HERBIE HANCOCK - FUTURE SHOCK @ 40

 

Released in August of 1983, Herbie Hancock's Future Shock turns 40 years old this month. Fusing jazz, funk, hip-hop & electronic dance music, the album, along with the Rockit single and it's unforgettable music video, would bring Hancock's name to its highest recognition in popular music.

With two decades of work under his belt, Hancock was well established in the jazz scene, both as a solo artist and for having worked with legends like Miles Davis. He was always a forward thinking musician and he'd done extensive work throughout the 1970s defining the jazz-fusion sound, incorporating funk grooves with jazz sensibilities and pushing it all into the modern age by incorporating synthesizers and electronics. But Future Shock didn't even begin life as a Hancock album.

The origins of the album began with bassist Bill Laswell and keyboardist-producer, Michael Beinhorn, who were looking to devolp a follow-up to their sophomore Material album, One Down. Many of the songs on Future Shock began as demos for what was thought would be the next Material LP. However, once the ball began rolling on these compositions, the duo approached Hancock to work with them on developing the songs further. From there, reggae drumming legend, Sly Dunbar, guitarist Pete Cosey and DJ Derek Showard, better known by his stage name of GrandMixer DXT, came onboard to fill out the studio band. Together, they managed to channel the zeitgeist of a new breed of fusion music, incorporating modern jazz sensibilities with cutting edge alternative hip-hop funkiness. They soon realized they were on to something when demos of their recordings started receiving unexpected positive reactions from people who had a chance to hear them.

For the single, Rockit, a stunning video was directed by 10cc's Godley and Creme, who helped mastermind an iconic set of robot dancers and musicians created by Jim Whiting, a production which swept the MTV music awards of that year. The video managed to keep the song in heavy rotation on the fledgling music channel, propelling the single and album into major sales territory. It was one of those rare moments when true innovation and creativity managed to break into the mainstream music scene.

THE GOLDEN PALOMINOS @ 40

Marking its 40th anniversary today is the eponymous debut LP from New York art-funk freaks, The Golden Palominos, which was released on May 20th, 1983. Combining elements of funk, hip-hop, no-wave & jazz, it was an album of extreme fusions and deliberate confusions.

Formed by acclaimed session drummer/producer/arranger Anton Fier in 1981, along with Material members, bassist Bill Laswell and guitarist Nicky Skopelitis, the extended lineup of the group was as consistently mutating as the music itself. For their recording debut, the core trio were augmented by DNA frontman, Arto Lindsay on guitar and vocals, violinist/guitarist Fred Frith, percussionist David Moss, turntablist M.E. Miller and keyboardist Michael Beinhorn (also a member of Material). The inclusion of a DJ scratching along with the music made it one of the first records outside of the rap genre to incorporate the technique.

As an album, the music occupies a soundscape of idiosyncratic hybrids skirting the edges of numerous avant-garde sub-cultures of the early 1980s, offering a cutting discordance along with the interplay of tribal-verging-on-funky rhythms. It’s not easy listening by any stretch, but it remains one of the most distinctive creations of the era, particularly in its ability to pull in strands of the burgeoning hip-hop scene, utilizing DMX drum machines along with scratching, but bending them into contorted free-jazz influenced shapes. It’s a record that creates its own rules, which it then indiscriminately breaks.