the shamen: c/d

Interesting choice of Popol Vuh album for him to Stan for, but like I ever need an excuse to go dig out some old Krautrock records...

...so I guess it makes sense, that I was looking for the most recent music that he did, and it sounds, well, no surprise, it sounds a bit like Popol Vuh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU1KxSGdkBw

Wandering about the Heath, he just looks like such a nice man, like just a lovely hippie who loves trees and plants and things. Caught By The River were completely right - so many people who were involved in rave just ended up getting into nature, it does seem to be a thing.

His collaborator describes it thusly:

2005-06 ran a bootleg club called Legs and Co with a another producer called Idiotech, ran for a year in trendy shoreditch and had all sorts of guest players. It was about then that I got got a macbook (first of three), learned Ableton around then too which got me noticed by former Shaman Colin Angus, we did a few tracks under the guise of Pablo Sandoz. Two most notable were ‘pyramid’ and ‘the fleet’ he was a tough task master and never content with his compositions so finishing anything was a challenge, i still have about 10 more songs that could be finished but because his workflow involved laying down multiple parts, my laptop choked, add to that his reluctance to use a normal studio and the work remains unfinished, for now. considering STEMS as a means to reopen that can of worms but as he then withdrew from creativity, i respected his desire to cease and desist and we have lost touch.

(man, should have used Reason not Ableton, you could pile on about 64 tracks before it started to choke!)

Nice. The Fleet of course being the river that passes by / under there.

Of course we know nothing of The Fleet in the icen forests of ILX

Of course The Fleet was such a long-term ILX obsession, first dug up at the Great Free Jazz Picnic In The Sky, that I start to worry if maybe Colin Angus was an ILX0r?!?!

(Nah, I think it is just a general ~weird London~ staple, coz Coil also had their lost rivers phase, way before the Shimuras ever got there.)

My interest goes back a bit as well, this being the first record I appeared on ;-)

https://imgur.com/a/Lw9dXlW

This is very off topic but the recordist has had an interesting career in film - https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0789331/filmotype/sound_department?ref_=m_nmfm_1

Haha Noel what on earth is that? I’m on my phone so I can’t see the image clearly?

Not sure this is about the *river* Fleet, tho obvs the walk in the woods very much is along the source of The Fleet (and it’s weird listening to The Fleet whole day literally on the banks of the Effra right now:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z1gxdSq16RY

But the original doesn’t sound so much like Popol Vuh so much as it sounds like an obscure B-side by some forgotten parlour psych band with a name like ‘The Marmelade Tambourine Consortoum’ (and I am *so* here for that aesthetic!) He really does the voice for that sort of thing down pat, la la laaaa la la

whole day = while I’m sat (wtf, fone?)

Help me, I am becoming steadily more and more obsessed with these wee Scottish rave hippies!

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

^^^warning, contains rather an excessive amount of Terence McKenna

Not nearly enough Will, tho. Here is some bonus Will content for your delectation (he actually comes across as far more intelligent than Terence McKenna TBH)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SI5zwitQps

so there i am scratching around the archive for the ultimate saturday night sonic hit, and struggling.
decide to add a couple of shamen tracks into the playlist.
boom.
this is what i needed all along.

Opiinions of Different Drum? If the idea was an alternative version of Boss Drum then that's a great idea but the actual tracklist doesn't hold together as anything other than a b-sides compilation. It's a disappointment. They skipped some tracks and doubled up on others and didn't pick songs that really flowed together. There must be a better track list, if anyone is familiar enough with the dozens of remixes to attempt such a thing

What Shamen tracks did you add, Mark E?

I've been deep-diving into In Gorbachev We Trust, which is such a weird little time capsule, but also a treasure trove. I'm also realising how completely and thoroughly Jesus Jones ripped off their entire schtick, which is kind of hilarious, like Colin is really gracious about it - but wow. At the time, I was way more familiar with JJ because one of my closest friends was completely in pop-star-love with their singer, so I heard a LOT of JJ - but becoming more familiar with that era of the Shamen, the theft really was quite shameless.

What is Different Drum? I thought it was just a remix album (I've got a ton of remixes on the Hits and Mixes album, which are DJ'd into really nice continual mixes that flow really beautifully). I find Boss Drum really weird, like it's the album I connect with the least, even though it has the singles I am most familiar with. It seems kinda weird that *that* was the really successful one, given how uneven it is - but I suppose that's down to Ebeneezer Goode.

Coming to the conclusion that with the occasional exception - the original version of En-Tact; Arbor Bona Arbor Mala - they are a singles band way, way more than an albums band. And I'm not sure that's entirely a record company problem - because as much as I've grown to love UV, that is also kind of a patchy album. I do think Colin is an artist who needs an editor.

just a few of the various beatmaster remixes of the pop stuff, and then the big megamix on the 2nd cd of the hits collection.

re different drum : never listened to it as an album, i just dip into it and select a track here and there.
never even thought it was meant to be listened to as a complete album.

Huh, looking at the track listing, it seems like it might be worth giving it a listen as a 'remixed album' - I'd be much happier with an instrumental version of Fatman, for example, which has always been a wincing moment for me.

They just had such a huge profusion of remixes (I was reading that there were like 35 different officially released remixes of, I think Pro>Gen / Move Any Mountain!!!!) it's hard to remember sometimes which is the one I like. For example, Heal (The Separation) - the mix on Hits and Mixes - I just had to check, it's Help New Edit - is much better than the album version. There's a middle 8 or a pre-chorus or something, where the vocal harmonies just don't meld on the album version, while the edit is just pure tone-cluster gorgeousness.

(Watching the You, Me and Everything video again just reminds me, like I know Will Sin was apparently 6 feet tall, but Colin looks like a *child* standing in front of him, the way Will just looms over him, he is really wee, isn't he, aw, I'm so smitten this is absurd.)

HA-HEm. Yes. remixes.

I dug out Boss Drum after all the chatter on this thread, it had to be 15 years since I last listened. Singles hold up, but I was surprised to like some of the album tracks, which I remembered as terrible. I probably have more patience for spoken-word lectures over instrumental passages than I did back then

En-tact I still listen to from time to time. Sounds like I should go farther back huh?

Haha, are you talking about Re:evolution? I go back and forth on that track, according to my mood. Like, sometimes I can be all ~oh wow echelons of the eschaton in hyperspace woooowwww groovy thoughts maaaaaan~ and sometimes I'm just like 'STFU Terence McKenna' - these days I find old-fashioned woo almost... charming? Like, aw, crystals and UFOs and crop circles, how sweet - compared to the woo of today.

I found a copy of In Gorbachev We Trust on Discogs, and it totally holds up. I'm enjoying that immensely - angry, political Colin, before he discovered Ecstasy and mellowed out into a groovy hippie. (Or maybe that's the Will on the record. I don't think so? There's still angry, political stuff on Drop, which was recorded before Will joined. But I haven't entirely worked out which songs on that are Colin and which are Derek, because their voices are very similar, while Will had a completely different accent.)

What is You, Me and Everything from? Is that from the Phoward e.p. because that's the one where I haven't found the whole thing yet, I've only heard bits and pieces on YouTube.

Like, this is Derek's singing voice:

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

This is angry, political Colin's singing voice:

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

(On bass no less! but it makes so much sense that he started as a bass player - given his later interest in bass-driven dance music, bassists definitely believe in Bassism. It brings me joy that Colin is a 'hold the bass up high like you're cuddling it' bassist as opposed to a 'sling the bass down low like you are fucking it' bassist.)

Yep the McKenna track. I think I was in the right mood for it. I'm gonna listen to In Gorbachev We Trust next!

It's sooooo good! Let me know what you think, I'm excited to hear other people's first impressions of it.

i had the mix cd since it came out and keep listening to it regularly. it's great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myAcXS0qLEw

was kinda surprised at how decent moby remixes are, first two here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFDZl45hGQ0

hardfloor remix of eschaton is probably my favorite of the bunch (the instrumental one, vocals on the vocal one seem completely out of place)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWNRhdO9VG8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6xuEo485Vo

what other remixes are good? tempted to get this: https://www.discogs.com/Shamen-The-Complete-Shamen-CD-Singles-Box-Set/release/1770245

I've been a Shamen fan in the US since like '92 when I got En-Tact (US edition). I've still never heard UV. Saw it used on CD at the same place a few times ages ago but never picked it up. Kinda regret that.

big fave -

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

Argh, that Beltram dub, the instrumentation is really great, but the bassline and the vocals are just slightly off synch and phasing in the wrong place and it's bugging the hell out of me. (Also, as much as people complain about Mr C - I really do find that I miss something when his raps aren't there? Like, the slight irritant is neccessary to the pleasure of the experience.)

Oh lord that remix box set ... my eyes are going all big with cupidity, but no, I will be strong. I need to resist box sets, I do not have the space for them.

UV really is for hardcore fans only, but I do love it. The lyrics are absurd, but you should already know that, from everything after Destination Eschaton. (I'm so glad I'm not in the office, so no one has to hear me wandering about, warbling "open up the Staaaaar-gate, let everybody enter!" because that song is so insanely catchy.) Some of their experiments into drum n bass don't entirely work, but it's still a fun album.

(I will carry on saying this until everyone listens to it and then they come back to me like o_0 Branwell what is all this shit about crystals and UFOs and me just clutching it screaming 'but I love them, ok!')

I've still never heard UV. Saw it used on CD at the same place a few times ages ago but never picked it up.

not heard UV, never seen it out in the wild so not been able to grab a copy.
yet.

::quiet voice::

it's on YouTube?

::scarpers away::

sorry - i don't do youtube stuff, can't stream to my sonos/stereo

I have ever noticed the flaws in that Beltram mix all these years. Cloth ears!

Hahah OMG the YouTube algorithm just turned up gold?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yHrsPW42-o

^^^it noticed I had listened to a lot of Shamen *and* a lot of Mary Chain recently, and suddenly suggested "do you want to hear some sullen, nasty, viciously funny, Pre-E Colin Angus tearing the Tories a new one?"

Yes, as it turns out, I do.

I vividly remember Jesus Loves Amerika (but i don't love either) from that era because it was on a c-90 tape I taped from the John Paeldo show - as was common practise back then when you couldn't afford music!

Yeah, it was on my Snub-TV 'Save' VHS tape

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsRm_4zTSUg&ab_channel=themosttogain

what is the secret of posting youtubes these days? fuck knows!

it would be easier to tell you what you did wrong if you told us what you did

just c+ped its URL as in formatting instructions

was it a time-continue url?

https://youtu.be/pqrGcz7nM7U

don't think so. I'm not even going to try posting a youtube vid on here again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsRm_4zTSUg&ab_channel=themosttogain

oh fuck it!

just took the the 's' off http that time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqrGcz7nM7U

👍

btw it appears calz was attempting to post a url with a whole bunch of extra stuff on the end of it

there are plenty of reasons to read yr posts before clicking submit, folks

Calz, it was absolutely fine - you could click through to see the video just perfectly? (I have images switched off anyway, which changes all youtubes to links.)

It's weird how stark the split is between the two eras. Like, post-E Shamen is so much more appealing to my big shiny pop aesthetics - but comparing their 'crystals and UFOs' latter-period lyrics to Jesus Loves Amerika and Shitting On Britain, it is genuinely like it is two different bands. With each passing decade, Jesus Loves Amerika seems to get *more* relevant, politically - but it's bizarre there's only 10 years between "these are the men who put the Right in righteous" of Jesus Loves Amerika and "Mercury UFO, the messenger, from the Lord of Zion / Transcending space to seminate the crystal."

Like, he genuinely seemed like a much happier, calmer, more at peace with himself, less angry and depressed and more well-balanced person after the E, but ... is there something *necessary* about all that anger and rage and pain, to stimulate political awareness and calls to action? (Or was it more, that after a string of successful pop singles, he was a very wealthy man, and didn't *need* to care about politics? That is also a thing that happens.)

((The other funny thing is, 30 years ago, I struggled occasionally with understanding Scottish accents, but now, decades after returning to Britain, I can understand Colin - and even Will - perfectly, but really struggle to understand what on earth the American evangalists are saying in the video? The one at the start, the really fist-pumping bible-banging one, who seems to say 'wibble Tommy!' - what on earth is he *saying*?))

Calz, it was absolutely fine - you could click through to see the video just perfectly? (I have images switched off anyway, which changes all youtubes to links.)

(this was not the case if you have not switched images off btw)

https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-shamen-at-tower-records-london-britain-1992-the-shamen-picture-id566776351?s=2048x2048

I remember someone saying the early Shamen were either influenced by, or were 'like' The Jam.

I really can't imagine that being true...