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James Hardway - A Positive Sweat (1999)



Blending jungle and jazz was a huge thing back in the days when techno culture was at its strongest. Englishmen like LTJ Bukem were, and still are, as far as I know, making modern music in the vein of jazz experimentalists such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Some of the music was brilliant, but a lot of it sounded too mathematical. Everything was programmed, calculated, precise and, well, boring. You ached for somebody to come crashing into the studio, smash a guitar against the wall and yell "let's rock!".
James Hardway a k a David Harrow manages to evade this problem. On his third album "A Positive Sweat", under this alias, the breakbeats are kept in the background. The live instruments, especially the saxophone, are in the lead together with occasional relaxed female vocals. Apparently much of the material was initially recorded live and then manipulated in various ways.
While the record has a pleasant live sound, it's groove is that of a chainsmoking bar pianist, rather than that of a rockband (and don't ask me how you chainsmoke and play piano at the same time). James Hardway doesn't disturb in any way. If you want to listen to his music, it's there in all its elegance, but if you're not concentrating, it keeps gently in the background. The perfect kind of music for nightclubs, in other words.
As a creator of electronic music since 1983, Harrow has over the years managed to work closely with Psychic TV, Jah Wobble and Andy Weatherall. As well as contributing to the work by everybody from Atari Teenage Riot to Depeche Mode. Now might be a good time to give this "man behind the scenes" some credit of his own.

Tracklist :
01 A Yen For The Sweeten
02 Pulling Weeds
03 Bossnova
04 Sleep Tonight
05 Way West
06 Go On
07 Our Cousin Frank
08 Lament
09 Livin' The Life
10 Grow
11 Feriha
12 Canter's Diner 4am

Featuring :
Theo Gordon : Saxes, Flutes & Trumpets 1,2,4,6,7,8,9,10,12
Miles Danso : Upright Bass 1,2,3,8,9,11
Amanda Ghost : Vocals 2,4,8,10
Jon Edwards : Upright Bass 4,10,12
Mick Ball : trumpet 2,8
Nathan Haines : Sax & Flutes 3,11
Simon Smith : Drums 12
All other intruments and vocals by James Hardway

Compression : APE
Size : 399.73
Total Time : 63'21"
Extras : Covers, Cue, Log

Link :James Hardway - A Positive Sweat [APE] by SpeedTouch.rar 10 clicks

THX

and what about this one?

link

Another version of this album (mine is the other one) with a different position of "Grow" in the tracklist and two remixes of the same song.

This post has been edited by SpeedTouch on 26-11-2004, 02:18