The Perlich Post: Skeletons out of Ben Lamdin's closet

Monday, February 22, 2010

Skeletons out of Ben Lamdin's closet

What I found particularly intriguing about Ben Lamdin's recent Impossible Ark label sampler A Compilation is that despite employing essentially the same artwork that was used for the Impossible Ark collection entitled "The New Sound of British Jazz" and released only in Japan a few months prior, there were drastic changes to the track listing. The updated release is almost a completely different disc.

The fantastic songs which made the Japanese set such a delight, namely Film Blues by Nostalgia 77 Session with Keith & Julie Tippett, Free Spirits by the Drop In Sessions, Blues For Kate by The Friction Dynasty, Afrodesia and Manteca by Rhythmagic Orchestra and Come Home To You by the Voices Of Time were all replaced by mostly inferior tracks by Jeb Loy Nichols (who's Country Got Soul series suggests he's a much better compiler than singer/songwriter) and Sigurta Casagrande.
The only significant improvement to the revised label survey is the addition of an Afro-jazz tune called Positive Force by the mysterious Skeleton. Evidently, Skeleton is not a real group, more of a studio fabrication created by musician, engineer and record selecta Benedic Lamdin aka Nostalgia 77 who also runs Impossible Ark when not producing or remixing Elizabeth Shepherd recordings.

“Skeletons is a made up band," explains Lamdin. "I kid you not – it doesn't exist. These musicians never stood in the studio together, they just passed through my house or left some scraps of sound behind after sessions we were working on. This record is like a guy, pieced together and ready for the bonfire.

“Some of the music here started life as commissions for a library music company, pastiches and forgeries paid for by the current vogue for a certain style of African jazz. Once I'd done a few though I couldn't stop, it was my default preoccupation, something for me once I'd finished working on other people’s albums. It was relaxation, something that didn't matter whether it worked or not. The whole LP was made like that, done in the time between recording jobs.
“To me the whole thing has been a self indulgent forgery, an act of mindless fun. If it sounds good then it's because I just enjoyed the music and enjoyed myself.”

Based on the other Skeleton recordings I've heard, the swinging Mulatu and the downtempo Mr. Mystery – both done in a 70s Ethio-jazz style reminiscent of Mulatu Astatke, and the soulful Alice Russell-voiced getdown Adam and Eve, it sounds like the forthcoming Smile (Impossible Ark) album due on March 1 could be a boffo banger.

Our man Lamdin will undoubtedly be spinning some of his choice Skeleton joints along with other Impossible Ark club wreckers (perhaps Rhythmagic Orchestra's update of Nina Simone's African Mailman) at his N77 night with DJs John Kong, General Eclectic and ?uesquecest at The Supermarket (268 Augusta) on Friday (February 26). Tickets for the stellar event, which doubles nicely as a NuFunk Festival 2010 launch party, are $5 before 11 pm and $10 afterwards if there's any room left.

Nostalgia 77 Live

Nothing To See Here |

Nostalgia 77 "Hope Suite"