Wah Wah 45s

All posts tagged Wah Wah 45s

GUESTMIX004 | Neil Bopperson (Wah Wah 45s) (May 2014)

Posted by soulid on May 27, 2014
Posted in: Guest Mix, Mixes, Soul, Funk & Jazz. Tagged: , , , , , .

GUESTMIX004 | Neil Bopperson (Wah Wah 45s) (May 2014)

A little late in the month but no doubt we hadn’t forgotten. Just in time for the Bank Holiday break we present our fourth guest mix of 2014 and it’s a cheeky little number from Neil Bopperson of Wah Wah 45s fame. The third man behind the blazing London imprint does not disappoint either, digging in the crates for some lesser known gems that take us on a 50 minute journey of deep and funky grooves. As a permanent fixture on London’s club circuit, Bopperson has already shared bills with a varied array of talent including BBC Radio 6 Music’s Huey Morgan, Plan B, Debruit, as well as seemingly everyone’s favourite DJ Theo Parrish and Jazzanova! Kicking things off here with a little mellow Montana, you get raw soul, funk and jazz in abundance.

For a few more of Neil’s selections, make sure to check out his Mixcloud page and if radio is more your thing, it might be nice to know that he also also hosts a show on the excellent French online station Le Mellotron once a month. As part of the Wah Wah 45s collective, you can also find him regularly rocking an assortment of London’s venues – next up for him is this Friday’s Wah Wah South event at Brixton Jamm featuring a guest DJ set from edit king Yam Who?, as well as a June 20th date out East at The Hive Project / The Yard alongside Andrew Ashong, Josie Rebelle and a live PA from Lea Lea. Then it’s time to head out for this summer’s festival season where Wah Wah 45s will be making appearances at the Southern Soul festival in Montenegro and Bestival on the Isle of Wight.This year also sees the independent label celebrate its 15 year anniversary and on October 11th, amongst a glittering array of live talent, the boys will be flying in the legendary Kenny Dope to headline their birthday bash at Oval Space. You can pre-order tickets here.

On the label front, Neil helps out on the day to day running of the business and having just announced the signing of London’s Afrobeat king Dele Sosimi to their artist roster, it’s looking like another busy summer of releases. Look out for a brilliantly atmospheric cover of the Talking Heads classic (and Greg Wilson favourite) ‘Pyscho Killer’ by Lea Lea, as well as a reissued gem in the form of the rare ‘One More Step’ LP from Canadian pianist Henry-Pierre Noel and more new music from Paper Tiger, The Gene Dudley Group, Hackney Colliery Band and Stac!

To stream this month’s mixtape click below and if you dig it, make sure to let Neil know over on his Twitter.

GUESTMIX004 | Neil Bopperson (Wah Wah 45s) (May 2014) by Soul-Identity Music on Mixcloud

TRACKLIST

Montana – Warp Factor II (Atlantic)
The Soul Fantastics – Ain’t No Sunshine (Soundway)
Willie West – Fairchild (Josie Records)
Slide 5 – Outerspace (Ubiquity Records)
Alain Toussaint – Get Out Of My Life Woman (Bell Records)
The Lost Generation – This Is The Lost Generation (Brunswick)
Richie Phoe – I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You (Wah Wah 45s)
Gary Burton Quartet – Las Vegas Tango (Atlantic)
Teotima Ensemble – Gloves Off (First Word)
The Five Corners Quintet – Hot Rod (Ricky Tick)
The Soul Session – Horse With No Name (Bopperson Edit) (Free Download)

TIP: Resonators – Vipers (Emanative Remix)

Posted by soulid on March 18, 2014
Posted in: Sound Bites. Tagged: , , , , .

Emanative

Well here’s an interesting little nugget for your Tuesday listening schedule. Resonators are a nine-piece dub reggae outfit coming straight out of the twin musical hotbeds of Brighton and London, and 2012 saw them release their sophmore album ‘The Comfort’ on Wah Wah 45s to much acclaim. Now truthfully reggae and roots music has always been a bit of a difficult one for us, the vast catalogue of artists, labels and of course, its rich history acting as a sizeable barrier to understanding the genre as a whole (so eh… frankly we’ve kind of sadly ignored it so far!). But, that being said, when the man like Emanative’s Nick Woodmansey tipped us to his take on one of the troupe’s songs ‘Vipers’, our interest was piqued.

With the help of the lovely Jessica Lauren, keyboard supremo and specialist in all things dub, Nick turns out an excellent track that is ripe for a spin after hours when the dancefloor is yearning for a more adventurous rhythm. In fact we might just have found the natural successor to our battered copy of ‘Magnificent Dance’, as the pair rework the steppers groove to produce something with a slightly more frenetic feel, and Jessica adding to the original’s use of an Farfisa organ with harp and tape delay simply aids in amping up the atmospherics by +10. We’re big fans of the old Farfisa here and it seems it was not by accident that the label sounded out Nick for the remix, as he recalls “When Wah Wah approached me about doing the remix, they said that they’d thought of me because of the Farfisa organ – knowing that I love it and that Jessica had hunted down, and bought one especially for playing in our version of Steve Reid’s ‘Lions Of Judah’!”

The track is available on the expanded edition of ‘The Comfort’ which was released this week on Wah Wah 45s. You can give it a listen below and if you feel like throwing some pennies in the hat, skank on over to the Wah Wah 45s Bandcamp and fill your boots.

Oh and if the above confession irks you in anyway, feel free to drop a few links to some reggae gems in the comments section. You never know, we might get inspired.