12"s, and his dusted-up take on "Abandon" by This Petrol Emotion. His re-casing of James made that sad Mancunian band a vital listen and his spin on Bjork's "One Day" remains a highlight of her career.
Weatherall became a major player in the Boys Own production camp and fanzine and went onto produce Primal Scream's mind-blowingly graceful Screamadelica album and its cheaper date sister, One Dove's Morning White Dove. The latter could have surpassed Screamadelica in beauty had London Records not interfered and brought in pop-dance shite-hawker Stephen "I Ruined New Order" Hague to provide the beancounters with radio-friendly pop singles.
Realizing he was becoming an overexposed remixer du jour, Weatherall went underground. Would that Junior Vasquez and Peter Rauhoffer had similar integrity! Weatherall founded the Sabres of Paradise label and studio project and sought to mesh his predilection for urban fear with skunk-fuelled hip-hop and dub. Sabresonic can boast one of the finest remixes of all time-- David Holmes' acidic percussion workout of "Smokebelch" more than rebuffs any criticism that remixing is just a waste of time and marketing budget (which in many cases it is). Holmes became a part of the Sabres system and his breath- taking debut album This Film's Crap, Let's Slash the Seats teams him up with Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns of the Sabres of Paradise.
Weatherall wittily located his Sabresonic club in a disused railway arch under London Bridge station, the area best known as the former prowling ground of Jack the Ripper. Weatherall would DJ his dubby hip-hop before guest DJs like Dr. Alex Paterson would knock clubbers out of their stoned groove with cyborg blasts such as Abfahrt's "Come Into My Life" (imagine the Band as a German hard techno act-- I gasp every time I hear this tune).
Sabresonic (the album) was followed by Haunted Dancehall on which Weatherall pushed into prominence his love of Jamaican musical styles (reference "Wilmot" and "Theme" if you think I'm crazy). He layed down the blueprint for big beat ("Tow Truck") in addition to producing skeletal techno similar to the ossified forms that Plastikman was putting out at the same time.
Before long, Weatherall killed of the Sabres of Paradise, the Sabresonic club, and established the short-lived Emissions labels. But more lastingly, he teamed up with former Emissions engineer Keith Tenniswood; the phoenix rose majestic once again as Two Lone Swordsman.
The duo's debut album, The Fifth Mission: Return to the Flightpath Estate, is a slo-mo groove terrorist, ninja-trained to sneak up on the listener and stick in the blade. The fact that the Two Lone Swordsmen sustain our interest over a double CD is surely a testament to Weatherall's complete mastery of atmosphere, self-control, and above all, narrative. The Two Lone Swordsmen project works as (caution: overused critic's standby phrase approaching) a soundtrack to an unfilmed movie. The Fifth Mission is an existentially paranoid south London yakuza flick.
Weatherall and Tenniswood released two album-length EPs in the aftershock of The Fifth Mission (Swimming Not Skimming and Stockwell Steppas) but both were limited releases and became woefully unavailable when the Emissions labels folded. Two Lone Swordsmen finally signed to Warp in the UK, where the duo sit at the head table with Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Plaid, and the Boards of Canada. In the US, Matador picked them up, and over here the Two Lone Swordsmen find themselves sharing a hugely diverse trough with the likes of Yo La Tengo, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and Cat Power.
But Stay Down should be more than sufficient to deter you from buying a Guitar Wolf b-sides compilation, or it may just get you out of that bearably ceaseless Belle and Sebastian slump. It's less skunky than its predecessors and more of an electroid groove. And if that's not enough to sell you, Matador's also tacked on an additional five tracks from the Warp-issued A Bag of Blue Sparks EP. These five tracks proudly showcase Weatherall's knack for distilling truly funky elements with an avantish twist. So "Sticky" and "Gay Spunk" could easily satisfy a Fatboy-wearied house party crowd while techno trainspotters can do backflips at having obtained the original version of "Black Commandments" (remixed by Jega as "Unity Gain" on his Spectrum LP).
If Stay Down isn't the next big leap in the rolling evolution of techno, it's at least a consolidation of Weatherall's long-lauded and thoroughly well-deserved position as visionary producer and audio alchemist. And if he's staying down now, he'll be up for air soon. I'm holding my breath on this one.
