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For the uninitiated, Chords & Promoe are affiliates of Loop Troop, a massively popular outfit in their home land of Sweden. This remix was being considered as a B Side for a UK release of one of their EPs on Jazz Fudge shortly before the label closed its doors for the last time. I got clearance from Warner Brothers Europe to release this as a UK only 7inch, but on balance the hassle of handling the distribution myself made me decide against the idea. As Warner probably still owns the vocal, I haven’t posted the full track. Chris
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I've never really considered myself a producer, more a DJ who dabbles in making beats from time to time so I was pretty pleased when Above the Clouds gave me the opportunity to remix this track for them. The original version, which was produced by the Bone Idols, was something of a summer classic so it was a tough job to do it justice. However, I was pleased how this one turned out and the label pencilled it as a B side for a track that Bone Idols were doing with J Live. Bone Idols ultimately went cold on the remix idea and the J Live track never came out as far as I'm aware so that was the end of that. Chris
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This was my first attempt at remixing this track. The beat was originally intended for an E.P. that Mad Flow and I had talked about doing, but it just seemed to work here. Not my preferred mix of the two, but pretty decent I think. I hope you agree. Chris
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This track was one of many remixes put together as part of an ill fated remix project for Barcelona based Softly recordings. The vocalist, Julie Cleave, recorded the original version with a more singer / songwriter sound in mind. I went all out Jazz with it, which I think has a certain charm. However Julie wanted the mixes to use more of the original instrumentation and the project was ultimately dropped. As Julie owns the vocal, I haven’t posted the full track. Chris
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Another unreleased nugget for Barcelona based Softly Recordings. The original version was a sort of reggae tinged big beat number. My first and last attempt at making a dub track. Chris
Although the various members of the Substance collective have released material on a variety of labels (Big Dada / Planet Mu / Different Drummer / Son Records etc) this is the only commercial release we’ve had as a collective. The idea behind this record was to put together something that would showcase the talent of the second city and in particular the artists that were making Substance a talking point at the time. It took about a year to pull together but I was pretty pleased with the results. Listening now, it sounds a little dated in places and the production values vary, but I like to think it’s representative of the sound of the time. The intention was to use the common theme of jazz to link ‘traditional’ hip hop with spoken word, R n B and some more leftfield instrumental stuff. I leave it to you to make your own mind up! Chris
To download Elements – “I.D” click here
To download snippet of Flow – “Many Moons” click here
To download snippet of Cypher Jewels – “2000 Years” click here
To download snippet of Chris Read & Roc 1 – “Turntable Music Part II” click here
To buy album click here
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This was recorded around the same time as the Lyric Superbrand material but didn’t appear on the album. Circumstance wrote the drum track and I delivered the samples (which lets face it aren’t too tricky to identify). A nice little summer number. Chris
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After the release of Lyric Superbrand, Mad Flow and I spoke a little about doing an EP. Jumping the gun a bit I knocked up this intro track. We never got round to recording the EP so the track never got used. Chris
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Mad Flow wrote lyrics to this track, but we never recorded it. However, we did get to perform it live on Radio 1 with the Substance band. To hear a classic tale of love, loss and women with bad feet, check out the Radio 1 live session, which is free to download in the Mixes section. Chris
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This is an alternative version of one of the tracks on the Lyric Superbrand LP. The original version found its way onto Mr Thing’s Mix CD for UK publication ‘Breakin Point’, which I’m told was their highest selling issue. Mad Flow & I engineered the track together and this is the version that Mad Flow actually recorded the vocal to and would, I think, have preferred to go on the album. In retrospect, this may have been the better version. You decide. Chris