higher than the sun

[18] The Sabres Of Paradise, ‘Wilmot’

Before we’re inundated with letters (as per), Andrew Weatherall’s crew did indeed have a “The” in front of their name. It’s not a particularly outlandish claim. Not like, “The record’s actually about popular children’s TV presenter and latter-day West End musicals stalwart Gary Wilmot”. Not like that.

Reminiscent of Weatherall’s work on Primal Scream’s Screamdelica, this is a dub symphony to match The Orb’s excursions on ‘Higher Than The Sun’. With its exotic gibber and tribal hoodoos, let’s call it Rainforest Skank. Junior latched onto the trumpets – this coming the day after it emerged her top request for Father Christmas is in fact a pink trumpet – and tried to recreate the deep, juddering bassline with her plastic “electric” guitar. Let’s call that a flair for improvisation.

[4] Primal Scream, ‘Don’t Fight It, Feel It’

Don't Fight It, Feel It

We’d already had single-of-the-90s ‘Loaded’, the astonishing eight- and ten-minute versions of ‘Come Together’ and the dubby psychedelia of ‘Higher Than The Sun’. Now there was the acid techno of ‘Don’t Fight It, Feel It’. Should be quite an album, we thought.

A chorus of tuned-up cicadas kept this loopy floorfiller crashing along. Must be a first for popular music, that. Hooked up to the more conventional, soulful testifying from Denise Johnson and the bluesy piano, it made for a sweaty classic. I might just be thinking of the uniquely moist walls of Bristol’s Tube club, mind you.

Still a bangin’ choon (hey!), it had Junior wriggling over the edges of the inflatable, rocking to the pumping beat.

It wasn’t to everyone’s taste at the time, though, I admit. Steve Wright played it on his afternoon show while I was painting my parents’ window frames, and said that everyone was raving about it but he couldn’t understand why. A man sporting that moustache and those sub-Lennon specs was never going to be down with us hepcats.

[All my vinyl rips seem to have corrupted; Top 11 mp3s to follow… later]