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A Man Called Adam (sometimes abbreviated to AMCA) are the British electronic music artists Sally Rodgers and Steve Jones, and are regarded[ by whom? ] as pivotal in the development of the electronic music genres acid jazz, Balearic house, Chill Out and Nu British House [ citation needed ]. Test Pressing magazine described them as "Britain’s unsung pop heroes." [1]
Recording for DJ Gilles Peterson’s fledgling Acid Jazz Records label, A Man Called Adam found that it was the remixed B-sides "Techno Powers" and "Amoeba" (electronic versions of the A-side tracks) that became cult records, bridging the divide between the jazz, rare groove and acid house scenes.[ citation needed ]
AMCA later moved to Big Life Records and released "Barefoot In The Head". [2] Produced by Sally Rodgers, Steve Jones and sound engineer Mat Clark, the track features choral pads and strings coupled with bouncing Roland 909 and 727 rhythm tracks. The Channel 4 documentary A Short Film About Chilling... featured the band along with The Farm, DJs Andrew Weatherall, Terry Farley and Rocky and Diesel, and charted their journey to Ibiza with club promoter Charlie Chester, and a couple of hundred British ravers on the first organised clubbing holiday of its kind. The vocal sample, of American actor Rod McKuen intoning 'I put a seashell to my ear' to the sound of waves lapping the shore, meant the track would ever be associated with sun-drenched beaches and the term 'Balearic House' came into use.[ citation needed ]
Around the same time, Paul Daley left the band to join Leftfield. [2] Rodgers and Jones went on to release their debut album The Apple in 1991. Following the release of several singles from the LP ("I Want To Know", "The Chrono Psionic Interface" and "Bread, Love And Dreams"), AMCA left Big Life to set up their own label, Other Records. [2]
Through the mid-1990s, AMCA released several singles and contributed to The Café del Mar series of compilation albums, as well as creating a side project, Beachflea, [2] and their Planet Jazz and Other Stuff compilations on Other Records. Rodgers and Jones also compiled High in a Basement for Heavenly Records, a selection of works from notable British artists and labels such as Faze Action and Reel Houze.
The second AMCA album, Duende, was released in 1998 and included the singles "Easter Song", "Que Tal America" and "All My Favourite People". [2] It also featured the song "Estelle", which was never released as a single but continues to be included on numerous Chill Out compilations.
A third AMCA album, All My Favourite..., was released in 2004 on Norman Cooke's Southern Fried label, and featured a selection of songs from the two previous albums alongside several new songs. It also included an acoustic version of their signature song, "Barefoot In The Head", which was released as a single.
Rodgers has since earned a master's degree and PhD from the University of St Andrews; she describes her research as "an impact narrative about how capture and recording technologies have, over time, changed lyric forms... all the way from the Romantics to Bob Dylan and Hip Hop". [3] Jones has a PhD in New Media [4] at De Montfort University, [3] as well as an M(Sc) in sound design from the University of Edinburgh. They have continued to work together as sound designers on museum, film and theatrical commissions, notably the BME (British Music Experience) — a museum charting the history of British pop music and The British Museum's exhibition Journey to the afterlife: The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Reflecting their interest in avant-garde and art music, Rodgers and Jones recording and creating installation works as Discrete Machines, released an album and two EPs between 2011 and 2015.
In March 2019, A Man Called Adam bounced back into the scene with their album Farmarama. Lowdown magazine reviewed Farmarama as "born out of a mature union of individuals who understand themselves fully as artists and have complete awareness of where they want to take their music [...] A Man Called Adam are a great talent currently displaying an acute sense of creativity unhampered by the constraints of genre." [5]
Ban Ban Ton Ton Blog says: "Mixing the resulting sometimes asymmetric building blocks with clank, glitch, and digital fizz, to reconstruct something fresh. Music that references their Acid Jazz origins, yet has all its beats broken in a 21st century way. While digging at the emptiness and selfishness of modern life, they are effectively a healing mantra. Embodying positivity and hope." [6]
Rodgers is also an in demand DJ playing at clubs and festivals worldwide. [7]
| Year | Single | Peak positions | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK [8] | |||
| 1988 | "A.P.B." | — | singles only |
| 1989 | "Earthly Powers" | — | |
| "Musica De Amor" | — | ||
| 1990 | "Barefoot In The Head" | 60 | The Apple |
| 1991 | "I Want To Know" | — | |
| "The Chrono Psionic Interface" | — | ||
| 1992 | "Bread, Love And Dreams" | — | |
| 1993 | "I Am, Is The Way" | — | singles only |
| "Love Come Down" | — | ||
| 1995 | "Easter Song" | — | |
| 1996 | "Que' Tal America?" | — | |
| "The Jihad EP" | — | ||
| 1998 | "Que' Tal America?" | 197 | Duende |
| 1999 | "All My Favourite People (Stay With Me)" | — | |
| "Easter Song" | — | ||
| 2004 | "Love Forgotten" | — | All My Favourite... |
| "Earthsings" (feat. Brenda Fassie) | — | ||
| "Barefoot In The Head 04" | 97 | ||
| 2019 | "Farmarama Remixes Vols. 1 & 2" | — | |
Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. is an American musician, record producer and composer. The co-founder of Chic, Rodgers has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million singles worldwide. He is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a three-time Grammy Award–winner, and the chairman of the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Known for his "chucking" guitar style, Rolling Stone wrote in 2014 that "the full scope of Nile Rodgers' career is still hard to fathom".
The Brand New Heavies is an acid jazz and funk group formed in 1985 in Ealing in west London. Centered around songwriters/multi-instrumentalists Simon Bartholomew and Andrew Levy, the core members of the group since its founding, Brand New Heavies are best known for a string of successful singles in the early 1990s featuring N'Dea Davenport as lead vocalist.
Gilles Jérôme Moehrle MBE, better known as Gilles Peterson, is a French broadcaster, DJ, and record label owner. He founded the influential labels Acid Jazz and Talkin' Loud, and started his current label Brownswood Recordings in 2006. He was awarded an honorary MBE in 2004, the AIM Award for Indie Champion and the Mixmag Award for Outstanding Contribution To Dance Music in 2013, the PRS for Music Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music Radio in 2014, and The A&R Award from the Music Producers Guild in 2019.
Galliano were a London-based acid jazz group that was active between 1988 and 1997. The group was the first signing to Eddie Piller and Gilles Peterson's Acid Jazz record label. The original members were Rob Gallagher, Constantine Weir (vocals), Michael Snaith and Crispin Robinson (percussion). Other important members included Valerie Etienne, who participated in the recording of all their albums, along with other musicians such as Mick Talbot on keyboards, Crispin Taylor on drums, Ernie McKone on bass guitar, Mark Vandergucht guitar, and Steve Ameedee, otherwise known as Uncle Big Man (dancer).
Martin Glover, better known by his stage name Youth, is a British record producer and musician, best known as a founding member and bassist of the rock band Killing Joke. He is also a member of the Fireman, along with Paul McCartney.
Andrew James Weatherall was an English musician, DJ, songwriter, producer and remixer. His career took him from being one of the key DJs in the acid house movement of the late 1980s to being a remixer of tracks by the likes of Happy Mondays, New Order, Björk, the Orb, the Future Sound of London and My Bloody Valentine.
Thomas Jerome Moulton is an American record producer. He experimented with remix in disco music and this led to its wide adoption as a standard practice in the industry. He also invented the breakdown section, and the 12-inch single vinyl format in the process.
Diana is the eleventh studio album by American R&B singer Diana Ross, released on May 22, 1980 by Motown Records. The album is the best-selling studio album of Ross's career, spawning three international hit singles, including the number-one hit "Upside Down".
Shinichi Osawa, also known by his stage name Mondo Grosso, is a Japanese musician, DJ, record producer and composer currently signed onto Avex Trax's Rhythm Zone label. Previously he was signed to Sony Music Japan's FEARLESS RECORDS division and released albums under the title of Mondo Grosso, showing influences of Brazilian music and language in songs such as "Maigo no Astronauta" or "Carnival of Colors." Over the course of his career he has worked in genres from acid jazz to house, with strong influences of underground club music, though his recent work has been in the genre of electro house. HMV Japan rated Mondo Grosso at #95 on their "Top 100 Japanese Pop Artists" and Shinichi Osawa is ranked as Japan's #1 electro house DJ and Japan's #3 overall DJ by TopDeejays.com.
Mocean Worker is the recording alias of jazz musician and producer Adam Dorn.
Phil Kieran is a DJ, electronic music producer, recording artist and remixer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He also composes original music and soundtracks for film and theatre, TV, radio and online media.
Acid Jazz Records is a record label based in East London formed by Gilles Peterson and Eddie Piller in 1987. The label is the namesake of the acid-jazz subgenre of jazz music for which it is most famously known for producing.
"Stuck In A Wind Up" is a song released by Lord Large on the Acid Jazz label with former The Foundations front man Clem Curtis singing the lead vocals. The B side is a Ska track called Move Over Daddy. Stuck In A Wind Up is popular with the Northern Soul scene.
When Harry Met Sally... is the soundtrack to the movie When Harry Met Sally... starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. The songs are performed by pianist Harry Connick Jr., who won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance.
Richard David James, best known as Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born British musician, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic styles such as techno, ambient, and jungle. Journalists from publications including Mixmag, The New York Times, NME, Fact,Clash and The Guardian have called James one of the most influential or important artists in contemporary electronic music.
Glass Records was a British independent record label which operated from 1981 to 1990, and was resurrected in 2015.
David Harrow is a record producer, DJ, and multimedia artist living and working in Los Angeles.
Smoove & Turrell are a British group hailing from Gateshead in the North East of England. They play a style of music they describe as "Northern Funk" - a contemporary fusion of funk, soul, northern soul, hip-hop and electronica.
Sulene Fleming is a British singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist for the band the Brand New Heavies from 2016 to 2018.
Terry Farley is a British DJ, remixer and producer from London, active since the mid-1980s.
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