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After a brief stint DJing hip-hop. soul and
funk as port of Scratchbeat Masters for MC Tunes and the After a brief
stint DJ-ing hip-hop. soul and funk as port of Scratchbeat Masters for MC
Tunes and the Ruthless Rap Assassins. Gerald had stumbled on house at a
supremely febrile moment in its Stacy evolution. By the early 90s. Gerald
was buzzing on several fronts. signing a major deal with CBS (Sony) and
releasing the influential house album 'Automanik'. His second album
however still anguishes in the vaults. "probably never to be released" and
he was dropped. Thereafter he perceived his sampler as a time machine.
something that could induce trance like rhythms with breakbeats. "an
attempt to reflect my frustration to know the truth about my ancestors who
talked with drums." His next project-come-album released in 1993. '28 Gun
Bad Boy'. was an essential document of urban malevolence. gangster
posturing. skull-snapping beats that still sounds like a landmark in the
music we now know as drum & bass.
‘28 Gun Bad Bwoy' laid the foundation for producers like DJ Hype's jump-up
sound but it was his newly established Juice Box 12's that really
announced his intention to write a new blueprint. 'Black Secret
Technology'. the album of evocative African rhythms and phased out voices
that followed m % definitively showed that drum & bass was capable of
making a full-length statement of intent Utterly unique. Gerald Simpson
has consistently explored new territory throughout his 12-year career and
has no shortage of admirers amongst house and drum & bass producers
globally.
Yet if you put these facts to him. he looks genuinely shocked and remains
speechless for a few minutes before scratching his head and saying,
softly. 'Thank you, but you're wrong. I'm sorry. but reckon There's many
other producers who deserve that term better than I do. like Dego and Marc
from 4 Hero. They've managed to establish a label [Reinforced] for ten
years and to do a multitude of different projects. I haven't." He sighs.
bouncing up and down on the sofa in his new label K7's London office.
Interviews seem to make Gerald nervous. Perhaps it's because he doesn't
tend to think about what he does too much or because he is genuinely
embarrassed encountering the lavish praise that his frankly marvellous new
album. 'Essence' has engendered. Then there's the faint chance that he's
worried about being misrepresented. ("it's happened lemony times I've lost
count"). tarred with the wrong brush. aligned with people and movements
barely has any connection to.
A resident of New York ("it's not as glamorous as it sounds. I live in
this neighbourhood where I have to pay protection money to rude boy
gangsters just to get in my flat") he is generally quite denigrating about
the current state of drum & bass. last time he was here it was the era of
the noise for noise's sake practitioners. "Too many of the producers that
people rabbit on about these days don't realise what the roots of the
music were." he says. giggling. "It's just rubbish to believe that can
write a good drum & bass track without a funky element. that you can win
people over with bass. A couple of years ago. when everybody was falling
over themselves for that sound. Dego. link (4 Hero) and I were listening
to some radio station and we were just falling about the floor. laughing.
I mean it's just a waste of programming skills and proves that a lot of
drum & bass producers have no imagination."
He calls himself a musical loner. living a hermetic experience in the
wilds of Brooklyn, dabbling and experimenting. so wasn't aware that his
new label. !K7 were responsible for the great 'DJ Kicks' series. He only
hooked with them because he was looking for a European distribution deal
for his Woe Box and Rotary Code labels. Generous to a fault. many would be
eternally resentful that they received £200 for a song that became a top
ten hit ('Pacific State') but Gerald isn't having any of it. 'You live and
learn and I don't feel resentful for the rum deals that I've signed or the
early years. that makes me an idiot. but I can't do anything about it now.
I can't change anything. 'Things fall apart sometimes and you have to pick
yourself up and move on. The only thing I was a concerned with was that I
might not be able to make music."
His long creative break is put down to 'trouble with my former Juice Box
and studio partner. legal stuff that took forever to sort out. I wasn't
sure about Essence' for a while: I recorded about twice much material and
then had to filter it. A lot of it was recorded five years ago. I mean.
Louise Rhodes of Lamb] came into the studio ages ago for 'Humanity'.
(Gerald's backing track was originally earmarked for Lady Miss Kier). I
just wanted to make sure everything was perfect." Much has am made of
Gerald's professional link with former Dee-Lite singer. Lady Miss Kier who
sang on Sock Secret Technology' and appears alongside Gerald's brother.
Dave Simpson. Jennifer Neal. singer/songwriter, Wendy Page and Louise
Rhodes as a featured singer on 'Essence': "Kier is good fun and. without
being disrespectful to the other singers on the album who are all great. I
like her contributions ns the most. I asked my brother to sing on the
album because I've always been perturbed by little investment-is placed in
black male singers in this country and he's a great singer. I was toying
with the idea of a r&b drum & bass album at one stage. but it didn't quite
work out like that"
No instead. A Guy Called Gerald has recorded something more timeless than
that, he's moved on. redefining the parameters of drum & bass yet again.
Like a film shot entirely at golden time. the !sounds on 'Essence'.
acquire an extra luminescence. brightness and clarity at every listen. The
soulful songs. 'Humanity'. 'Fever (or a Flame)'. 'Universal Spirit' and
'Could You Understand' are soulful sultry and sexy but his instrumentals
will rattle your flat/office /club with their earth-shaking basslines and
the skitter of ragga and deep house grooves.
As befits a true innovator. Gerald was asked by Bill Laswell to contribute
to a project he was working on with Herbie Hancock earlier this year. Now.
Laswell, a notoriously finicky producer has arranged to have artists as
diverse as John Lydon (Sex Pistols/PIL), Ginger Baker. Ryuichi Sakamoto on
the same record or even more extremely. Whitney Houston. Archie Shepp and
Fred Frith. He's a pioneer of hip-hop. ambient. avant-funk and world music
and has worked with Africa Bambaata. George. Clinton. Sly & Robbie and
Hector Zazou amongst others. By all accounts. Laswell is an archetypal
musical revolutionary who has the perfect qualifications to rework new
named from another archetypal revolutionary. A Guy Called Gerald. "I
haven't met them yet. but trot on honour. I mean. I worked with a couple
of heroes for the album that wasn't released but -Herbie Hancock, he's on
another level. He's written some classic tunes. I've written the drum
.,'-gumming for the track and Herbie is going to play the keys. how many
people can say they're going to work with Herbie Hancock? Not many. It's
like a dream"
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