Two Lone Swordsmen
Stay Down
[Warp/Matador]
Rating: 9.3
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.
-Paul Cooper