David Toop - Sugar and Poison Soul Ballads CD

One of the few records that completely flip-flopped my sensibilities. I absolutely adore it! Definitely in my top twenty (maybe even ten) of the 1990s.

I've long entertained the notion of doing my own version as well. To this end, I plugged some tracks from Sugar and Poison into AMG to find out what other comps they appeared on. Most of them turned out to be the "generic fuck soundtracks" referenced above, natcherly. Here are some I found (forgot the title of the first and please forgive the yucky formatting):

1. Risin' to the Top performed by Burke, Keni - 5:16 review 2. Sugar Free performed by Juicy - 4:33 3. Firestarter performed by Tease - 5:34 4. Silver Shadow performed by Atlantic Starr - 4:58 5. Slow Down [12" Version] performed by Loose Ends [1] - 7:00 6. Curious performed by Midnight Star - 4:21 7. Who Do You Love performed by Wright, Bernard - 4:15 8. Come into My Life performed by Sims, Joyce - 7:49 9. Gotta Get You Home Tonight performed by Wilde, Eugene - 5:19 10. Don't Look Any Further performed by Edwards, Dennis / Garrett, Siedah - 4:06 11. Inside Out [12" Version] performed by Odyssey [1] - 6:24 12. Don't Say No (Tonight) performed by Wilde, Eugene - 4:14 13. Can You Treat Me Like She Does? performed by Real To Reel - 4:28 14. Lollipop Luv performed by Loren, Bryan - 5:22 15. I Want to Be Your Man performed by Roger [1] - 4:11

Lifting The Spirit
1. You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life) performed by Clark Sisters - 3:24 2. Make Every Day Count performed by New York Community Choir - 3:18 3. Hello Sunshine performed by Woods, Maceo - 2:34 4. O-o-h Child performed by Five Stairsteps - 3:14 5. Keep Your Head to the Sky performed by Earth, Wind & Fire - 5:10 6. Blessed performed by Emotions [1] - 4:36 7. Love Brought Me Back performed by Rogers, D.J. - 3:54 8. Back in Stride performed by Maze [1] / Beverly, Frankie - 4:12 9. Risin' to the Top performed by Burke, Keni - 3:43 10. Reaching for the Sky performed by Bryson, Peabo - 4:52 11. I Want to Thank You performed by Myers, Alicia - 3:47 12. Eternal Life performed by Perri [1] - 3:34

Sex & Soul Vol. 1

  1.   I'll Take the Whole World On performed by Ashford & Simpson - 5:09
  2.   Passionate Breezes performed by Jackson, Charles - 4:30
  3.   You're My Latest, My Greatest Inspiration performed by Pendergrass, Teddy - 5:20
  4.   Cry Together performed by OJays - 5:34
  5.   Do Me Baby performed by Morgan, Meli'Sa - 5:16
6.   It's You That I Need performed by Enchantment [1] - 6:00
  7.   How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? performed by Green, Al - 6:16
  8.   That's the Way I Feel About 'Cha performed by Womack, Bobby [1] - 5:09
  9.   That's the Sound That Lonely Makes performed by Tavares - 3:40
  10.   It's Your Thing performed by Peebles, Ann - 2:29
  11.   Since I Found My Baby performed by Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose - 3:20
  12.   Lady I Love You performed by OBryan - 5:29
  13.   Me and Mrs. Jones performed by Jackson, Freddie - 5:23

And here are some that I came up with:

Al Green: Feels Like Summer (this would make a PERFECT second song)
Whitney Houston: Exhale (Shoop Shoop)
Imagination: Instinctual
El DeBarge: I'll Be There
Keith Sweat: Yumi
Janet Jackson: one of the ballads from from All For You
Michael Jackson: Heaven Can Wait
Millie Jackson: Feel Like Making Love
Koffe Brown: Chick on Da Side
Mentioned above but it would definitely make my comp - Alicia Myers: "I Want To Thank You"

Also, you might want to try the sleaze/morning music genre - slowed-down disco (or not) tracks played very late at night/early in the morning in gay clubs like The Saint. Here are some examples:

Buddy Miles' "Pull Yourself Together"
"Midnight Music" Stevie B
Lamont Dozier's first solo effort "Take Off Your Make Up"*
Greg Diamond's Bionic Boogie classics "Hot Butterfly" (featuring a young Luther Vandross on lead vocals and Cissy Houston on background) and "Dance Little Dreamer"
The Detroit Emeralds "Feel The Need", and most of what Barry White recorded

Of your suggestions, I've never heard of Darondo, Black Nasty, nor Chocolate Milk. But most of the other titles sound great. "In the Rain" by the Dramatics would work well (and is used to devastating effect in the background to one scene in the film Breakfast on Pluto). Those Diana Ross and Bill Withers songs are definitely in keeping with Toop's knack for excavating forgotten tracks on rather nothing albums. And if you're going to pick one Black Merda track for a comp like this, "My Mistake" is it. The only thing I'd turn my nose up at is Shuggie Otis. But hey - Sugar and Poison managed to recast some crappy songs. If Sugar and Poison Vol. 2 matched the pacing and conceptual genius of the original, it could do the same for Otis.

Wow, that Sex & Soul comp is VERY close to Sugar and Poison! And looking at the others more closely, some of the cuts would definitely not work: "Ooh Child" or "Inside Out."

One more I forgot, though: Ashford & Simpson: "So So Satisfied." Really gut-wrenching, that one. The strings make it sound as if your lover will never cum which after too long gets annoying. But then you become determind to bring on the orgasm. And then it gets transcendent. And then annoying again. And then...

Oh and I called my theoretical comp Unspecific R&B.

this is the only one of the series i don't have and can't find. i love the rest of them though.

If I stay in this thread for more than five minutes, I will never come back out, and no work will get done today.

That said, this thread could use some:

Michael Henderson
Leon Ware
Phyllis Hyman
Minnie Riperton (neither "Inside My Love" nor "Lovin' You," goddamnit)
Angela Bofill
Love Unlimited
Patrice Rushen
Ronnie McNeir
Black Ivory
Caress
Mass Production
Switch
Dexter Wansel
Jones Girls
New Birth

With that particular compilation, I was sick and tired of the way soul ballads had been dismissed as romantic escapist drivel over the years by intellectuals of all persuasions and colours and then ended up being packaged by record companies as generic fuck soundtracks. The relationship between the notes, the artwork and the music was an attempt to create unease, to make a gentle push towards listening at a depth beneath the preconceptions about what was being said in the lyrics, the vocal techniques, the tempo, the type of chords, the arrangements and all the other indicators of genre stereotypes. I suppose some people thought it was a fuck soundtrack for manic depressives. Personally, I find that album overpoweringly romantic, even though it's supposed to be a bit disturbing, but then romance is disturbing in itself.

Toop is a hero.

Jed, it took me eons to find it. I can ysi it for ya, if you want. Lemme know.

Andy, 7 or 8 of those artists you listed escape me. But Dexter Wansel I recently learned about via a Seward thread. And there's one track off his Toopily entitled Life on Mars that would be a perfect fit for Sugar and Poison 2 - "One Million Miles From The Ground." Light sandstorms swirling over Tatooine; stop and starty structure just like angst-fucking; keybs sending guitars lightyears away. In the same arid galaxy as The Isley Brothers' "Sensuality."

And Toop is indeed a hero. His liners for Sugar and Poison are the finest fever dream I've ever read.

wow i must get this. never heard of it.

Make that ten minutes.

Roughly 60-70% of the songs within these unmixed 60-minute mixes fit into this thread. With any luck they'll help:

Rec Park 7
Green, Al - Simply Beautiful
Isley Brothers, The - Footsteps in the Dark
Riperton, Minnie - Baby, This Love I Have
Gaye, Marvin - Come Live With Me Angel
Ware, Leon - Learning How to Love You
Mayfield, Curtis - Love Me, Love Me Now
Williams, Deniece - Free
Muhammad, Idris - Piece of Mind
Rufus & Chaka Khan - Close the Door
Rushen, Patrice - Before the Dawn
Connors, Norman - You Are My Starship

Rec Park 10
Burke, Keni - Risin' to the Top
Pieces of a Dream - Warm Weather
Atlantic Starr - When Love Calls
Twennynine - Best of Friends
René & Angela - I Love You More
Starpoint - Last Night
Ebonee Webb - Here My Love Is
Change - Heaven of My Life
Russell, Brenda - Way Back When
Chic - My Forbidden Lover
Marie, Teena - Turnin' Me On
Switch - I Call Your Name

Rec Park 16
White, Lenny - Didn't Know About Love ('Til I Found You)
Jones Girls, The - Nights Over Egypt
Wansel, Dexter - The Sweetest Pain
Kleeer - Taste the Music
Connors, Norman - She's Gone
Lynn, Cheryl - In the Night
Benson, George - Give Me the Night
Deodato - Keep on Movin'
Beatty, Ethel - I Know You Care
Jackson, Michael - I Can't Help It
Odyssey - Inside Out

Rec Park 22
Commodores - Saturday Night
Khan, Chaka - Night Moods
Ocean, Billy - Nights (Feel Like Getting Down)
Parker Jr & Radyio, Ray - Until the Morning Comes
Benson, George - Love X Love
Brothers Johnson, The - Closer to the One That You Love
Austin, Patti - Love Me to Death
Ware, Leon - Rockin' You Eternally
Hancock, Herbie - Stars in Your Eyes
Faze-O - Riding High
Rushen, Patrice - Remind Me
Hall & Oates - One on One

At Frog Island
Austin, Patti - Body Language
Eaves, Hubert - Slow Down
Henderson, Eddie - Inside You
Steely Dan - Babylon Sisters
Henderson, Michael - Goin' Places
Crusaders - Street Life
Seawind - Lovin' You
Jones, Quincy - Somethin' Special
Upchurch/Tennyson - Don't I Know You
Riperton, Minnie - Memory Lane
Blackbyrds, The - Mysterious Vibes
Smith, Lonnie Liston - Summer Nights

White Snow Black Heart
New Birth, The - It's Been a Long Time
Bohannon - Save Their Souls
Rotary Connection, The - Respect
Soul Children, The - It Hurts Me to My Heart
Stylistics, The - Stop, Look, Listen
Phillips, Esther - I Don't Want to Do Wrong
Porter, David - Falling Out, Falling In
Ware, Leon - What's Your World
Callier, Terry - You Don't Care
Davis, Tyrone - I Wake Up Crying
Flack, Roberta - Until It's Time for You to Go
Green, Al - Beware

Holy pregnancies! We need to have a Sugar and Poison series.

Thanx 4 the goodies, Andy!!!!!!

No problem.

i didn't read the whole thread, and am too hungover to figure it out. are we talking about kinda spaced out soul ballads?

if we are, i wanted to add the Floaters "Float On" and Jon Lucien "World of Joy"

Kevin JB - if you could YSI that would be great. dunno if i'll be able to get it though since i'll be away for 3 weeks without internet. if you use sendspace, rather than ysi, it will most likely be around when i come back. either way is cool though if you can be bothered to do it. thanks!

oh, and gwen mcrae's "90% of Me Is You"

and a buncha Mtume

hi jaxon.

hi jed. i'm currently listening to one of the best songs in the world. Eddie Kendricks "People Hold On"

ok, just downloading the tom moulton mix of it.

actually am getting the orig too.

oh no - the moulton mix is of "keep on trucking".

ok i know where to get it ;)

fuck - that was fast.

Jed, let me know when you'll be back and I'll YSI it then. I'll keep checking this thread. Sadly, I don't know how to use Sendspace.

kevin, sendspace is the same as ysi - i'll revive the thread at some point and see if you're about. cheers.

i mean it's the same basic principle.

is Kevin JB still around? i'd love to hear this if he has the time to upload it.

Seconded.

yes plz. i asked on the leonardo about this a while back.

http://bozelkablog.blogspot.com/

could try asking on his blog

I really wish they would reissue this (and "Ocean of Sound" for those people who can't find that, either).

that toop quote that andy k posted upthread is beyond classic. that is a quote right? is it from the liner notes to this comp?

It's from the Tangents interview linked by stevied at the top.

updated link in case anyone else is curious.

Yes, I'm here. I'll YSI tonight. But I'm having electricity problems (believe it or not). So it may take a day or two.

you are a star, thanks kevin.

Part 1 here. Use Stuffit Expander to unstuff/zip.

Part 2 tonight.

great so far, thanks again.

Part Deux here.

thanks!

shit. my internut connection dropped for a second and i lost the second one. now the download limit has been reached. anyone want to upload both of them (well, at least the second) to another large file host? sendspace?

Here, my dear.

the chasin a dream song on the first disc seems out of place to me. not sure about the mr. fingers either.

not that i dont like the track

I got part 2, but missed part 1. Damn!
But thanks, Kevin. Very cool.

10 minutes. i'll hook u up

part uno http://www.sendspace.com/file/cm6159

OMG you rule!
I've been looking for this thing for years.
A million thanks. This definitely brightens my day.

i got that johnny guitar watson album (the one w/the phallic shitty looking couch) the first song is on a few weeks ago. that whole album is pretty good. it's got a soft rock feel to the vocals, but nice funky blues instruments. kind of a cousin album to peter brown's 'do you wanna get funky with me'

here's a great jon lucien track that i posted about upthread. world of joy

the chasin a dream song on the first disc seems out of place to me. not sure about the mr. fingers either.

Obviously, I disagree. At the very least, they extend the fuck tension beyond the 1970s. But that Mr. Fingers track absolutely belongs. It has an essential "wrongness" to it - a house figure trying his hand at a more ballad-like tempo and song-like structure. And that uncomfortable fit works with the kind of agitation-in-the-bedroom vibe Toop has conjured up here.

i would like to hear this.

like really

goole, have you ever been here?
Leonardo Music Journal -- Awesome!!

The back of his Exotica book reads "CD Available on Palm Pictures/Rykodisc." Did that ever come out?

It never came out unfortunately. Book has a discography though.

ugh, friend was asking me what song was similar to the Floaters "Float On" and i knew what she was thinking of but couldn't remember the name for the life of me (and i have the record). finally she remembered. surprised it's not mentioned on here already

delegation "oh honey"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeP0sAs7O_M

Have the liner notes to this ever been transcribed/posted? The CD's proving a pain to track down.

May want to ask David directly - I have his email somewhere, I could ask...

There's a copy of the album on Amazon.co.uk, albeit for £30.00.

(Note: it's not me selling the copies that are available there.)

"Dr. Horse, Wild Turkey mooded, bootlegged, heats tobacco tip, sucks coronary smoke inward, illicit minded. Awake as if snakebit, a torrent of sweats, heart's motion a drum 'n' bass beakbeat, he had fallen head first out of a dream. Set in Mexican motel room, his own shaped shadow blocking hall light yet sufficient luminescence for nightmare glimpse of fishnet serpent writhing by satin shrouded alterbed where groins desire lay only one hour in past time. Whispers at the dark end of the street. Radio came on with a blast - an Acapulco disco bump groove - the fat man at the desk lip-zipped on psycho-sexual manifestations.

Just stepped out for worms liquor and narcotic plant after three straight shifts. "Taxi," yells Horse. "Take me to another part of town." Dozed in Chimpera noodle shop. Now faced with life's upset. Club managing in Mercurius Port - interplanetary e-mail booking - like clocks tick in an eternal circle. Waking life's admin little different to the nightmare's dark messages. Tired of programming music's background lull for dull-witted cerebralists. Meet 'n' greet Earthside couch parties and corporate champagning with drive-by shooting thought's masked by shiteater's grin and glad hand. Horse, doctor in audio destabilisation, prescriptions punishable, assignations dubious, marginal tasks variable, turns to Eathside remedies now available on Offworld media.

Like beer's stomach settler boom in moderation, nerves calming not always sourced in volumes of mellow. The Doctor's blue desires - notorious back home - emotions bizarre cuisine of sweet and bitter. Jack, that cat was clean, he murmurs realistically. "Baby I love you I want you I need you for ever come on back to me let me pump you all nite long" not rich or strange enough for Dr. Horse's overloaded blood. Too lowered in life's humpbacks. Too mush rising on top. Horse needed slow songs about murder, despair, life's injustice, financial vacuum, cross-dressing, flesh texture, foreplay and sleep as much as the planet's other half-needed songs about groins requirements after candlelit supper for two.

Dr. Horse accessed his collection - music called for soul once upon a time in a far off country - found items not available by absences in source material, Horse punched in switchback selection for emotions in-depth explorations of sound-word-feeling-rhythms. He cut them form a timeslice notable for uptown moods contrast of urbane sensuality and identity rehab leavening despairs pit of dashed aspirations after FBI's trickeries, war's end and economic downturn. Cool as the next fool, Horse enjoyed a disco bump but found trenchant pleasures in narcotic reversions to the infant state, agonised urban fear cries heard on discos downside, sensual skin touch after the boom-boom stops, melting into sleep states, dried tears clarity, hybrid tropic languor, machine sex and long distance love's longing.

Planetside and disengaged, Dr. Horse felt veins open, flooded by gush of aliveness. Caught up in complex emotions, chasing a dream, glad to be unhappy, remembering who he was and what he was to himself. Far inside the vibrations of a silent scream. By imagination's implant, sonic concentrating, Earthside recall, he followed Al Green around a vocal booth in Royal recording Studios, 1320 South Lauderdale, Memphis, Tennessee. Heavy lidded, Green lifts himself out of this world, circles in a trance of convulsion and loss, walks away from the microphone, claps in ecstasy. Dr. Horse is absorbed in the words "Grains of time," he ponders. "What the mothership are grains of time?" Whispering in the aether talk, he thinks he hears a faint reply..."you're a fish, I'm a water sign"...."Float on," he tells himself. Some questions, only a ballad he can answer.

David Toop"

Oh, thanks heaps, all! Been musing on the comp since Tom mentioned in this piece on The Weeknd (with a D.Toop comment) & on Tumblr re: a ballad discussion, and it seems David Toop revisited the area in a recent issue of the Wire which I'll have to track down.

For future reference, it also appears in his collection Exotica.

Greatest compilation of all time? Maybe.

Got my hands on the issue of the Wire w/his article - five pages or so! Talks a lot about the 2cd comp Mellow Mellow: Original Smooth Grooves & Chill Beats.

Great compilation. CD2 over CD1 though. Impress the laydeez.

anyone want to sell me theirs? can't find it anywhere (except for 30 pounds on amazon uk)

Wow, thanks for the revive! I am so filing this track listing.

i have this. i also sold an extra copy once for $150. i am not selling the one i still have.

Good on you!

$150! I picked up the CD in a sale in '97. Wouldn't sell it, $150 I might though.

i'm sure someone here would make the music, um, available somehow.

30 quid doesn't seem unreasonable - it'd take more to make me sell my copy.

Yeah, this is one of my holy grails; hopefully now I'm in Europe rather than the antipodes I'll eventually stumble across a copy second-hand. Though yikes, if it can fetch $150 ..

this thread makes me feel guilty that i have this compilation hidden away in a box not too far from where i am sitting, and not really giving it the love it deserves.

Don't feel too bad, Mark E. I only say it is any good to increase the value. I have a vague dream of retiring from selling off David Toop compilations.

x-post: have never seen a copy of this for sale in an actual, real-life shop, etc.

would love to scarequotes acquire this

Think I acquired this from Amazon.co.uk last year, used, at no more than the usual cost of a new double CD. Did I just get lucky or something? In any event, here's disc 1:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/dv455h

And disc 2:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mku4qe

omg thx!

Wow, thanks heaps!

Finally bought this today

Also hi ILX!!!!!

I was bored and couldn't find the playlist on Spotify, so I went and made it: https://open.spotify.com/user/thepoacher/playlist/2OQ6SXw373C5XjPLKlH8EZ?si=VwRxYDDiRzaszRxBpD4dGg

It's fantastic compilation - thanks for the heads up!

Someone already did the (equally excellent) Crooning on Venus one: https://open.spotify.com/user/rom2u/playlist/6XFmkiSbB5fYLkyVmXaJwG?si=w20tpRmaSQqLizqe5-niOg

Nb the Tashan track is kind of irritating. Ymmv.

Amazon US has this listed in various formats and their Unlimited streaming, but all links lead to other albums, The Man In The High Castle soundtrack etc.