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After a weekend in Ibiza I called my boss to say I wasn’t coming back Club nights popped up and disappeared again like shooting stars and there was always the possibility that the police would turn up and pull the plug or the sound system would cut out and then we’d tumble out into the cold night air and head back to someone’s flat. Photograph: Gavin Watson/REX/Shutterstockįrom that moment on, I was out every night in an underground playground of warehouse parties, sweaty basements, abandoned shops and derelict railway arches. That first time I stayed all night and emerged squinting into the daylight, I went straight to my job at a fitness magazine with my ears still ringing, sure that I’d discovered this incredible secret. “This,” I thought, “is what I was born for.” Spectrum became my regular Monday-night haunt – that original party had been a monthly all-dayer – along with Future on a Thursday, both club nights started by the now legendary DJ and producer Paul Oakenfold. As a Mexican wave of parties swept through London in a rush of joy and unity, a new world emerged from the swirl of dry ice and pulsing beats, one that was to shape our culture and outlook for the next generation.Īs Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech echoed out over the dancefloor, the lasers cut in and a sea of hands reached into the air towards the DJ booth, I experienced something like a religious conversion. It’s 30 years ago this summer that acid house exploded in the UK, triggering what’s now called the second summer of love and the biggest youth revolution since the 1960s. All inhibitions and barriers seemed to have dissolved in a heady mix of youth, summertime, the magical new music and, no doubt, a new empathy-inducing drug, called ecstasy, that many people had begun taking. A girl in a swimsuit tipped buckets of water over her sweat-drenched body. Girls crowded around the mirrors in the bathroom telling each other they were beautiful. From the moment you stepped on to the dance floor everybody loved you, and everyone was smiling and swigging out of each other’s water bottles. After the self-consciously cool West End club scene I’d dipped into in the mid-80s, the club night Spectrum was a revelation. The minute I was through the door I was swept into a cavernous room of flashing lasers, dry ice and sweating bodies. I must have had the heads up on the attire as I was wearing baggy yellow surf shorts I’d just bought in San Diego, a far cry from the carefully curated layers of black that usually passed as a clubbing outfit, but other than that I had no idea what to expect. I’d arrived at Heaven nightclub, underneath the Charing Cross railway arches, on a hot Sunday afternoon to find my friends had already gone in – you didn’t risk hanging back and missing your chance – so I joined the queue of kids dressed in the acid house uniform of Day-Glo dungarees and smiley T-shirts. We can look forward to many more delights from him if success were going to spoil him, it would have done so long ago.I t was the year I got my first job, the year I broke up with my boyfriend, the year I flew to Barbados and met Imran Khan on a beach, but of all the crazy life-changing moments, none had more impact than the night I first experienced acid house, age 22, in the summer of 1988.
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It may not represent a very promising direction, but the languid intimacy of “Quiet Storm,” the intricate instrumental arrangements on “Backatcha” and “Love Letters,” and the prominence given to Tarplin’s classy guitar throughout the album are evidence that one of black music’s brightest lights is still a dynamic creative force. Even “Happy,” a Robinson/Michel Legrand opus from Lady Sings the Blues that fairly oozes sentimentality, succeeds as believable pop because of a soulful, crying vocal and a careful, varied arrangement.
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His production and singing carry the album.
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In fact, Robinson’s much touted abilities as a poetic lyricist aren’t very important here, the sexy directness of “Storm” and “Backatcha” notwithstanding. “Wedding Song” is burdened by the sappiest words Robinson has written (“Oh what a beautiful day to take a vow on/Pray that the things we say will last from now on”), but a recurring guitar riff, performed with great sensitivity by Marv Tarplin, redeems it. On “Love Letters,” a hesitating fuzz-tone bass pattern is repeatedly undercut by an atempo flute/synthesizer unison. The album offers irrepressibly upbeat lyrics, mellow and jazz-tinged instrumental passages, bouquets of sweetness and restrained funk flavorings. Ironically Storm and the first single excerpted from it, “Baby That’s Backatcha,” took off immediately. There were no seven-minute songs on Pure Smokey, an album of brilliant singles which produced no hits. Meet the Creators and Activists Leading Social Media's Next Wave RS Recommends: 5 Devices You Need to Set Up Your Smart Home