The difference a day makes

As far as heart-warming tales go, the music business isn’t exactly a treasure trove, but there are a few that stand out.

One concerns a young man from London who in 1993 was working away by himself, mixing up hip-hop beats with old jazz samples and putting them out as white labels. One of these tracks fell into the hands of Blue Note, the label from whence the young man sampled much of his material. He was called in to see them but, instead of the expected legal hammering, was given a recording contract and unlimited access to the musical vaults. And with that, US3 was born…

After a brief but world-wide success with Cantaloupe (Flip Fantasia) and the following Hand On The Torch album, Geoff Wilkinson (the young man in question) quietly slipped out of sight, back to his studio and massive record collection to make two more albums, 1997’s Broadway & 52nd and the current An Ordinary Day In An Unusual Place.

A quite extraordinary record, An Ordinary Day… takes Wilkinson’s original vision on a giant leap forward. Of the album’s many striking aspects, the most noticeable is the more live, less sample-based feel. Geoff agrees.

“That’s a result of several things really. First of all, I’m not on Blue Note anymore. I built my own studio about four years ago, which has given me a lot more time to experiment. I’ve still used some samples but I’ve had the time and space to experiment with more live, human, living, breathing people.”

If you thought you knew just a little bit about music, then twenty minutes in conversation with Wilkinson will put you to shame. Spells as a DJ and in a record shop have helped build an almost encyclopaedic knowledge. So what does he do, hear a snatch of music and mentally file it away till a later date?

“I do indeed, I’m a bit nerdy like that I’m afraid. In fact, I’ve just had a huge box load of dodgy old vinyl delivered to my door that I managed to find on the Internet. That’s been awful for my bank account.”

Does he feel like himself and the Avalanches (whose album he is sadly yet to hear) are staking a claim for the sampler to be placed on an equal footing with other instruments?

“If anything, I like to blur the boundaries between them so that you can’t tell which are samples and what’s live. I’m not one of those purist, DJ Shadow types, where he made an album just of samples. I wouldn’t really do that; I like mixing it up a bit.”

Central to this new mix and match philosophy are the band’s two new vocalists, rapper Michelob and astonishing singer Alison Crockett, whose show stopping turn on ‘Let My Dreams Come True’ is perhaps the album’s highlight.

“Well,” says Geoff, “I always said that if ever I found a vocalist with a true jazz sensibility that I thought could fit in with US3’s music then I’d use one. I did consciously look for a vocalist with this album. As soon as I heard her sing I started to try and track her down.” After a bit of a run around from a New York record company the two finally made contact. “Luckily she liked the stuff and we got on.”

With the increasing live input, it’s a much grittier album than we might have come to expect from US3. The beats are tougher, the grooves tighter. Geoff is delighted at such an observation.

“That would reflect where I’m at at the moment. I’ve been out and about a bit more, doing more clubbing than I have in the last few years. I’ve been a bit more underground, checking stuff out and this album reflects what I’ve been listening to.” I take it we can assume that he’s a hip-hop man? “Totally. My best friends run the Scratch hip-hop night in London and I’ve been to 99.9% of those.”

Hand in hand with the harder musical aspect is a more clued-in, politically aware stance. Once more something that we might not associate with a sample-based dance act, but Geoff sees it as totally natural.

“Again that was a bit of a conscious decision. When I was looking for vocalists I specifically looked for lyricists as well, someone who could write something more socially conscious and aware. I used to be a lot more politically active, quite a way back now, but I’ve been employed by both the Anti-Apartheid movement and CND in the past. So I thought it was about time to say some of the things that I believed in but because I don’t write lyrics it took a bit of time to find someone who shared the same outlook as me, but I found them. I think they’ve done a fantastic job, both lyrically and vocally.”

Does he think that the days of massive politically inspired music events have passed?

“Post-Band Aid it all became a bit corporate. When we did the thing on Clapham Common that was a free gig, a consciousness raising thing and absolutely none of the bands got paid for performing. Jerry Dammers from Artists Against Apartheid put the bill together.

“People do still stand up and make pronouncements, like Bono and the debt crisis, and it’s important for people to be aware of things like that. He means it; it’s from the heart. I know people take the piss out of him sometimes, but people do take the piss out of artists who stand up and say something for being a bit pofaced. If you believe in it then it will come across OK, if you don’t believe in it you’re going to sound like a prat anyway, people will suss you out. All the stuff on my album is heartfelt.”

An Ordinary Day In An Unusual Place is out now on Universal. London’s Scratch Hip-hop Club visits Dublin’s TBMC on October 5th.