Wednesday, April 16, 2008  12:01 am 

Pavement to penthouse

Eskimo, in the bleary eyes of 20JFG and its cohorts, is leaping over many other labels in terms of quality and shear taste. Not only have they bought us the stratospherical pastel awesomeness of Aeroplane and the resonating obsidian pyramid stones of Simone Fedi, but now they collect together a Best Of from seminal Afro-Berlinian rhythm heirarchy known as Allez Allez. It hits in May and comes complete with Optimo’s riot-inducing remix of ‘She’s Stirring Up’, Quiet Village’s malevolent Victorian Mars expedition of ‘African Queen’ and Aeroplane’s staggered Herculean house remix of ‘Allez Allez’.

‘Wrap Your Legs (Around Your Head)’ features on the ‘Valley Of The Kings’ 12″ that hails from 1982’s ‘Promises’ album. It features vocals by Sarah Osbourne, the original vocalist who left, causing it to all go a bit pear shaped, and went on to provide the iconic vocals for Heaven 17’s ‘Temptation’.

Allez Allez - Wrap Your Legs (Around Your Head)

Allez Allez shoot forth from a shadowy Berlin basement and sear holes in the atmosphere of planet Disco, raining epic elasticated comet trails of funk based dance music all over, thus pre-empting chicago house and cementing themselves as main influences and much beloved favourites on Optimo’s playlists, Lindstrom’s alien-afro repetitive beat novels and virtually anyone associated with the DFA. Wrap Your Legs incorporates all the best parts of Ian Dury’s block-headed cockney wide-boy chant vocals, ESG’s angulated primary coloured wicker basket freak rhythms of ‘Come Away With…’ and James Chance’s symbiot brass horns, firing the resulting concoction out of a voodoo totem cannon from the mouth of Liquid Liquid’s Cavern. As with all these types of awesome early 80’s synth-shunning bands, its all about the drums and how they coil up and around the vibrating bass strings and run up and down the shimmering platform created by the constant hi-hat. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore, they just re-release ‘em.

What we do get is Joshua and Eric of production duo Brothers remix of Telepathe.

Telepathe - Chromes On It (Tan Lines rmx)

Like the world music setting on your casio with extra mobile phone interference Brothers do the opposite of DFA’s mega MIA Paper Planes remix turning the lovely twee psyche Telepathe into your local bloc party garage band Althea and Donna. Can we get Brothers a production job on the next Tom Tom Club record please? And what is it with the casio keyboard horns these days?

While we are on the topic of Althea and Donna and legendary producer Joe Gibbs, it seems a perfect time to for the bonus track by that sharp dressed man, Trinity.

Trinity - Three piece suit

Derived from the Alton Ellis tune I’m Still In Love and using the time honoured tradition of a soundsystem riddim doing the rounds of various toasters this Joe Gibbs and Trinity version provided the basis for the unlikely uk number one by Althea and Donna, which i have in my head for some reason Pete Waterman was responsible for bringing to and releasing in the uk. If anyone can give us more information on this please do so in the comments box below.

xx

xxjfg

labels >> Allez Allez, Telepathe, brothers, trinity