The City’s Beautiful in the Early Morning Air

I took the featured sunrise photo at the end of last year, 2019, during a weekend excursion. I find the beach therapeutic. The waves washing against the shore in a regular rhythm. The soft ocean breeze wafting and the resulting goosebumps all over my skin. Couple this with some jazz or other calming music so I can clear my head and all of my problems disappear… just for a moment. I appreciated not only the pictured early morning sunrise, but that entire weekend.

Tony Colman, by way of alias London Elektricity, was collaborating on jungle hits back in the 90s. I had not reached into his record library until well after college. My initial introduction to drum and bass music really came in the late 90s after discovering Photek, which I will likely get into in another blog post. I learned of the genre and being the inquisitive mind I was, followed through jungle and various other iterations within the drum and bass umbrella. I discovered Roni Size & Reprazent, Dieselboy, Evol Intent, Pendulum, Future Prophecies, AK1200, and the list goes on…

Tony Colman was the lead figure behind Hospital Records, a label which managed a list of talented liquid drum and bass artists. Liquid drum and bass is one of the subgenres across the rather broad spectrum known as drum and bass in general. Basically, drum and bass envelops the vast majority of music that basically consists of the snare drum (break) and 808 (drum machine) combination. Granted, this is a very basic definition but let’s go with this for the sake of brevity.

Liquid drum and bass expands upon the drum and bass foundation to include orchestral, ambient elements. The vast majority of the Hospital Records roster (if not all of the roster) fall into this group. I had come across a compilation album series on this label called Sick Music which highlight players in this arena and among them Tony included his own works. I started investigating both the record label and his works after listening to easily his most successful track to date called “Just One Second.” The header of this post is a lyrical excerpt from this track. Sick Music was an absolute monster album which I recall listening to quite a bit during my morning jogs around the block. Another standout track from the album is “Beautiful Lies” by B-complex.

Upon identifying with the record label, I started looking at Tony’s past work as he had been releasing albums under the aforementioned moniker for over a decade prior. I imagine the year was about 2009 as I have memories of working my second full time permanent professional role and that my lifestyle was a very active one–I ran and cycled quite a bit. Tony had already released four albums by this time that I discovered his music, so I started going back through his record releases and really enjoyed his previous three albums:

  • Syncopated City (2008)
  • Power Ballads (2005)
  • Billion Dollar Gravy (2003)

I also listened to his debut album Pull the Plug from 1996 but it did not prove to be as memorable for me. I proceeded to enjoy every future album he released since to include:

  • Yikes (2011)
  • Are We There Yet? (2015)
  • Building Better Worlds (2019)

His breakout track is the Apex remix of “Just One Second” from Sick Music. His other memorable tracks are numerous and include (certainly not limited to):

  • “Meteorites” from Yikes
  • “Yikes” from Yikes
  • “Tone Poem” from Are We There Yet
  • “Tenderless” from Are We There Yet
  • “Artificial Skin” from Are We There Yet
  • “Build a Better World” from Building Better Worlds
  • “Possible Worlds” from Building Better Worlds
  • “She Slowly Caught Fire” from Building Better Worlds

The vibe from liquid drum and bass tracks is generally great for what I look for during my night cruises. Normally I find a playlist for liquid drum and bass on Spotify today for new music as opposed to following Hospital Records specifically, but I find it highly likely to be regularly introduced to their artists on these playlists. Tony is the only one I really distinctly follow.

And so I close this post with the official music video for “Build A Better World” from his latest release Building Better Worlds. I’m looking forward to your future work, Tony!