Futterman's Rule
An instrumental excursion, a forgotten mutant soul LP and the sound of London in 2010
When I originally got into listening to, and writing about an album every day we were still in the throes of lockdown. Things opened up as the year progressed, but I was fairly cautious and consequently was home a lot of the time.
Life has now, by and large, returned to normality. It reminds me of how different our lives were back then; in the last week I’ve travelled to Paris and back, visited 4 art galleries (see above for a couple of highlights) and gone to a football match, which would have seemed unfathomable two years ago. It does mean that this hobbyist project is hard to keep up with sometimes - I wouldn’t have it any other way of course, but it does force you to consider what’s important and what you want to invest time and energy into.
As a creative outlet it has become a significant part of my life, and a silver lining from a couple of years of very stormy weather. What the last week has taught me is that much as our online worlds can be engrossing and occasionally enriching, there is a real world out there that’s back up and running and it’s very much worth grabbing with both hands.
April 8th • Beastie Boys - The In Sound From Way Out
Back home from a week's break with the family and it seems that spring has finally reached South London. Reading the papers as the sun cautiously found forgotten corners of the house my eyes rested on this album that I picked up on last summer's holiday, a purchase that replaced a long-unusable CD copy purchased back in the 90s.
As mentioned elsewhere in these posts, the Beastie Boys were my favourite band when music was the most important thing in my life, and Ill Communication is an album that legit changed my outlook on music. I was all-in on the Beasties - from the records, to their magazine Grand Royal, the clothing line X-Large... I loved every bit of it.
This compilation of instrumental cuts would seem to be a rather slight concept; why would anyone be interested in a batch of loungey jazz funk instrumentals from a rap group? Against those odds the record works, and in a couple of different ways. Firstly, as a record in and of itself, it's good - nothing ground-breaking and certainly not an essential record in their oeuvre, but it's got a low-key elasticity to it that is hard to dislike. Whilst not being virtuosos, the trio have enough musical chops to keep it interesting, particularly with the addition of Money Mark and Eric Bobo on a number of the cuts.
For fans of the band it's also a reminder of the records these cuts came from, and of the role they played in those LPs. Particularly on Ill Communication the instrumental joints were useful mood-breakers, seamlessly linking together the diverse sonic threads that they threw into their albums.
My favourite is probably the B-Side opener Futterman's Rule, largely because of the title and it's origin which I still refer to today. As per the aforementioned Grand Royal Magazine, Gene Futterman was a friend of Adam Yauch's father, Noel. Futterman was very into cooking and at dinner parties he always used to say "when two are served, all may eat". This was to ensure that nobody eats alone and the food is hot when you eat it. I love this, and I love the Beastie Boys.
April 9th • Elmore Judd - Angel Sound
As I get deeper into my collection through these posts, I find myself unearthing records that I haven't thought about in years. Some of these are curios, one-offs from artists that are no longer making music, and some, like this one, are from artists who have carried on creating in a variety of different guises over the years.
Jesse Hackett is a name that won't be familiar to a lot of music fans, but he's been an ever present part of the music scene for a couple of decades now. A member of the Gorillaz live band, his other projects include Owiny Sigoma Band, Rawdog (alongside his brother Louis Slipperz), Blludd Relations and more recently Metal Preyers. Today I discovered that he even released an album with Stones Throw back in 2015.
As well as reminding me about Jesse this album encapsulates a very particular time in music; the point where post-Dilla hip hop met avant garde pop, with artists like Bullion and Jamie Woon experimenting in the outer reaches of multiple genres to create something new and exciting. So on this LP there is late night RnB alongside wonky hip hop, lo-fi pop and even post-punk disco. It's a wild ride underpinned by some excellent song-writing and inventive production.
Released on the short-lived Above The Clouds Recordings this isn't on streaming services but is readily available on Discogs and YouTube. If you remember this from when it was first released it's a compelling trip down memory lane, and if you're not familiar you should definitely change that.
April 9th 2021 • Mount Kimbie - Crooks & Lovers
I can’t believe this is 11 (now 13!) years old already. This was released the same year that I returned to London after 12 years in Leeds and it’s emblematic of a shift in music that was happening at that time. I’d been caught up in the edges of dubstep - there’s some music from that scene that I really love but I’d be lying if I claimed to have been there since day one. It got pretty ‘bro’-y, pretty fast and seemed to be turning into something outside of its roots. I remember being at Outlook Festival and feeling so out of my element with the crowd that it seemed to be attracting.
The post-dubstep sound that Mount Kimbie, James Blake et al were coming through with was an antidote to that. It came from a similar space but brought in melody, delicacy and a depth of emotion that really resonated with me. This is without doubt my favourite album of that time and listening now it doesn’t seem to have aged a day.
I got to know Kai and Dom around 2012/13 - I answered a random twitter callout to make up the numbers in a 5-a-side game they were running and played on and off with them for a few years. Dom came and played at the regular game I play in and we hung out a bit around that time. It always amazed me how they managed to make music given that Dom appeared to be playing football pretty much every day. One night when we were playing at their game they brought a photographer down to take a picture of a bunch of us for their album sleeve. This idea never made the grade and a cleaner illustration was chosen instead for Cold Spring Fault Less Youth. My dreams of being a cover star were dashed. Then again, I’m not sure I looked my best after chasing a ball around for an hour so it’s probably no bad thing.