Activate the rhythm that has always been within you

It has been almost a year since I have added to this blog. No particular excuse; I have just been focused on other things and there has been a large dose of procrastination thrown in for good measure. I have been thinking about posting for a while and I just needed both the idea and the inspiration to do so. Following a chat with a good friend, it motivated me to to write about one of my favourite artists of the 90's: The Shamen.

The Shamen were formed way back in 1985 by Colin Angus and brothers Derek and Keith McKenzie. Quickly joined by Peter Stephenson and featuring a variety of members over their initial 4 years as a group, Angus and Co. channelled their interests in psychedelia, acid house and pop as well as experimenting with techno, sampling and even some hip-hop rhythms. The result - in my opinion - was one hot mess which was never going to garner more than a niche audience and limited commercial success. I have listened back to the first two albums released in this incarnation of the group, and I don't see anything of merit, sadly.

Will Sinnott joined the band in 1987 after Derek McKenzie left for university, to help on bass and keyboards. At that point, Angus had already been experimenting with a more electronic sound; Sinnott (or Will Sin as he was known) was the additional catalyst they needed. In 1989 they met Mr C and Evil Eddie Richards who were instrumental in transitioning their music to the rave scene. Most of 1990 and early 1991 was spent on the Synergy nightclub tour with the likes of Orbital and Paul Oakenfold, but The Shamen had time to release their third album, En Tact which featured the singles Move Any Mountain, Hyperreal and Make It Mine.

Apologies for quoting wikipedia directly (as I cannot frame this better myself) a tragedy then followed: In May 1991, with the increased popularity of their band, Will Sin decided to release an EP entitled "U Make Me Feel" with an unknown female singer under the pseudonym Elsi Curry, and it was released as a promotional record. Later that same month, after the Sixth Mark of the Synergy Tour, and a one-week tour of Russia, the Shamen headed to Tenerife, to film a video for "Move Any Mountain". On 23 May, Will Sinnott drowned whilst swimming off the coast of La Gomera. Colin Angus later said: "When it first happened, I was still reeling from the shock of Will's completely unexpected and tragic death, and I couldn't think about The Shamen at all, couldn't see how anything could continue. But as I came to terms with it and thought about the situation I realised that what The Shamen was about was positivity and that positivity is like the spirit of the music and positivity acknowledges the need for change. So for those reasons I elected to carry on and also I knew that the name Shamen really meant a lot to Will and that was one of the main attractions for joining the band for him."

Had it not been for the input of Sinnott and that determination of Angus to carry on (with the backing of Sinnott's family) afterwards, we wouldn't have experienced the best of what The Shamen had to offer; namely En-Tact and Boss Drum. These two albums alone give them full access to the Electronic music hall of fame, fusing acid house, rap, techno, rave, ambient and alternative dance.

En-Tact benefits from collaborative thinking in a way some albums of its era were ruined (the 'too many cooks mentality just not paying off in a lot of cases). Mixing and production come from many, including Paul Oakenfold, William Orbit, Graham Massey (of 808 State fame), Orbital, Evil Eddie Richards, The Beatmasters, and Joey Beltram. If you could gather that much talent today for a production, think of the possibilities!

Thank you once again to Luke Harding for playing Boss Drum to me one afternoon around at your house. I went out and bought the tape shortly afterwards, and then went back to buy En-Tact a little later that year. What struck me about both of these productions was how cohesive they were; yes, The Shamen had success in the charts with their 3 En-Tact singles and the tongue-in-cheek Ebenezer Goode (the not-so-subtle anthem to taking ecstasy which the establishment at the time didn't notice, and duly allowed to shoot to a lofty number 1 position in the UK singles chart in 1992 and 13 overall in the year).

It would be doing The Shamen a huge disservice to focus purely on singles though. On Boss Drum alone there is some impressive work: the title track is a tour de force, Phorever People is elevated beautifully by Jhelisa Anderson's vocal, Comin' On is a thumping good track and Mr C's rapping is impassioned and impressive. My personal favourites are at the back end of the album: Scientas is a beautiful ambient piece and the Terence McKenna accompanied Re: Evolution is just stunning. I think McKenna's words are quite evocative and whilst I confess to still not understanding everything he's trying to convey it gives gravitas to the track.

With the help of no less than Future Sound of London, The Beatmasters, Justin Robertson, 1994's Different Drum took the Boss Drum tracks and created some of the finest remixes of the era. I don't particularly pay a lot of attention to remixes unless they stand out, and in this case there are 5-6 really interesting re-interpretations of The Shamen's work by both themselves and others. Definitely worth a listen.

In 1995, The Shamen released Axis Mutatis (together with a double album version featuring Arbor Bona, Arbor Mala, which was a very cool ambient experimental piece). Whilst some of the singles are a little cringeworthy, I still like them and most of the tracks are extremely cohesive works; especially Neptune and Agua Azul.

What followed later in the 90's was nothing short of a shame: the group falling out with One Little Indian over creative differences and releasing Hempton Manor in 1996 which, if you read the title of each track, spells out Fuck Birket, which was an all-too-unsubtle attack on the label's founder, Derek Birket. They then released UV independently in 1998 which had little commercial success.

One would like to think that The Shamen created a legacy of which they can be proud, and certainly for me they pioneered a sound and contribution to the rave scene of the 90's which cannot be denied. Would I like to see them return triumphantly? Yes, but realistically I don't think they will do a KLF and resurrect themselves musically, so I live in hope of a tour of the 'hits' for some of the ravers of the 90's and many of us who just missed it, but want to live it now....or pretty soon at least.

Badger x