1. Panic In Detroit
This is A Guy Called Gerald and it’s a track that only came out on a compilation that I bought called Panic In Detroit, which I think came out in 1992. It’s a really brilliant compilation, but I don’t think this track ever came out apart from a John Peel session with a slightly different version than this. I don’t know how they got it. I don’t know who he produced it for. And I just loved it. I describe it as kind of like lipstick and machines. There’s a beautiful female vocal on there. It’s wonky and it’s not perfectly in tune. It’s electronic. And I love the alchemy of all these things that shouldn’t necessarily go together. It was one of those records I heard in Hulme when I lived there. It just sounded like the shock of the new; it didn’t sound like anything else. And I just loved it.
I’ve always been a huge fan of A Guy Called Gerald. And apart from the obvious tracks that people talk about – you know, ‘Voodoo Ray’ – he’s always just pushed the frontiers of electronic music and his breakbeat and drum & bass material was always phenomenal. And this track, I just love it. It sounds like Detroit-meets-Manchester-meets-late night blues-meets-street soul. It has things that shouldn’t go together, but the yin and yang come together and collide. It’s like when fire and water come together and produce steam. It is sentimental, in a sense. It’s one of those records where on Monday afternoon you’re still up [from the weekend] on Freeman Walk in Hulme and listening to records and dancing around your portable television.
