Vispo/Print: We Are Very Lucky To Be Here (original and two remixes) / Drum'n'space is the place

RTomens, 2022

“I thought at one point, if you could be up in heaven,

this is how you would see the planet.

And then I dwelled on that and said, no, it’s more beautiful than that.

This is what heaven must look like. I think of our planet as a paradise.

We are very lucky to be here.”

     – Mike Massimino, NASA Astronaut

Yes, space is the place where a few lucky earthling have been, along with Sun Ra, of course - and how it must have changed their perception of planet earth...

Meanwhile, I make a fresh coffee, eat two Jaffa cakes and listen to Photek who, it occurs to me, was a scientist of the break, by which I mean more...intelligent, more...knowledgeable in the art of concocting precisely crafted, cut up percussion than almost anyone else in the game. And something about the genre crudely labelled drum'n'bass seemed, for a while, to sound like 'the future', albeit one usually comprised of snapshot from a sonic past...a collage of drums and effects (and snippets of old school Rap, of course). 

So apart from contemplating my place here on earth as a speck of life in the universe with the taste of caffeine and chocolate in my chops, I travel back in time to the mid-90s, when I would visit Black Market Records in Soho and watch Nicky spinning tunes, waiting for the special ones and, almost as if in an auction, raise a hand, rush to the counter (sometimes through a small crowd) and nab a copy before they all went.

In retrospect, it was a little harsh to label some D&B 'intelligent', as if anything else was 'brainless'. That said, as with all genres, there were many tunes that suggested little intelligent life behind them. That was OK too. Sometimes you just wanted a tune that would hit the floor so hard few could resist moving to it. Here's an example I often played at The Rumpus Room...whenever I did, if it hadn't started already, 'the party was on'!

Meanwhile, in the world of visual poetry, here are two more versions of the original print above, colours altered, as you can see. Now and then I like to use technology in conjunction with print. You call them, in the spirit of the dancehall, 'remixes'...

RTomens, 2022

RTomens, 2022

 TTFN!