The Never Ending Playlist #37

Wilmot – Sabres of Paradise (1994, Warp Records)

Wilmot is not sadly a tribute to the eighties funny man and musical theatre star, Gary Wilmot. A man who for several months when I was about eight or nine was always on programs like Sunday Night at the Palladium – which kids, was the eighties equivalent at Live at the Apollo, only with more ropey singers, and added homophobic and racist jokes.

Instead ‘Wilmot’ is something entirely different. It starts out with this slow almost ska like beat that tweets and wails and bursts into life around a minute in and when the trumpet sample kicks in around two minutes in. By that time of course, ‘Wilmot’ its already in a full on party mood, but as the swirly ambient beats combine terrifically with the drum and that addictive trumpet sample you’ll find yourself reaching for the sun hat and a jug of Sangria or something. Its bloody marvellous, and as I happens I listened to it whilst in the waiting room to see the dental hygienist. It felt weird, because its basically the sound of the carnival unravelling in your ears and I looked up grinning away half expecting to see the other people waiting all grinning back at me, as if they were listening to it as well, which of course they were not.

If you are interested it sounds great played back to back with this.

Bingo Bango – Basement Jaxx (2000, XL Records)

Sabres of Paradise are of course the work of Jagz Kooner, Gary Burns and the all round genius that was Andy Weatherall. Its taken from the band second album ‘Haunted Dancehall’ and every bit of it is excellent and it may well find itself featured in the ‘Nearly Perfect Album’ series in the coming weeks.