1. It’s… (2001)
This was originally chucked together for a mixtape intro. Like Jack Spade in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, everyone needs their own theme music, sadly I couldn’t afford my own marching band to follow me around town so I made this instead.

2. Turtle Bay Swoop (2003)
Obviously I liked the Rhodes riff enough to revisit it, this time in a squelchy synth style. I think I’d been overdosing on a combination of Dilla and Anti Pop Consortium that week (and probably a touch of Yazoo). Not a lot of people know I started out as an MC (of sorts) and I guess I’d planned on rapping on this track though I don’t think I wound up writing anything for it, or at least if I did I don’t remember.

3. Take It Down ft Sarah Wayne (2002)
This one started life as a 3 parter called Ghost Yard Beat Down which if you listen carefully i’m shouting in the background, somewhere down the line Sarah popped round and after the 12th cup of tea laid down this vocal, instantly transforming the backing from a pretentious bricolage of samples and percussion to a good old fashioned song. This also goes down in the annals of instantly forgettable history as the 1st track I ever played bass guitar on.

4. 2000 Tape Decks (2003)
Here’s another one I was gonna rap on. Fortunately I had enough foresight to turn the chorus hook into a skit and leave the rest as a dodgy demo. The rough idea with the beat was to turn a bunch of free jazz samples into some old fashioned boom bap, it kind of worked.

5. Fiesta (2004)
This is a shameless nod to my seedy big beat past, brash drums, massive piano chords and very little in the way of subtlety. Hiding in a hard drive somewhere is a version of this with Nohopers and myself MCing but you’ll have to make do with the instrumental here.

6. Zero (1999)
The earliest production of the bunch, Zero was the 1st thing I recorded when I bought an 808. I was a Roland obsessive for a short while, they’re not the greatest synths but I’ve always loved the look of them – I think I used my old SH101 and an SH3a on this skit.

7. Behind You ft Sarah Wayne (2002)
Another synth based one which started out as a Jimmy James loop and wound up as an unintentional tribute to Mantronix. Once again high on PG tips, Sarah took to the mic and came up with something which I’d like to think could’ve graced many a pirate station back in ‘86.

8. Silver Peaks (2004)
If you’re not dancing to this one like Rosie Perez in the intro to Do The Right Thing then I’ve done something wrong. Channel your inner S1W and step.

9. Journeycakes (2003)
I engineered a track for my mate’s brother in about 2003, he came round with this rowdy garage thing he’d made in fruity loops featuring the old “watch the bassbins” sample and asked me to help him clean it up for a release. I linked him up with a slot on Groovetech radio where he played the emerging dubstep of the time, recently i tried to track down his brother as he still has my 808, I looked up him up on facebook and found out he was now going by the name of Caspa. Anyway enough of the name drops, I made this at the time after he went home.

10. Madlove Six (2002)
This one was indirectly influenced by the unlikely combination of a Sunday pub roast with the family and a band called Aqualung. I can’t remember why Aqualung influenced it, I don’t remember liking them as such but I do remember them being on the radio on the way back from the pub and somehow that led to me making this somber 3/4 thing with brushed drums and what i think is a toilet flushing. I do like a Sunday pub roast though.

11. EM45 (2003)
I love this as it’s one of the few things I’ve made with my old mate Reg on double bass. I think I wrote some lyrics to this one but once again I’ve spared you the horror.

12. Sixrock ft The Devotional Ensemble (2004)
This one has a bit of a story behind it, if you’ll indulge me… I was at a fairly low point when I laid down this backing track, broke, living in my studio which was in a drafty carpet lock up and wondering where my ailing music career was actually going. I finished the backing track in an afternoon then called up the sax player Eugene to see if he’d come in to finish it off. The next day I was out and about in torrential rain, I got back to the studio and found a stream of water running through the middle of the control room, and rain cascading into the live room through the ceiling. Everything was soaked, records messed up, drum machines full of water and I decided there and then to quit music. Then I remembered Eugene was coming over to record, I considered canceling but he was determined and he wound up putting this down in 2 takes, cheating electrocution in the drenched live room via standing on a rubber mat. I reconsidered quitting at that point, if he was willing to risk his life for a sax solo I figured I’d give music another chance.

13. Phirutna (2003)
And here we have what I guess you could call a raga of sorts, it’s pretty messy but good fun. That’s me tapping away on the tablas while Steve Kemp of Hard-Fi fame bashes away on the drums. I have no idea what the other guy is singing about.

14. Run From Revelation (1999)
Another very early one from the previous century, this was supposed to be a skit on the end of a garage version of Single Minded People by Nicolette which I knocked up on the sly only to be told by the distributor they weren’t feeling it, which was fair enough. I quite like it now, though i wish i’d mixed down those drums a bit more.

15. Trainsong (Derailed) (2003)
I wrote this in my head whilst walking from Tolworth to Kingston one morning after I got my car locked in a multi story car park and had wound up sleeping on my mate’s ratty couch in a house which was soon to be leveled. I paid off the over night stay, got to the studio and had this finished about 3 hours later. There’s a nod to the broken beat stuff of the age, and I can safely say that playing a can of paint in time is no mean fete.

Personel:

Wrongtom – All Production & Engineering, Bass on 3 & 15, Percussion on 3, 12, 13 & 15, Rhodes on 12 & 15, Harmonium on 13 & 15
Sarah Wayne – Vocals on 3 & 7
Ray Rotello – Drums on 10 & 12
Reg Edwards – Double Bass on 11
Eugene Bezodis – Saxophone on 12
Steve Kemp – Drums on 13