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Serve fully chilled

Serve fully chilled

With The Orb and KLF heading off into unfathomable new territory at the start of the ‘90s, and the news that Pink Floyd were embarking on the farewell tour, Global Communication’s album ’76:14’ from 1994 filled a previously unchartered neverland of post Eno ambience and eerie Tangerine Dream meanderings that they’d all touched on in the previous decade. It was a brave move. The world was revolving around Nirvana, dance music was splintering and DJs Tom Middleton (check out his evocative ‘Trip’ triple CD on Family) and Mark Pritchard had been infiltrating dancefloors under a wealth of pseudonyms. It was a time when there seemed to be no natural order to music and perspective and distance were sought.

Middleton and Pritchard’s experiments took them way out there. ’76:14’ is like the soundtrack to a Bladerunner-styled landscape you’re conjuring up after too much cheese before bedtime, it’s ethereal, off kilter, music for the wee small hours and, like so many albums lurking in the vaults of Lost Tunes, a certified buried treasure.

Buried Treasure - The Cactus Album

The late ‘80s hip hop scene was a strange place to be. Long after the Sugarhill revolution and the success of Grandmaster Flash in 1982, the genre was one of extremes

Buried Treasure - The Cactus Album

The late ‘80s hip hop scene was a strange place to be. Long after the Sugarhill revolution and the success of Grandmaster Flash in 1982, the genre was one of extremes with pop rap courtesy of MC Hammer and eventually Vanilla Ice sitting uncomfortably next to the outspoken Chuck D and Public Enemy. In 1986, The Beastie Boys’ ‘Licensed To Ill’ had taken the genre to a new audience, adding guitar courtesy of Slayer’s Kerry King to their three-part rap, they appealed to a mixed race audience keen to embrace this new sub-culture. The Beastie Boys’ controversial stage shows set them up as pin ups and whipping boys for a generation, while Def Jam contemporaries, 3rd Bass, whose ‘The Cactus Album’ was released in 1989 were overlooked in the fervour. The Beastie’s, by then, had moved on to Capitol in the US much to 3rd Bass’s annoyance, they also railed against Hammer on this spectacular debut that was produced by The Bomb Squad, Prince Paul and Sam Sever. The album quickly gained cult status and the single, ‘Gas Face’, had MTV support and a cameo from PE’s Flavor Flav. However, the trio never received the accolades they deserved and the Beastie Boys’ even took a swipe at them on 1993’s ‘Professor Booty’, but by then 3rd Bass had already split up. ‘The Cactus Album’ is an essential album that still stands up today, with its tight mix reminiscent of Public Enemy and the raps of MC Serch and Prime Minister Pete Nice lifted by Richie Rich’s beats and breaks. 3rd Bass - The Cactus Album

Set the controls for the heart of the disco!

Perhaps, not surprisingly, Jean-Marc Cerrone sat behind the drum stool as his beaty brand of Euro disco took the world by storm in 1977. While there were knives in West 11 courtesy of The Clash and the Queen was enjoying her Jubilee, Cerrone’s third album, ‘Supernature’ became the air-punching anthem for silky short wearers and disco ladies all over the globe.

Set the controls for the heart of the disco!

The accompanying album sold eight million copies and set the benchmark for soulful grooves with a hint of sci fi sound effects that were the perfect soundtrack to accompany a planet who were thrilling to the beginning of the original Star Wars trilogy (little did they know it would go so dark). Cerrone’s mastery of the cutesy vocal and the incessant beat cemented his place in that timeless disco in the sky, where many a man has boldly gone since.