% BACARDI
VW
_ No ll-turns
With the chart success of their third single, the sublime ‘Love U More’, Sunscreem’s policy of taking their music to the people paid off. Craig McLean finds singer, Lucia Holm, extolling the virtues of doing things the Sunscreem way.
Rhythm is a chancer, PAs are a sham, and
removed from the mutually reinforcing environs
of the cloistered club scene, most dance acts are dead in the water. Prancing and grimacing on Top . Of The Pops, most dance acts are an embarrassment. Obviously. This is a music where context is everything, where the demands of the club culture are fixed and voracious. For most dance acts this is fine and fair enough, encouraging innovation along pre-determined routes.
Sunscreem aren’t most dance acts. Sunscreem may not even be a dance act. ‘They write great songs, they look great, and they can play live. It’s no different from a rock ’n’ roll band. They are a rock ’n’ roll band who happen to play dance-pop music, and probably better than anybody else I can; think ofout there at the moment.‘
She would say that. Diane Young signed Sunscreem to Sony (along with The Real People and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin), and pinpoints the go-getting, get-ahead vitality that drew her to the ; Essex band. Sunscreem are no bedroom-bound or i studio-stuck dance degenerates. Their approach is outward-bound, a negation of the perfunctory disdain which seems to characterise the PA circuit and club tour charade.
PREVIEW
LISTINGS: GLASGOW 62 EDINBURGH 63
‘ ‘ i ‘We try and make everything as much from the
Even before they were signed in February 1991, Sunscreem roamed the pulsing clubs of Essex,
feeding their emerging music and fuelling their momentum. This year they've done 100 gigs,
mostly at the weekends, with another 30-plus in the offing. And as they’ve slogged, their records
have shifted. Following the club hits ‘Walk On‘
and ‘Pressure’, July’s ‘Love U More’ crossed over
into the pop charts. Sunscreem‘s energising live ' performances, featuring real instruments and
' surreal shape-throwing and hyperreal
; limb-jerking, now made sense.
‘We hope, and almost know. that it’s gonna pay off,‘ asserts singer Lucia Holm. ‘That’s reality. Making records in your bedroom and just being in contact with a few people is not reality for us. It brings life to the music if you can go out and try things out on people.
ea... BACARDI sew...
l heart as possible . . .’ and this extends to using the
gigs as song laboratories, experimenting with
' different mixes to keep things fresh and kick up a
i storm.
' For pundit-friendly hooks though, the
i appearance of guest remixers is the perfect bait.
| Having created ripples with their own mixing
! efforts on the first two singles, tasteshapers such as
l Eastern Bloc, Slam and Boy’s Own came calling.
a Young is candid about the usefulness of
! Sunscreem co-opting such scencster-friendly
‘names‘.
l ‘A lot of the dance magazines and people,
they’re more into the people that mix rather than the band themselves. Ifwe’d said from day one,
“Right,we’lldothe record,we’llgetX,YandZto
remix it, and we‘ll be laughing”, I think we would have gone a lot further a lot quicker.‘ A lot further a lot quicker, but perhaps a lot ‘briefer‘ too. As it is, through their rigorous touring schedules, Sunscreem have consolidated their position, setting up their new single, ‘Perfect ‘ Motion‘, to nip swiftly chartwards. In theory anyway. Thereafter, hopes hang on their album () ,. (that‘s the chemical symbol for ozone. lab fans). due in the new year. The record company exec talks ofsimilarities with the Seal album‘s appeal. and the accompanying album of remixes. The singer talks ofjust where and when people will best appreciate their dance-pop-techno-rock- ambience-grooye-thing. ‘We came to the conclusion that it would
l probably be listened to in a car, or at home,
chilling out, after coming back from a club. But it’s I not too much of a chill out. I hope we’ve got the f right amount of. . . auralbalance!‘
Sunscreem play The Tunnel, Glasgow on 50:17, Herior Watt Student Union, Riccarton on Sun 18 ; and Potterow Student Union, Edinburgh I University on Wed 21 .
Let the tribe grow
Something’s not quite right. Maybe it’s the ambience. The three members oi Bejuvenation- Glen, ex-Fruits ol Passion, Jim who ‘Ioves pressing buttons’ and their vocalist Des— have chosen to be interviewed, not over their shiny recording studio console, but in a dimly-lit colonial-style lounge cluttered with creaky bookshelves, pot
residence.
contribution to the ‘concept’ genre.
‘People think house music Is really simple to make,‘ Glen continues. ‘I would say it’s the hardest music to make because you have to constantly think about changing things. It can be quite daunting it you think “is this old hat?”. You don’t want to repeat yoursell. in a rock band you play tour chords and it’s quite simple to plagiarise an old rock record and turn it into yourown thing.’
‘The dance thing is so transient in terms oi shell lile,’ adds Jim. ‘We’re " lucky because we’ve got the studio
plants, standard lamps and exotic knick-knacks. The only indication that the three oi them have any involvement with underground dance music is the distant rhythmic thud at their studio playback coming irom behind the heavy curtain that separates the room irom the rest oi their studio-cum-
And here’s Glen coming over all global. ‘lt’s a very tribal thing - people coming together on a Saturday and sweating and dancing to a heat. It happens everywhere all over the world - not just with dance music in Britain. It happens in the mountains of Peru.
People in a village come together and dance to drums. it's a universal thing.’ Rejuvenation are interested in tribal house. And dub, and disco, and lunk. Among otherthings. All at which you’ll encounter at some point in their ‘Work In Progress’ EP, which features tour remixes ol the track ‘Work’. It’s their
sponsored by BACARDI RUM
downstairs and associations with guys in clubs, so we can work on a track all week, play it in the club on Friday night and listen to the reaction, then come in on Saturday and possibly remix it.’ (Fiona Shepherd)
Rejuvenation’s ‘Work In Progress’ EP is out now on Some Records.
The List 9— 22 October 1992 61