Atmosfear (band)

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Atmosfear [1] [2] are a jazz funk/Brit funk [3] band who formed in the United Kingdom in 1977. [4] They originally consisted of bassist, and keyboardist Lester J. Batchelor, drummer Ray Johnson, saxophonist Stewart Cawthorne, [4] producer Jerry Pike [5] and guitarist Andy Sojka, a figure on the Brit funk scene, who owned the All Ears dance music import shop in Harlesden at the time and was involved in running the Elite record label. [6] [7] [8]

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A year later singer and guitarist Tony Antoniou joined the main line up. [4] Regular support musician / members of the band were keyboardist Peter Hinds, who has also been a member of UK jazz funk pioneers Light of the World [4] and Incognito, and percussionist Leroy Williams, a member of UK soul band Hi-Tension, who had also played with Level 42, a band Sojka had discovered, named [9] and had signed to his record label [6] before they had a deal with Polydor. They were sometimes joined by horn man Alan Rapoport, Frank Roccoti, Rick Dejong and singer Carol Kenyon.

Their most notable release was "Dancing In Outer Space", [4] which reached the Top 50 of the UK Singles Chart in 1979. [10] A double A-sided single followed, "Motivation" / "Extract" which did not chart. This track also became BBC Radio 1 DJ, Pete Tong's club track of the year, when it was released where Tong appeared at a nightclub close to Brands Hatch.

Following a major disagreement with Andy Sojka, the main group line up changed completely, when bassist Lester Batchelor left soon after the release of the single "Xtra Special" which he penned. The different version of the track was recorded in the United States with the vocals provided by Dolette McDonald.

In the mid 1990s, Sojka set up three new dance music labels called Meta4, Chemical Discs and Jump Cut, with the latter releasing an album by Atmosfear called Trance Plants in 1994 and Meta4 releasing the act's Jangala Spirits in 1997. In the late 1990s, a remix project called Altered Slates, managed to get "Dancing In Outer Space" re-charting low down the Top 100 with mixes from Masters at Work's Louie Vega and Kenny 'Dope' Gonzales, [11] who had sampled "Motivation" on their Bucketheads album track "I Wanna Know" a couple of years before the record re-charted. Also involved with the Altered Slates project were producer Francois Kevorkian and Dimitri from France. [6]

In February 2000, Sojka died of multiple myeloma aged 48, while in the middle of recording a new Atmosfear album called Groove World.

In 2019, Bachelor debuted a new line-up of Atmosfear, and booked a number of live dates for 2020, which had to be rescheduled. [12] He also released a new version of "Dancing In Outer Space" called "DIOS:2020" [11] which featured Francesco Mendolia from Incognito alongside Orphy ‘Vibes’ Robinson MBE, Antonello Filaccio, Dee Byrne, Kenny Barry and Shelley 'Deeizm' Debenham.

Discography

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References

  1. ↑ "Atmosfear Page".
  2. ↑ "Making en Trance - the untold story of Brit-funk pioneers Atmosfear". 20 November 2018.
  3. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Feel the Chant: The Brit Funk Story".
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Colin Larkin, ed. (1993). The Guinness Who's Who of Soul Music (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 11. ISBN   0-85112-733-9.
  5. ↑ "Digging Deeper: An interview with Elite Records' Jerry Pike".
  6. 1 2 3 "Andy Sojka". TheGuardian.com . 10 March 2000.
  7. ↑ "James Hamilton's Disco Page".
  8. ↑ "September 1988".
  9. ↑ "Mark King and Mike Lindup talk to SDE about the new Level 42 box set – SuperDeluxeEdition".
  10. ↑ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 32. ISBN   1-904994-10-5.
  11. 1 2 "GROOVE WITH NO FEAR | Atmosfear | Brit-Funk Brilliance | History".
  12. ↑ "TOUR DATES | Atmosfear | Buy Tickets".
  13. ↑ "Dancing in outer space | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". Official Charts .
  14. ↑ "ATMOSFEAR | full Official Chart History | Official Charts Company". Official Charts .
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