2012 - from the LP "On the Phone with..."

Graham Mushnik - Storms And Spells

September 70 are a duo from Dundee, Scotland comprising of Graeme Ogston (Spare Snare) and Paul Munro.

September 70 were formed shortly after ramshackle Dundee indie outfit The Hate Foundation dissolved. Graeme and Paul had been working closely together on a variety of projects for some years and with their combined love of cherry menthol tobacco, chicken tikka sandwiches, Polish cafes, charity shop crate digging and good old funky music they both made September 70 a force that could not be denied existence. 

The first incarnation of September 70 was called Taxi Driver or Taxista! under which they recorded the Taxista Suite. This was an unusual lo-fi mix of soundtrack style music of a 70’s nature inspired by such diverse influences such as Jean-Claude Vannier, the big brassy balls out easy listening funkathons of artists such as Keith Mansfield, Alan Moorhouse & Alan Hawkshaw, the psychedelic latin soul of Pucho & The Latin Soul Brothers, the sunshine pop of Curt Boettcher with some Lalo Schiffrin thrown in for good measure. 

The Taxista Suite was effectively a soundtrack album for a movie that was never made, although some of the tracks ended up on the soundtracks for 2 low budget short movies (A Long Time Coming, The Carpet Junkie), both of which were shown on the big screen. Originally it had been penned for a ridiculous script that Graeme and Paul were writing about a Kung Fu cat and a bitter jaded detective called John Mandingo, but they never quite got round to filming it. 

The recording itself was achieved on a dodgy old 4 track in Paul’s dingy old bed-sit, so the production values were not the greatest. All of the sampling was done on an Amiga 500 using TechnoSound Turbo and the drums that weren’t sampled were programmed on an Alesis HR-16 drum machine. Recording and production values aside the Taxista Suite is considered by the band to be a diamond in the rough. 

