shit and shine 
'find out what happens when people start being polite for a fucking change'
gangsigns
gs004
12" vinyl only.
300 copies.

shit and shine 'stop being sexual' gs004

Taken from the album 'Vertigo'. Limited cyan coloured vinyl LP (300 copies only) out July 26th 2024

artist: IVAN THE TOLERABLE QUINTET
title: Vertigo
catalogue # REPOSELP142
format: Vinyl LP (Cyan)
barcode: 5051142068873
release date: July 26th 2024

Stars align and Oli Heffernan brings his ever-(d)evolving Ivan The Tolerable to Riot Season for two LPs of sublime entropic drift. 

Having this time recruited Christian Alderson (The Unit Ama) on drums, John Pope (Ponyland) on double bass, Kevin Nickles (Ecstatic Vision) on flute and saxophone and Ben Hopkinson on electric paino - both works were recorded as a quintet almost instantaneously, the players barely brushing or breathing a note before the whole thing was done. 

The first LP, Vertigo, is all claustrophobic, dense and disorientating - like Sun Ra sitting in with Exploding Star Orchestra

Whereas the second LP, Water Music, is the music of lapping waves, becalmed, creaking hulls, circling birds and gentle winds. - Equal parts Laraaji and Natural Information Society

Bob Fischer (Electronic Sound Magazine) on ‘Water Music’

"A summer's afternoon daydream of an album. Beautifully soothing psychedelic jazz overflowing with raga delights...immerse yourself in its charms"

John Hubner (Complex Distractions) on ‘Vertigo’

“An expansive collection of free-flowing sound and mood bringing to mind Coltrane (John and Alice) as well as the great Albert Aylor, while touching on the forward thinking compositions of Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra. From the titanic soundscape of "New Worlds On Earth" to the Marc Moulin touches of "Liquid Voices" and the mysterious eccentricitiesof "Swimming", 'Vertigo' hangs in the air long after the final note plays.”

Vertigo

The Pearl

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IVAN THE TOLERABLE QUINTET 'The Pearl' (Vertigo 2024)

Mighty Clouds Of Joy 'Mighty Cloud Of Joy' (greg wilson & ché wilson rework)

124 bpm

DJ only vinyl 2024.

The Mighty Clouds Of Joy were an LA-based gospel group who’d been releasing records since the early-‘60s, initially as The Mighty, Mighty Clouds Of Joy’. In 1974 they made a departure from their more traditional style when the group went into Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, the epicentre when it came to the soulful dance music that would soon explode as disco, recording their album, ‘It’s Time’, with producer/songwriter, Dave Crawford. Members of the Philadelphia International group, MFSB, already renowned for backing artists like Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes, The O’Jays and The Three Degrees, were brought aboard for the sessions, including the legendary Baker-Harris-Young rhythm section, who, apart from MFSB, fuelled The Trammps, with Earl Young celebrated for innovating the disco style of rock drumming.

I came across the group via their second single from ‘It’s Time’, ‘Mighty Cloud Of Joy’, released in late-‘74. I figure I must have picked my UK 7” out of a bargain bin when I was 14, maybe 15. There’s nowhere I would have previously heard this – it was before I started DJing, and it’s not something likely to be played on radio. I reckon I bought it on spec – I knew the label, ABC, via singles by Eddie Holman, Four Tops and Rufus, so it was a trusted source, and I would have been fascinated that the artist and title were (almost) the same.

It picked up specialist plays from some soul and funk DJs here, including Colin Curtis at the Blackpool Mecca and Les Spaine at The Timepiece in Liverpool, but largely went under the radar. It remained a personal favourite from the period, which I’d have thought would have done well in the States, but it appears to have been largely slept on there too, the track receiving DJ support, but not igniting as you’d imagine it would have. The following year, again recorded at Sigma Sound, the next Mighty Clouds album, ‘Kickin’’, included ‘Mighty High’, which would blow up big time with US DJs and top the disco chart (it wasn’t a track I can ever recall hearing in a UK club). It surprised me to learn that ‘Mighty High’ had been so big, while ‘Mighty Cloud Of Joy’ is conspicuous by its absence from both the US R&B and Disco charts – the latter sounding far more like a disco classic to my ears.

Having remixed Gabriels ‘Love And Hate In A Different Time’ with Ché, inspired by the mid-‘70s Earl Young disco groove, it brought to mind the gospel-infused ‘Mighty Cloud Of Joy’, and this rework resulted. Having played it out while we fine-tuned, despite its relative obscurity, people responded to it like they’ve known it all their lives, it’s ‘movin’ on up’ refrain infectious, which makes it all the more surprising that it wasn’t huge on release.

Pressed on limited vinyl as part of the GW Edits series, and featuring ‘The Turnaround’, an update of Vicki Sue Robinson’s ’76 disco anthem, ‘Turn The Beat Around’.

shit and shine 'stop being sexual' gs004

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