help me out: white lady reggae record

[james]

And I ain't talmbout that rinked copy of the Big Mountain cd that's still clattering around underneath the passenger seat of your mom's RAV4 amidst the Starbuck's lids and Snackwells wrappers.

No, there was this thing--it got reissued in the last year or two--that was done by some Engerlish art-student-type lady sometime in the eighties, kind of in a post-Slits/-Lizzy-Mercier vein. I think the story is that she put down basic tracks in her London flat or whatever, and then spent a grip of money to go to Jamaica and get the thing's knobs twiddled by a bunch of known pros.

The cover shows her lamping on some rocks with a melodica, wearing a red pajama-style get-up avec turban and white Keds (or perhaps going out like your man Ross Hogg in the white Chinese slippers) for a look that kinda splits the difference between a photo-negative bobo dread and a monied day-spa patron. I feel like either her name or the title of the record starts with "Y."

I might be wrong about some or all of this, though.

Anyway, I remember hearing some soundclips and thinking it was--while every bit as blas?? and as blanca as I'd expect--interesting and approaching legit, and though I'm not necessarily trying to run out and buy it right now, I always hate it when I forget stuff like this.

Thanks in advance for any jogs of the memory. You're looking good in those shorts, soulstrut.

 

[Horseleech]

Musically it sounds like your talking about the Vivien Goldman record, though the cover is pretty different:

 

[james]

No, it wasn't anybody as recognizable as Goldman.





I seem to recall that the lady in question--while she was not uncommitted to the aesthetic--never really did anything apart from this one record.

 

[The_Non]

I eagerly await the answer to this question w/pictures

 

[bassie]

and not New Age Steppers? (not knowing what the reissue cover might have looked like if it was them)

 

[Flomotion]

Yeah, Ari Up was my first thought, too, and she did leave London for Jamaica...but I can't think of an LP with that cover.

 

[LaserWolf]

Sounds like an Augustus Pablo record or 2, minus the white lady.

 

[hogginthefogg]

I'm kinda pleased that I have no idea what you're talmbout, but I wish you luck all the same.

 

[james]

I fucked up many of the details, but it turns out that what it was what I was thinking of was Brenda Ray's Walatta:

In the crisp celery polo and the mom jeans, miss lady's looking more than a little like my Aunt Cindy here. Replace the melodica with a generic Kool, and that's her.





Anyway, thanks very much to everyone for taking a swing. I meant what I said about y'all looking good.

 

[hogginthefogg]

I feel like Brenda's Vans probably looked fairly crispy before hoofin' it up to the perfect setting for an album cover. The ku-fez really sets the fit off, though.





If you saw this inna di field, would you think "Hooters" ("And We Danced," not the place with the wings where everyone goes for the breasts) or "Augustus Pablo"? I think I'd just be confused.

 

[Okem]

It sounds like a pretty interesting album. Her whispered vocals might get a bit annoying on repeated listen but everything else that I heard was pretty tight. She also has another lp called D'Ya Hear Me! with a similar kinda vibe but not recorded in JA, pretty interesting listen none the less.

 

[james]

hogginthefogg said:If you saw this inna di field, would you think "Hooters" ("And We Danced," not the place with the wings where everyone goes for the breasts) or "Augustus Pablo"? I think I'd just be confused.

Oh, man. In its nascent stages somewhere in my mental notes is a sprawling treatise on the first twelve seconds of "And We Danced." Don't get me started.





But yeah, as far as the Brenda record, seeing as it includes signifiers of skin/straight-edge (the buttoned-up Fred Perry), skateboarding (the checkered Vans), and earnest white people making reggae, I think I'd probably just assume that it was from DC. Boston or California might cross my mind, too, but the whiff of estrogen kinda knocks Boston out (plus, Boston records always have like a dozen people on the cover), and I don't really see a lot of Cali records out here, so yeah, I'd think DC.





In any event, color-coordinating your shirt, shoes, and laces is a good look no matter where you're from. And yes, the ku-fez is definitely the cherry on top.

 

[vintageinfants]

someone needs to set it off with a 'best melodica covers/solos' thread. i used to wile out with one back in the era.