Aug 5, 2023
Zig Zag ✦ Push Button - DWLP 3414 ✦ 1979
composers: Karl Jenkins + Mike Ratledge = Rubba
seen from Algeria
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from T1
seen from Hong Kong SAR China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Sri Lanka
seen from United Kingdom
seen from China
seen from Netherlands
seen from Singapore
seen from Germany
seen from United States
Zig Zag ✦ Push Button - DWLP 3414 ✦ 1979
composers: Karl Jenkins + Mike Ratledge = Rubba
Rubba - Way Star
4 tracks from the LP ‘Electra’ performed by Rubba (De Wolfe Music Library, DWS/LP 3482 , UK, 1982)
It was pouring with rain. It gave the impression that it was going to do it all day. In such cases, some of us might decide to eschew getting dressed, leave the curtains closed, brew hot beverages and watch old films on TV. Tempting as this was, I opted to trudge across town, umbrella in hand, to a friendly record shop where one is encouraged to browse, chat and listen for hours. Oh, and they give you coffee.
I came home with a small bundle of LPs, this being one of them. Now, the world is full of expensive trophy library records, and the internet is awash with rich show-offs trying to out do each other on social media so it gives me great pleasure to be sharing this cheap and unfashionable looking De Wolfe offering from 1982. It’s a grower. Unassuming yet deeply satisfying. In that sense, I feel it’s the musical equivalent of a soft boiled egg and soldiers. Dip in.
RUBBA - CAROUSEL IN THE MILKY WAY
L’Illustration Musicale, Sonimage, Técipress-In Editions (Timing), Musax, Freesound, Montparnasse 2000 in France but also De Wolfe and Chappell in England, every of these sound illustration labels have in common to bring out as a legendary spectre the name of Jacky Giordano and his aliases. Widespread practice in the library music world, Joachim Sherylee, chosen for the “In Motion” album, is one of his plentiful aliases (with José Pharos, Jacky Nodaro, Gruppo Sounds, Rubba...) used by the french composer, that we regain as well for Black Devil with Bernard Fèvre or even for the Shifters with Yan Tregger. For his enthronement on the mythical english label De Wolfe, it's under the obscure name of the Rubba collective (which resurfaces evenly with other english instrumentalists within the Rouge subdivision) that Jacky Giordano aka Joachim Sherylee sneaked in the londonian De Wolfe studios with the companionship of british colleagues such as John Hyde (aka John Saunders, James Harrington used on the Amphonic Music label, Astral sounds or even Wozo) and his wife Monice Hyde (aka Monica Beale), Alan Howe (aka John Collins), Robert Poole and Tim Broughton. Published in 1980, the "In Motion: Modern Progressive Group Sounds Played By Rubba" LP and its minimalistic and utilitarian red record cover which contains 13 tracks, mainly composed by Joachim "Giordano" Sherylee and was never reissued since then. This record became cult over time, it will have taken that the Hip-Hop world, consistently at the forefront and on the lookout for original samples, seize it in order to dig out from the disregarded and underestimated musical gems graveyard. First of all with beatmaker Madlib and Freddie Gibbs in 2011 with the track Thuggin', in which he sampled the track Way Star, also used more recently by Mil and the rapper Westside Gunn on his track Brains Flew by (1964 Version). Nearly 40 years after, the Farfalla Records label, after publishing Timing Archives, presents another aspect more progressive and psychedelic of the multi-faceted composer Jacky Giordano by fully reissuing at last this coveted, mysterious and mesmerizing "Rubba". Very desired by crate-diggers, In Motion appears in the want-list of plenty enthusiasts in this enigmatic world of the library music.
Freddie Gibbs and Madlib had made for some big time hip-hop plays in big time hip-hop situations. They sampled Rubba’s “Way Star” and also Walt Barr’s “Free Spirit” which turned heads and samplists into total hysterics. But this? General Lee & The Space Army Band’s cosmic-soul number “We Did It Baby”. Had you even hear the original? Wow. It’s on a whole other universe. Perhaps one of the rarest soul records ever made, produced and performed by Robert Q. Lee under his Lost Weekend imprint. Both Lee and Gibbs are from Gary, Indiana, so one wonders if Gibbs knew beforehand and had Madlib search the original out or if Madlib broke the news to him.
Not to be left out, another one of Lee’s I like is “Magic”, an amazing flashy disco-funk single that had to be, or should’ve been, a must-play in any given roller rink.
We’re still waiting for that “forthcoming” album, though.
Rubba // Way Star
Battle | Push Button - DWLP 3414 | 1979
composers: Karl Jenkins + Mike Ratledge = Rubba
