Enter stage right! The world of Actress

Underground tech house hero Actress has revealed that he’s currently working on a new record. The South Norwood-based DJ/producer (aka Darren Cunningham), whose November 2008 album ‘Hazyville’ became a word of mouth sensation, has signed a deal for his forthcoming long-player with one of his favourite labels.

“I’ve signed a deal with Honest Jons, who’ll be putting out the next album,” unveiled Cunningham. “I appreciate where they’re coming from — I really like the last few releases they’ve put out, from the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, to Carl Craig and Moritz Von Oswald’s album. My next record is going to be slightly different.”

Actress’s debut album and clutch of remixes for Alex Smoke and Various Productions have marked him as one of the most singular — and interesting — artists to emerge in UK house music circles in years. Taking the Atlantis-deep disco tech of artists like Moodymann and Theo Parrish as his first point of reference, Cunningham’s cuts have a uniquely London flavour, submerged in blurry, smudged sonics that conjure as much atmosphere as they do danceability.

“As well as the Detroit guys, people like DJ Pierre, Virgo, Gemini and Green Velvet are all influences. But there are also things like Prodigy, and Daft Punk, Quincy Jones, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, all of those in terms of the texture of the sound and the emotion. I love songs, it’s not just about electronic music for me. But I am quite demented at the same time, quite random, so when you mix all that together it can be quite an interesting experience.

“I smoke a lot of weed so really my sound is going to be quite blurred out and that’s how I like it,” Cunningham explained. “But in terms of ‘Hazyville’, it was called that because that was where I was at that moment in time. There were a lot of restrictions on ‘Hazyville’ that shaped the record but my newer stuff has drifted in a different direction.”

Actress’s own influence extends beyond his productions: alongside Gavin Weale, he runs Werk Discs, whose recent run of releases from Lukid, Disrupt and most famously, Zomby’s ‘Where Were You In ’92?’ album have made it one of the hippest and most collectable labels in the land. More a musical hothouse than a typical imprint, Cunningham allows his artists free rein.
“Werk doesn’t run like a conventional label. We’ve got artists who have the opportunity, a canvas, to put some work on. I don’t tie any of my artists exclusively to Werk, they’re free to work with other labels.

“Our next big release is from Lone, who’s doing his album ‘Ecstasy and Friends’, it’s amazing. People will compare it to Boards Of Canada but it’s a lot more washed out and woozy. It’s heading back towards the ’80s sensibility, very slick.”

Beyond his album, Actress has several other new projects in the works. A collaborative EP with dubstep enigma Zomby, entitled ‘Paint, Straw And Bubbles’ and remixes of Anthony ‘Shake’ Shakir’s classic ‘Arise’ arrive shortly; in the meantime, get acquainted with ‘Hazyville’ and find out why Actress ain’t playing…

Actress Essentials
‘Hazyville’ (Werk)
Like Theo Parrish heard through a gauzy London ganja smog: funky, atmospheric and otherworldly.

‘Ghosts Have A Heaven’ (Prime Numbers)
Exclusive track for Trus’ Me’s excellent label and further proof that no one is doing that trippy disco tech quite like Actress.

Tom Trago ‘Lost In The Streets Of NYC (Actress Remix)’ (Rush Hour Recordings)
His latest re-lick, this speedy techno number is old skool, granite tough fast Detroit rawness, peppered with strange soulful samples.

Acceptable In The 80s - But Now?

Left: The 80s lovin' Ladyhawke

The glorification of the 1980s music scene in its many stripes - from lime green, through pastels and scuffed monotones - continues apace.

Having already enjoyed a considerable 'comeback'in the early 2000s, it seems that, far from waning, our fascination with electro pop, goth rock, and baggy beats is reaching its very apex. Acts like Ladyhawke, La Roux and White Lies are the most popular, 'coolest' new kids on the block - all of whom wear their 'me' decade references proudly on their rolled up suit sleeves. Ultra-mainstream sensitive piano balladeers Keane have ditched the dewy eyed Steinway stylings and embraced the great synth funk sugar rush of Scritti Politti and King; and 1988's 'second summer of love', which produced a slew of acid house chart hits in the UK, is echoed in the revivalist thump of The Juan MacLean's piano fixated 'Happy House', and Kikumoto Allstars 'House Music'. But what does it all mean?



It's clear that trends in the world of music are cyclical. Back in 2001, The Strokes caused a sea change in listener attitudes with the release of their debut album 'Is This It?'
Championed by the NME, here was a band who were taking it back to basics - really, recycling Velvet Underground, Jonathan Richman, Television and all the NYC touchstones into an easily palatable, shiny, and crucially really very strong package - returning to the 'authentic' ideals of rock which dance music, their great fear, had quelled for so long. Legions of copyist acts, and other self proclaimed traditionalists emerged from the woodwork, and dance was of course proclaimed dead. Quite simply, it seemed that electronics were out of vogue. The Strokes, White Stripes, et al, were simply looking further back, to certain touchstones from the PREVIOUS decade, the 70s rich loam of proto-punk, megalithic blues rock, and new wave. Briefly, the stargazing, brave new future visions of electro progenitors Kraftwerk, and pop prodigies The Human League, with their synths will solve everything attitude, were forgotten.

But at the same time that The Strokes were emerging, the underground electroclash scene was in its embryonic stages. At a time that referencing the throb of 80s rhythms was laughable to many, a rag-tag collective of artists shrugged and threw themselves into recreating the delirious thrill of simple melodies, rendered with old skool synths,but crucially, on their terms. Check out Miss Kittin and Golden Boy's deceptively bittersweet 'Rippin Kittin', it's disturbing lyrics at odds with the jaunty, melancholy tinged song:




Or the tongue in cheek '1982':



Neither were ever released with the commercial market in mind, and coming from the dance scene, were unlikely to have an impact beyond the club crowd, considering their release dates, (2001 and 1999 respectively). But with the UK music scene in particular tired with rock once again, and looking to electronics for their thrill, the 80s-obsessed types have pounced, with a considerably more wide ranging market in mind.

It's likely to be a generational factor that has determined this shift. The 70s seemed such a pull for so long, it was only a matter of time before we succumbed to the subsequent decade. The difference now is that perceived 'fashion mistakes' both sartorially and otherwise - can be seen through a lens no longer obfuscated by irony. Kids who grew up in the 80s and had its music indelibly wired into the mainframes are now returning to it, and tired of the endless nostalgia bandwagon and radio repeats, are now recasting it in their own images. It's perhaps Stuart Price who's had the last laugh. The Reading producer and songwriter - initally ridiculed by many for his 80s indebted acts Les Rhythmes Digitales and Zoot Woman, is now producing for Keane and Madonna.



That was then. The below is now.



Now that's ironic.

Sounds of da future: the new wave of electronic garage

Left: Romanian producer TRG


The endlessly shifting, fractious DNA helix of dance music evolves and mutates from one week to the next. What could be the biggest news of the moment is quickly old hat, as genres become new ones, sub strands are conceived from the fecund loins of rave culture, and sounds move on.

While dubstep and the new wave of UK funky (think Afro house beats and offbeat Soca percussion, mixed with electronic dubby basslines) are considered to be the best thing since sliced bread right now, a sleeping giant is already stirring from its slumber, and threatening to engulf those sounds in 2009 - that of future garage.

Indeed, like many such nebulous descriptions, the glibly conceived term future garage has its roots in music that has already existed - UK garage, Detroit techno, grime, and of course dubstep - but simply arranges them in a way so compelling and crisp that it induces legions to follow its lead, and create their own twists on the formula.

For many, Burial's 'Untrue', with it's sublime screwface Brian Eno posturing and melancholic psycho-geographic audio depictions of London, was year dot. Pitch shifting the ultra bright, pink neon love lorn tones of UK garage and R&B divas into tear stained, fractured, abyssal stares, and ditching the rave entropy SSSLLLOOWWW beats of dubstep for the polyrhythmic bump 'n' grind funk shuffle of UK garage and two step, but of course drenched in dark London rains of synth sadness, Burial was molding something new, an evolved language from the much missed glory days.

But the man also known as Will Bevan's late 2007 darkage classic (both in the sense of dark garage and 'dark - age') was not the only record to embrace the shuffling rhythm and pair it with more pitchy backdrops. Beneath the surface, a whole movement has been gathering that looks set to rapidly consume the molasses drums of dubstep. This mutant two step is everywhere- from Romanian producer TRG's conflations of prime era Photek, hardcore rave stabs and the bump 'n' flex beats of '97 London, to Cloud's 'Timekeeper', a bizarre boom tick tick track blending Aphex Twin atmospherics, the dubbed out melodica of Augustus Pablo, and those tell tale street rhythms to mesmeric effect. Spatial, Pangaea, Martyn, 2562, Silkie and many more have all twisted the mid tempo, sinuous grooves of garage into their own singular forms. But why now?

With dubstep's dominance at an all time high, it's perhaps become apparent that the slowest beats of that genre simply don't translate to the dancefloor all that well. Burning trees at home is a different matter, but however rib rattling the bass waves sound pumping out of a Funktion One stack in a club, if the beats are too slow, all you can do is shuffle around moodily. Future garage gets the best of all worlds, capturing the dark atmospherics, and sublow pressure of dubstep, but wraps them in those bubbling beats - impossible to resist in their funking mood to swing.

Future garage takes those early flipside experiments of the Groove Chronicles, El-B, and Menta set - the darker, bass heavy instrumental'dubs' of more commercial garage tracks tucked away on b-sides, that so fascinated a young Skream, Hatcha, et al and kicked off dubstep - and continues the lineage in a more literal, and yet more willing to experiment manner, within the rhythmic strictures, of course. This is set to be an endless fascinating annum in the continual evolution of the genre. Reload and come again!

Skull Disco: Dystopian beats

Headbusting, cranium crunching, cerebellum cauterizing - that's the output of ostensible dubstep label Skull Disco, now defunct after only a handful of releases. And yet, in only a few slow, quiet but immensely menacing releases, they've utterly altered the musical landscape of UK bass culture and beyond.

Skull Disco is the most potent musical vision of a dark future we've witnessed thus far, where swooping phantasms of malevolent machinery skim over our heads, the ghosts of disquiet never far behind. Skull Disco's trick - and the name evokes, quite literally, our synaptic connections dancing and pinging back and forth, such are the audio hallucinations they conjure - is to make this darkness compelling, utterly immersive, and even spine tinglingly beautiful.

Perfectly capturing the malaise that currently enshrouds the globe, tracks by only a handful of artists - Appleblim, Shackleton and Gatekeeper - combine a string of cultural signifiers in bizarre and gob smacking new ways.

Dubwise echoes, samples of dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, 'Mentasm' hoovers, hardcore synth stabs are placed in an unfamiliar, fearful context. Shackleton's 'Hamas Rule' is extraordinary - an Arabesque procession of clicks and Middle Eastern drum hits, and the occasional Oriental melody, but charged with disquiet, evoking an uneasy peace before the next barrage of weaponry and all the more chilling in the current climate of war between Hamas' Gaza and Israel.

Appleblim's 'Fear' is prickles of cold sweat forming on the back of your neck, immense cityblock demolishing waves of bass summoned from the Earth, riding a slow, entropic beat, as Kwesi Johnson issues his ghostly warning of incipient tension: 'Madness tight in the heads of the rebels", evil blades of '97 vintage tech step synths cutting through the track.

Shackleton's 'Blood On My Hands' bears the same blueprint of 'Hamas Rule', but instead coasts on barely there Oriental percussion, and barely audible spoken word intonations beneath, as spectral keys crystallize into being.

Their first compilation, 'Soundboy Punishments', on which these tracks appear, is the perfect entry point, and a gateway into a new sonic portal, but 'Soundboy's Gravestone Descecrated by Vandals' similarly explores their compellingly twisted logic and narratives of UK bass gothic. The titles themselves place Skull Disco in the distinguished lineage of soundsystem crushing dub culture, referencing the 'soundboy murder' exhortations of dancehall and junglist toasters. Let the music into your skull and leave its indelible mark.

The UNABOMBERS & ELECTRIC SOUL

THE UNABOMBERS & ELECTRIC SOUL

(This article originally appeared on the now defunct webzine Speakers Push the Air)

"We're the Lulu of the underground: It's taken us a lot of time to get
where we're going".

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seat belts; we're presently 400 fathoms and dropping. If you look out of the left window, you might see a Rare Groove Shark, shaking its dorsal fin. Brace yourselves: we're on a vertical dive now; oh my God! Can it be? Over to your right: a giant Funk Squid! We've never been this deep before! What can be attracting these elusive creatures? Aha! Transmitting from the deepest regions of aqua boogie,it's The Unabombers - exceptional purveyors of boundary smashing, floorshaking music.

Products of the rich musical heritage of Manchester, The Unabombers (Luke Cowdrey and Justin Crawford) are justly famed for their refreshingly Catholic attitudes towards all forms of funky music. Their Electric Chair club nights in the rainy city have become legendary, due to a heady combination of their consistently surprising and wickedly eclectic DJ sets, a hedonistic music freak crowd, and a venue with just the right amount of lowdown dirt. Together they've produced numerous illicit disco edits,and rather more official remixes for the likes of Truby Trio and NSM, and solo, Justin records hip hop and classy deep house as Only Child for the fine Mancunian imprint Grand Central Records. And most recently, they've had their biggest exposure due to a series of increasingly excellent mix albums, 'Electric Chair 1&2' and'Electric Soul 1-3'.  Such a fine pedigree has to have roots.

For Luke, it all started back in the wildly fertile musical days of the mid 80s, in a city that was to give birth to the seminal Warp imprint several years later. "Sheffield 1984. DJs Winston & Parrot, who to me are probably the most underrated demigods in the UK music scene. They were playing mid 80s electronic funk music. That inspired me, everything always had the funk in it - tracks like Adonis' 'No Way Back'". Indeed, there was no way back for this convert to the phuture boogie. Pilgrimages to legendary clubs like Occasions and Giant Turkey in Sheffield and the ubiquitous Hacienda in Manchester followed, until the funk force was well and truly strong in this one. Justin, meanwhile, was raised on a steady diet of NorthernSoul in his Yorkshire environs, before embracing hip hop, and meeting Luke to discover a shared appreciation of all things groove fuelled. From there, nights in sticky floored flea pits followed, and the idea for Electric Chair naturally evolved from these nights.

No one could predict the leviathanic proportions this club would expand to. Not in literal size, but in its immense passion, atmosphere, sound and influence. Certainly, the Electric Chair has little in common with the super clubs that recently and so famously became extinct. It's perhaps the underground vivacity of clubs such as this that has become the true home of club culture since ignorant sections of the press sounded it's death knell. But how did the Electric Chair nights become so special? Luke responds with a characteristic mixture of passion and humility: " If we were falsely humble that's as bad as being arrogant. I think if I said they weren't
special I'd be lying, but I don't wanna be a twat and think we're everything we're not. Really, all it is, is a dirty, underground basement with a good sound system, really awesome set of people who are there for the music and there isn't really a lot more to it than that. I think sometimes the best things in the world tend to be based in simplicity".


As well as DJing all over the UK and places as far afield as Thailand and Australia, they've also produced 5 awesome mix albums. Their first 2 mixes ('Electric Chair' and 'Saturday Night & Sunday Morning') were both based on the Electric Chair club nights, and ably managed to cram the excitement, surprises and sleazy basement grooves of the club into their superb sets. On the first, Mr. Scruff's obese dirty electrofunk sat next to Donna Summer's acidic gay disco; the second saw Vikter Duplaix getting his bruk beat on, whilst Craig Mack headnods like a hip hop hardnut against the wall. With a diverse selection of old and new, different styles and tempos, The Unabombers consistently push the envelope, and put things together that you never would have guessed would fit.

This isn't just wilful eclecticism for the sake of it - they believe in this music passionately. Luke is keen to stress that they've nothing to prove: "You can join the dots between R&B and techno, not in a novelty way or self conscious way, but everyone's record collection is a real mixture of music and it's exciting. It's fundamental and it's a continuation of something that's happened for a long time." As a reflection of their club nights, these mixes draw a line between the past and the future, both in terms of the history of dance music and the clubs that have played it. "Wigan Casino or Blackpool Mecca, The Loft, The Paradise Garage, Giant Turkey, the Hacienda... those clubs have always had a history of playing different forms of music. We like to think that that tradition's something that we hold dear to our hearts".

The project which has really seen them come into their own, though, is their series of 'Electric Soul' mixes. A slight change of direction has taken The Unabombers into a deeper realm; although the groove remains all important, a greater focus on the song and a heavier emphasis on their soul side has flooded through, producing their most sublime concoctions yet. 'Electric Soul 2' featured the sampled symphonic soul splendour of D'Nell's 'This Thing' - the greatest hit that never was - coasted on future R&B flavours, housed us, and touched down with the Carl Craig's cyborg jazz funk remix of Incognito.

The subtlety of the mix makes it hard to pin down to either R&B or house or anything in between, giving it an appeal to open minded heads of both of these genres. The essential point is that all the music they play is rooted in the funk, and as Luke makes clear, Electric Soul really isn't such a departure: "It was a natural continuation - it wasn't really a tactical thing, it was more of a reflection of other music we play. A little more understated, not necessarily about some of the bigger
classics, and probably more upfront - a lot of newer music there. I guess it was more soul based, but not in an Aretha Franklin way".

The latest edition, Electric Soul 3, is undoubtedly their deepest and best yet, where the duo touch on some of the revolutionary hip hop/electro/funk hybrid emerging from the States, like the cosmic year 3000 R&B sheen of Platinum Pied Pipers, and P-funk warriors Plantlife. Luke enthuses: "It's linked to Parliament, hip hop, there are
connections to techno. It's just a brilliant example of modern underground dance music that has so many influences. The best music I've been hearing has been coming out in the last 5 years". Indeed, Luke sees hip hop as the most consistently futuristic music out there: "Timbaland and the Neptunes, on a production level, are miles ahead of Detroit... It's about having an open mind". Also present on the mix is the utterly
sublime piano led 'Samurai' by Jazztronik, a Japanese broken jazz classic, and corkers like King Kooba's 'Salvador', which samples The Average White Band with devastating results.


If this gets up the purists noses, then tough shit, reckons Luke. "I think purism, people that won't accept new forms of music, that's about a lack of confidence in what you like. If you're into Northern Soul and nothing after 1974, it's about things being safe. I'm not into the history of Larry Levan and where he went to the toilet. It just bores me". But Luke is also keen to express his belief that all clubs should be able to do their own thing. "There's room for everything. If people want to go to a commercial night, they can do it, and if people want to do their underground thing, they can do it. I like to hear different forms of music at a night, but sometimes it's good to hear six hours of lush house music. I don't think Electric Chair should be a blueprint for every other night".

The Unabombers are another product of the remarkably fertile music zone that is Manchester. It's often been a mystery why so much brilliance should emerge from the city, but Luke has his own theory. "The shittier the place you live, generally the more creative it becomes. That's not always the case, but when a city rains 80% of the time and it's a bit of a grey shit hole... Manchester is kind of a brutal city. The antithesis of that, is that it's got a real spirit and warmth to it, so people in
terms of the clubs and the music and the art are a reaction against the bad side of where you live. We reacted to a cocaine fuelled, gang filled city".

The next step for The Unabombers is their own music, which they're working on at present. Justin has already released 2 albums as Only Child, and together they've remixed and re-edited innumerable tracks. But working as a pair under your DJ name is something different. Does the anxiety of influence - all those great tracks they're famed for playing cast a shadow over their own productions? "For us, the process of it is completely and totally connected to what we're doing, without sounding too pompous. We've got a lot of inspiration to be doing our own material. It was really the stage we've wanted to arrive at, but literally, we're the Lulu of the underground, we've taken a lot of time to get where we're going". Ideally, Luke would like some heavyweight vocal and musical input: "Vocalists like Pete Simpson (from the Sunburst Band) who we're working with at the moment. Robert Owens, I wouldn't say no to working with Beyonce!" I bet you wouldn't, you devil.

The Unabombers open minded approach, passion and sheer good taste makes them one of the most exciting DJ/production duos in the world, let alone the UK. It's refreshing to talk to someone who clearly loves music and is always on the look out for the next classic or undiscovered gem: "It's like the cuisines of the world you taste. Oh, that's genius! You've discovered a new dish and you get stuck into that one". Undoubtedly, they're the bomb.

Welcome to Bless The Weather

Hello and welcome. Set controls for the heart of the sun.


This is Ben Murphy's Blog, 'Bless The Weather', dedicated to explorations of my favourite music and other cultural gems that have been nagging at my synapses. The weird, wonderful, the cosmic and the crazy. All will be uncovered here.

Reviews, comments and the actual music itself will be found in this virtual space. The desired effect is what you get, when you improve your interplanetary funkmanship.

B.