Artist Focus • Zdzislaw Beksinski

 

Iluminatornia Gallery

 

 

Beksinski Official Store

 

 

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Segun Lee-French

 

 

I wasn't aware that Segun was also a poet, playwright & film-maker. I'm not sure if he was doing any or all of those things back in 1995 when I first heard him as guest vocalist on Earthlings "Nothing" all I knew is that he had an original distinct voice. Back then the thought of searching the internet to find out an artists repertoire just wasn't an option or even thought. So twenty or more years later when you play a record (yes vinyl) and it occurs to you to look to see what else has this artist had been up to through sites like this diccogs to check their back catalogue.

Nothing • Earthling

A1. Nothing
B1. Nothingness

Produced by Earthling Productions

 

Label: Cooltempo – SPCD 1845, Chrysalis – SPCD 1845
Format: 320
Country: France
Released: 1995
Genre: Electronic
Style: Trip Hop

 

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Sweet Surrender • Segun

 

 

 

 

A1. Sweet Surrender (Earthling Productions)
A2. Sweet Surrender (Colin Thorpe Mix)
B1. Sweet Surrender (Thursday Club Dub)
B2. Sweet Surrender (Thursday Club Lyrical)

Produced by Earthling Productions

 

 

 

Label: Sliced ‎– SLi01T
Format: 320
Country: UK
Released: 1996
Genre: Electronic
Style: Breakbeat, Downtempo

 

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Ghost Town • Segun Lee-French 

 

 

My new single: Ghost Town

What I’m about to do is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my artistic life. For the first time in 25 years, I’m going to release some music.

The journey to get here has been long and full of self doubt. I stopped making music because I got disillusioned with spending more time trying to anticipate what the industry wanted to hear than making the music I wanted to hear.

11 years ago, I started daily singing practice, not to release music or perform, but just because I love singing and I wanted to realise my full potential as a singer. I wanted to be surprised by my voice every time I sang.

I had to rebuild my voice from the basics – breathing and vocal production. I discovered that practicing is more satisfying than performing in public. Practicing is performing to an audience of two – myself and God – and I’ve been blessed with moments when I felt complete unity between my mind, body and the universe. Though not with my neighbours.

In 2016, out of the blue, my friend, writer/broadcaster Kevin Le Gendre told me out that he had written 10 songs for me to sing. We did a gig for ResonanceFM at Iklectik Art Lab with a band including Kevin on bass, Art Terry on keys and a drummer called JT.

I started attending the Freedom jam sessions run by Cleveland Watkiss and Orphy Robinson at The Vortex in Hackney, and felt the joy of improvising with musicians in front of an audience that listens.

4 years later, I’m releasing Ghost Town, a cover of my favourite song, written by Jerry Dammers for The Specials in 1981, the infamous year of riots.

The theme of the song is timely with the Covid pandemic, but I actually started work on the track with Kevin on bass in 2018. I’ve been procrastinating about releasing it for almost a year after Colin Thorpe did the final mix.

Ghost Town will be released on 30 April through Distrokid on more platforms than I ever knew existed. If you like what you hear, please do pre-save to your playlists. If you really want to make me feel loved, you can do that old fashioned thing and buy the track on pre-release.

Pre-save now (if you like)

Pre-order (if you love)

Tings & Times – Music & Words

 

 

Segun Lee-French · GhostTown - Full Edit

 

 

 

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The Golden Palominos • Dead Outside

 

In 1997, The Palominos released another EP, named 'Dead Outside' five remixes of tracks from their album Dead Inside. It was offered exclusively for download from the official Golden Palominos website and Nicole Blackman's website (both now defunct) from October 15, 1997 to November 15, 1997.

  1.  Victim: The Last Thing (Sean Beavan.John Van Eaton remix)
  2.  Ride: Pragmatic Spasmatic (Raymond Watts remix)
  3.  Belfast: Empty As Wire (Scanner remix)
  4.  Ride (Mark Walk remix)
  5.  Victim: Interference (John Van Eaton remix) 

Nicole Blackman

Anil: The group briefly made an accompanying remix album, Dead Outside, available for free online. Why did you take that approach to releasing it?

Nicole: Because a lot of the remixes that we got were done by friends of mine and by artists who just wanted to do it because they loved it. Raymond Watts from KMFDM and Pig did a remix. Chris Randall from Sister Machine Gun did one. So did Sean Beavan, who's done all of the Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson work. Scanner did one, John van Eaton did two. So, basically those all came in for nothing and Restless said "Well, we're gonna pay Mark Walk from Ruby and maybe one or two other people to do them and there's going to be a club remix and a radio remix." And what came in was very disappointing to everyone. So, I think Restless at this point was like "Aww, forget it. We're just not going to do anything with them." So, Anton and I said "Well, we've got all these remixes for nothing, we might as well just put them up on the Internet and just let everyone download them for free." So, if you see a press release from Restless saying "Restless pushes the envelope by debuting the first remix EP on the Internet," it's a scam. [laughs]

The Golden Palominos
Control and Resolution
by Anil Prasad

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Label: Restless Records – none
Format: 5 x File, MP3
Country: US
Released: Oct 15, 1997
Genre: Electronic
Style: Trip Hop, Ambient

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