Tracks I Wish I’d Written (issue #25): Boymerang – Urban Space

“I love the way you just give people a little hint or flavour of something and it takes your mind on a to a different environment. I want to utilize the different flavours I’m into; a bit of Nick Drake or Talk Talk. All the stuff that I’ve used, but fucked up to such an extent that only I know it’s in there” – Graham Sutton.

It’s been a while since the last edition of the ‘Tracks I Wish I’d Written’, but the series is finally back with a timeless record from the halcyon days of the 90s, that transcends effortlessly the cybernetic fantasies of techstep and the dreamy moods of artcore. Leader of the post-rock indie band Bark Psychosis, turned Grooverider’s acolyte and purveyor of an apocalyptic breakbeat noir, Graham Sutton’s rise in the drum & bass scene has been nothing short of meteoric. In fact, I can hardly recall a producer who’s had such a brief spell at drum & bass and left such an indelible musical print other than Boymerang.

Sutton’s penchant for sound experiments started at a very young age. His father used to teach music and Graham had always been fascinated with electronics, playing around with tape decks, recording his own ‘sound dramas’ and re-editing songs with the pause button. Profoundly influenced by an ostensibly polarizing array of artists and musical styles Sutton, formed the experimental rock group Bark Psychosis in 1986 with his school contemporary John Ling, with the noble intention to create something personal, truthful and esoteric instead of replicating the antics of the big bands. A curious blend of melody and murderous noise, combining the free-form jazz sensibility, the instrumentation of alternative rock and the aesthetics of dance and electronic music, laid the foundation of what some people would go on to proclaim, rather reductively, ‘post-rock’.

The Bark Psychosis story has been extensively documented in an interview for the Quietus, so let’s pick up the story after the frustrating and excruciating sessions of the band’s sophomore album ‘Hex’, which resulted in the band’s mutation and eventual dissolution. Even while ‘Hex’ was being recorded, Sutton had sensed something had changed. At the suggestion of a friend, he started tuning into the jungle pirate radio stations, only to discover that things had taken a quantum leap.

“From that moment on I was hooked. It made perfect sense to me. It seemed like the perfect combination of all the elements I’ve ever loved about music – like dancing to a sound system – really wicked grooves coupled with the technology of chopping stuff up and re-arranging it to be something new. It even seemed absolutely spot-on in terms of the whole aesthetic of how things are passed around on a dub-plate. It just seemed essential. I started to spend all my time hanging out in record shops to find out what was going on”.

Becoming more and more enthralled by the possibilities offered by the sampler he had been using, his interest shifted towards programmed and sequenced rhythms, asking Mark Simnett, the band’s drummer, to replicate jungle breakbeats at speed on his kit. Feeling increasingly sidelined, Simnett left the band shortly after the band’s appearance at the ‘Britronica Festival’ in Moscow (April 1994).

“The band disintegrated because I was getting into using samplers… We used to sample a little bit, but never as an intrinsic part, which always annoyed me, because I wanted to get into that more… I reached an impasse in how much further you could take it in that direction. I wanted to make things a bit tougher as well. And if you’ve got a drummer, it restricts what you do straight away. There was (a) B-side which was trying to do drum ‘n’ bass with the drums, but it’s pointless: you’ve got to get stuck in and get your hands dirty, and make some tough decisions; which is hard if you’ve been working for a few years. It’s hard for a drummer to take. So in that sense (it was) quite difficult.”

Later in the summer of ‘94, Sutton reunited with band mate and keyboard player Daniel Gish to record some new drum & bass tracks, which they performed at the 1994 ‘Phoenix Festival‘ at Stratford-upon-Avon. Although the duo’s performance was billed under the Bark Psychosis name (and was technically the band’s last appearance for ten years), it was in effect the debut of a brand new project, which was only tenuously related to Bark Psychosis. Following their Phoenix Festival performance, Sutton and Gish renamed their new drum and bass project Boymerang, The new tracks premiered at Phoenix were published on Tony Morley’s Leaf label (Boymerang EP, 1995). Later that year, Gish left the project and Sutton released his 2^nd EP (Pro-Activ EP, 1995) as a strictly solo project thereon. It was that very record that caught the attention of the genre’s taste-makers Grooverider, Fabio, Goldie and Doc Scott.

“I think they like the fact that I’m coming from a different angle. Everybody knows everyone, but at the end of the day, if you are doing good music, it’s all that matters. When I started making contact with Fabio and Groove, neither of them knew what I was doing beforehand – they were responding to the music.”

When Graham Sutton was not working in the studio, he used to frequent the ‘Metalheadz Sessions’ at the Blue Note; a journey forward to a shiny, musical and dignified future, as well as an escape route from the past, Saturday’s drug culture and apathy. Upon listening to Boymerang’s remix of MLO’s ‘Revolutionary Generation’ being played, Goldie made one of his notorious after-hours phone calls and invited Sutton to record for Metalheadz, providing him with absolute and unconditional creative freedom.

“I want you to do whatever you want to do. I don’t care what tempo it is or what style of music, Goldie said to me. So, one’s side is breakbeat and for the other track I’m working with Lee Harris, who was the drummer for Talk Talk”.

Boymerang titled the track he produced for this project ‘Blue Notes’, paying homage to the legendary club night and everything it represented, but regrettably it was never released on Metalheadz. ‘Blue Notes’ was published instead as an exclusive track on the first volume of the Breakbeat Science compilation series.

Boymerang – Still/Urban Space (Prototype Recordings, PRO008, 1996)

Boymerang finished his track ‘Still’ in early 1996. Designed with the essence of Metalheadz at The Blue Note in mind, Boymerang brings the sounds of Big Black/Sonic Youth into the realm of drum & bass. Big up the Indie Massive. (Grooverider presents The Prototype Years – LP Liner Notes)

Sleeve design by Jon Black

Although Sutton’s music had garnered support from a wide range of djs across the spectrum, it’s been Grooverider who has been credited for cementing Boymerang’s reputation within the scene, taking him under his aegis since the early days. Sutton returned the favour producing one of the most important records of that era, breaking down the internal barriers of a stereotypical self-regarding factionalism in drum & bass.

‘Still’ is perhaps Boymerang’s most celebrated track and a Prototype crown jewel; however it’s the flip-side ‘Urban Space’ that showcases Sutton’s indisputable talent and studio wizardry. Ever the perfectionist, he paid obsessive and meticulous attention to every detail of the process.

“The closest analogy I can think of is like being an animator or something. It’s that sort of time scale, you are dealing with tiny bursts of time and trying to get this imaginary thing to animate and move pleasingly.”

‘Urban Space’ is a sound odyssey that extends beyond the 10^th minute mark. The sampler has proven to be a uniquely subtle instrument, offering the chance to experience the distillation of an entire musical imagination in its most individualistic form. The main drum loop is almost unrecognizable; is it the original sample from ‘Life Could’ by Rotary Connection or the processed 2^nd generation ‘Make Way for a Panther’ break derivative, which had appeared in many contemporary Metalheadz releases? Only Graham can answer that:

“I love the way you just give people a little hint or flavour of something and it takes your mind on a to a different environment. I want to utilize the different flavours I’m into. All the stuff that I’ve used, but fucked up to such an extent that only I know it’s in there”.

Syncopated by fragments of jazzy keyboards and a crescendo of rhythmic devices, the main melody itself is carried like a percussive pattern, until the new-agey intermezzo, where an element of orchestral Lonnie Liston Smith soul takes over; high tech dreaming in stereo, absolutely sensational.

Balance of The Force

Inner sleeve photos reproduced by kind permission Omikron & Science Photo Library/NASA

Sleeve Design by Graham Sutton, Jon Black and Sami Khan

After a year in the making, Boymerang’s paradigm-shifting album was released on May 12^th, 1997 by Regal Recordings (an EMI subsidiary at the time). Although at first glance the title is reminiscent of a certain sci-fi franchise, it is in fact a far cry from flamboyant allusions and chrome-plated versions of the future. Graham explains:

“Basically, it’s saying you can gain the maximum momentum and maximum strength by utilizing both ends of the spectrum, because, that’s where the strength of music comes from. And also it’s a pun on mixing, the idea of the ‘perfect’ mix. Not djing, but sitting at the desk, getting the perfect balance of the elements in the music. That’s why the album has a really wide take on the music. Every single track is trying to express something different to the ones around it. People are really boxing themselves in, which I think is a great shame. It’s fine to have your style, but sometimes it seems that’s all they want to hear. You’ve got to have both sides; you’ve got to have that balance. You’ve got to have light and shade”.

Releasing such expansive aspirations did not come easily however, tirelessly tweaking different cuts and mixes, striving for equilibrium in an eternal balancing act. The long development period though allowed him to road test the music in a club environment:

“I wanted word to spread, because of the music and that’s what happened. It was nice knowing that the people that are in the know understood what was going down. There’s nothing typical about every track. I try to make each one as different as possible from the last thing I’ve done. Each one is a reaction from the previous track. I want to do stuff on different levels”.

From the soulful – yet lethal – keys and the trademark drum loop of the lead single ‘Soul Beat Runna’, the tensile power of ‘Still’ and the mantra-esque ‘The River VIP’ (co-written with Rudy Tambala) featuring the enchanting vocals by Maggie Tambala to the hallucinogenic textures of ‘A.C.I.D.’, the multi-layered excellence of ‘Lazarus’ and the sublime lo-fi experiments of ‘Secret Life’, the album eloquently displays the breadth of emotion and aesthetic possibilities that this genre has (or had) to offer.

“You’re not just creating atmospheres for the sake of it. It’s not like it all has to mean something, but it has to resonate. It has to function, it has to do something to you. It can’t just sit there and be a nice objet d’art”.

Soul Beat Runna

‘Soul Beat Runna’ was the album’s lead single; the official video appeared on MTV and the track also featured on the menu of the main FIFA Series, France ’98 video game. Graham reflects on the making of the iconic drum loop:

“You’ll have to throw your mind back to a time before computers were audio-manipulators, to when everything was hand-made in a hardware sampler, and the computer was merely a MIDI sequencer. The gear at the time consisted of: Atari ST running Cubase, Emu E4 – 16 outs, Roland JV1080, Boss SE50, Mackie SR24:4, Sony Portable DAT …and that was pretty much it!

Step 1: got the original Amen Break, played at original speed, and hand-chopped it in the E4 up into *every* constituent hit, including tiny-tiny flams etc etc.

Step 2: sequenced all the fragments, moving the pieces by the tiniest of amounts, so they played identically time-wise to the original.

Step 3: Using the timing refs from step 2, replaced all the sounds (still at old school original tempo). Only rule was no sound could come from a break that I’d heard already used. You can probably spot at least a JV ride in there.

Step 4: Kept engineering different layers of background noise etc etc, till it sounded “new but old”, at least to me.

Step 5: Re-sampled the whole break to DAT, then dumped it back to the E4.

Step 6: Replay back at sped up DnB speed to check for tone and vibe etc. Usually this would then involve going back to Step 3.

Step 7: CHOP CHOP CHOP – one new break to use!

Hehe, it sounds like an easy operation written like that, but honestly, it was fucking time consuming. Probably took a week or two till I was happy. I was so happy when I started hearing others using it, starting with Dilinja’s Silver Blade, as I’d left a couple of free bars of just the break in the track, so it could grabbed …”

‘Balance of the Force’ sadly turned out to be Boymerang’s swan song within drum & bass. Soon after the official release he abruptly vanished from the scene, rather discontent. A rumour mill went into overdrive, which I will intentionally not recycle. The fact of the matter is that the Boymerang’s drum & bass legacy still lives on through the artists he inspired and the legion of fans, old and newer, discussing and listening to his music almost three decades later.

The day after

Between 1999 and 2004 Sutton recorded the second (and last) Bark Psychosis studio album ‘Codename: Dustsucker’, titled after his private studio in East London. Essentially a Sutton solo initiative, featuring Talk Talk’s sticksman Lee Harris and ‘found drumming’ from ex-band member Mark Simnett, as well as contributions from a wide array of musicians and multi-instrumentalists, the project went full circle 10 years after the split of the band.

Sutton’s transition from musician to producer happened pretty much by accident. Geoff Travis at Rough Trade asked him to make an album for them, but he was still contractually tied to Regal/Parlophone at the time. So, he was sent a CD by the Southampton-based indie band The Delays, with a postcard attached challenging him to make a hit! Despite being skeptical at first, as the task was diametrically opposite to his whole perspective and vantage point, he eventually engaged. The single (‘Long Time Coming’) scraped into the charts and Sutton was invited to produce The Delays’ debut album; things subsequently snowballed from there …

Since then, Graham Sutton has been an in-demand producer for acclaimed as well as up-and-coming artists including Jarvis Cocker, British Sea Power, These New Puritans, The Veils, Delays, Snowpony, Dzierzynski Bitz, Coldharbourstores, Pellumair and many more. He has produced single mixes and remixes for acts including Metallica, Goldie, Brakes, Mansun, Stephen Simmonds, Mandalay, Ed Rush, Collapsed Lung, Thes Siniestros, Ultramarine and Wagon Christ. He has also worked with Philip Best’s Consumer Electronics, A Place to Bury Strangers and as a live sound consultant for These New Puritans.

All indigo-colored quotes are excerpts from various Sutton’s interviews along the years. As I have recovered only fragments of the transcripts from my digital archive, I apologize in advance for not crediting properly the original sources.

All the previous installments of the ‘Tracks I Wish I’d Written’ series are available here.