A Wink & A Nod To Blackest Ever Black

I've been threatening this for a while, it's time for me to write about a favourite, dearly departed label from the recent past.

Readers might wonder where I got the name of this newsletter from, some will possibly know the album title it references (Dave Ball’s In Strict Tempo, released in 1984 on Some Bizarre), but that’s not where I picked it from originally. I saw the phrase in the sales notes for a live cassette by Regis on Blackest Ever Black, from their fifth birthday party in Berghain back in 2011 (doesn’t time fly?)

A birthday bop, in strict tempo, but with a hey-hey-hey; songs, sketches and comedy too. Ninety minutes excerpted from the main turn. Half an hour of requests, cover versions and encores expunged for reputation’s sake.

I’d been into BEB for pretty much all of those previous five years at the time, picking up their first couple of releases from Raime, Regis & Tropic of Cancer and some of their early CDR ‘mixtapes’. Having been a big fan of the Regis/Downwards/British Murder Boys continuum and all that it seemed logical that this new label, with it’s DIY aesthetic and dark, brooding tunes would appeal. I wasn’t wrong.

That first Raime EP was the gateway, sounding harsher and a damn sight more interesting than a lot of dance records at the time. It got lumped - unfairly - with that “post-dubstep” tag, but in reality it was so much more that that. When I heard Regis had remixed a track from it then that was me sold. I think I’d missed out on a few of the first records - checking back through some of mine; those plain black sleeves with photocopied A4 info sheets stuck in them, a couple state ‘second edition’, the first pressings having sold out almost immediately and me having to save up my meagre HMV wages to buy records I needed. Yeah, needed.

BEB opened my eyes to so much music, once it started to find its feet it lurched sideways into new avenues, putting out crucial records from post-punks, actual punks, and people who weren’t punks at all but just wanted somewhere to release their music. Even stuff not on the label, but amazing, and otherwise forgotten tracks featured on it’s occasional mixtapes which were as expertly curated as anything on the label was. A high point came a few years into the labels life when it reissued Gareth Williams & Mary Currie’s Flaming Tunes on vinyl for the first time, which fast become a favourite album, despite not being like anything on the label at the time. Where had this album been all my life? What was this label, and why was it speaking straight to my heart?

The BEB sound continued to flourish, it got darker, weirder, harder and jazzier. You couldn’t predict what would come next. Of course we should always have seen it coming, what with those early Tropic of Cancer records. By 2015 they were five years old, and hosted an event in London’s ICA of all places - could it have been a more perfect venue for the label like this? To celebrate, as well as the aforementioned Regis tape, they released another compilation cassette titled Low Company - a name Kiran would come back to years later.

Over the years I bought everything I could afford - it became a buy on sight label for me and eventually I became a member of their short lived, and hugely chaotic membership scheme, the Vicious Circle. I don’t know how many people signed up for that, but the admin must have been immense as it involved PayPal'-ing money to them and hoping, waiting that your records and tapes would arrive, which they usually did. I think when it eventually closed I still owed Kiran money, or vice versa, but who knows?

Events were always a big part of the BEB folklore, mainly held at London’s Corsica Studios they featured a strong cast of label artists, associates and hangers-on. I think I went to them all, and each one counts amongst my favourite nightlife memories. Vatican Shadow dropping the heaviest electronic music I’d ever heard I’m surprised that Elephant & Castle Station didn’t come crashing in on top of us, Regis playing the Dad’s Army theme on the night Clive Dunn died (he also shoehorned in the It Ain’t Half Hot Mum theme into his Berghain set I mentioned above, with typical grace), Chris Farrell in a smoky Room Two, Ossia, Source Direct, Felik K, loads more. I visited Corsica loads around that era as I was living just around the corner, and those BEB nights were some of the best in terms of music, punters, vibe everything.

All good things come to an end and eventually BEB wound down - it’s final output a compilation titled A Short Illness From Which He Never Recovered. I think that was one of my favourite things about the label - for all it’s seriousness there was always a sense of humour running through everything they did - it didn’t always appear at first look, but dig deep enough and it was there - at a time when music was becoming ever more po-faced having a label willing to go against all that, and take the piss, but from way down there, was totally refreshing. Ask yourself, who these days would put out a mix promoting a club night that featured Russell Haswell, Cut Hands, Source Direct and ten minutes of an old Slimzee Sidewinder mixtape featuring Dizzee Rascal and Wiley on absolute fire? A seven minute long jungle-tekno ode to oddball Tory politician/journalist/commentator Peter Hitchens? A cassette from an artist titled ‘New Private Window’ dedicated to ‘the wankers’?

I mean, isn’t “ambiguous content” the lifeblood of art? Take away ambiguity, take away doubt and contradiction, and art is no longer fit to serve reality, never mind fantasy. Take ambiguity away and what would be the point in anything? I’d fucking top myself.

That wasn’t the end of the story though, and from the ashes of BEB rose Low Company, a record shop/label/place for the fringes of the music industry to hang out and drink in the cold. The twelve or so releases Low Company put out took on an even more DIY slant than BEB ever did, but were still always compelling - but the real highlight was the shop itself. I became friendly with Kiran during this era, selling him records I was distributing at the time, then promptly heading up to Hackney Downs (like most of East London, a place I generally try to avoid) to spend a hundred quid on records I never knew I wanted. Nothing gave me greater joy than listing a record for sale, then seeing an email from Low Company asking for ten or fifteen. It meant I knew I was right, that this was a good record, a record worth pushing. That was the beauty of the place - walk in there with an open mind, and come out of there lighter in the pockets but with your mind blown.

Low Company was just as chaotic as the label ever was - myriad genre sections in it’s racks, many of which made no sense to anyone but the staff that worked there. Their mailouts became things of legend, one edition trying to sell a wheelclamp a courier had cut off his van outside, others just rants on the state of the music world, the weather, or people who bought GRM records to leave sealed on their shelves, looking good. I can’t begin to list all the records I’ve bought there and discovered in part due to the motley crew of people working there, or better yet, their mailouts which were a highlight of the week, each new release accompanied by a mini-essay on why you needed this record in your life. They were usually right too.

Low Company died during the pandemic, and whilst no-one will illegally build a spa and leisure complex to it’s memory, it will live strongly in mine, on my record shelves and in my streaming library. My words will never do BEB or Low Company justice, but I hope the tracks (the ones that remain on Spotify, sadly much of the catalogue has been removed now) I’ve put in the playlist below do.

Fooling Around

Onto this weeks new music then - and i’ve done a separate playlist this week to keep the BEB tunes in their own place this week.

Olaf Dreijer - landing on AD93 after an outing on Hessle Audio late last year - looking forward to hearing more of this. It’s no OAR-003B, but there’s little out there that can stand up to that really.

A couple of new tracks from I. Jordan. I’m not sure what to make of Real Hot & Naughty - it’ll probably be massive in the club with a younger crowd than me, but I don’t like the vocal - And Groove however, that’s more like it - a proper garage-y roller that’s right up my street.

One from last year I’ve just discovered: Dances With The Cosmic Twin is an album from Fizzy Veins - part of Planet Rescue & Montel Palmer. This is a stuttering, slowed down and broken soul, piecing itself back together beat by beat. Less out there than the MP stuff it’s still worth sitting with it for a while, preferably with the lights off.

The Trilogy Tapes continue their fine run of form (dating back what, like a decade now?) with an hour long piece titled Croon Harvest composed from white noise, voice & field recordings. Sit back and let it wash over you.

Thomas Bush’s Old & Red was one of my favourites from a few years ago, and he’s back with a new one called The Next 60 Years. I haven’t spent much time with this yet but initial thoughts are it’s gonna be another firm fave.

Finally some new tunes from Luke J Murray diving deep into the darkest sides of the ‘ardkore continuum with his new project Liquid DNB-Like Ambient Grime. Proper heavyweight tackle this, coming out on Sneaker Social Club. I’d recommend investigating Luke’s numerous side projects too, if you’re the musically adventurous type…