Dubnobasswithmyheadman

Karl Hyde and Rick Smith had already been a band, a synth-pop project with a different membership, when Darren Emerson joined and the three of them started recording what became dubnobasswithmyheadman. They worked between 1991 and 1993 at Lemonworld and at Strongroom in London. Junior Boy’s Own released the album on 24 January 1994. The catalogue numbers are JBOLP 1, JBOCD 1 and JBOCS 1: the label’s first full-length, on vinyl, CD and cassette. The title is a sentence collapsed into one word, which is also how the music treats speech.

Mmm… Skyscraper I Love You had come out on 11 June 1993, months before the album, a long piece of city talk over a groove that can circle a block. Dark & Long, Cowgirl and Dirty Epic are the other pieces that DJs kept. Hyde’s words sit in the mix the way a sample would, except he is in the room, muttering brand names and street details while Smith and Emerson hold a techno record open much longer than a song is supposed to stay open. The old Underworld had wanted choruses. This one wants duration.

People later filed them next to the stadium dance acts of the decade. The 1994 object is a small-label album, the first one Junior Boy’s Own had put their full catalogue numbers on, made by a group that had fired its own previous idea of itself. Play Skyscraper and then Dirty Epic. One is a walk. The other is the same walk after the clubs have shut and the voice has not. That is the record Emerson joining made possible.

Sources

• dubnobasswithmyheadman: Junior Boy’s Own, 24 January 1994, Lemonworld and Strongroom, and the single dates.
• Discogs master: JBOLP 1, JBOCD 1 and JBOCS 1.