Bass porn + Sheffield = Chakk
Back once more to Sheffield and Damon Fairclough's "Destroyed by gods" annotated musical tour. Fairclough writes:
As the Designers Republic made their first assault on Sheffield's graphics/music interface - in tandem with Leeds' Age Of Chance, it has to be said - they seemed to usher in, or at least popularise to a degree, an age of shouty slogans, sub-graffito clamour and statements smartly-dressed: 'Release the heat'; 'You can live forever'; 'Work Buy Consume Die'.
"Release the heat" comes from Chakk's first single, "Out of the Flesh," released in three mixes as a 12" on Cabaret Voltaire's Doublevision label in 1984. Mark Brydon's rumbling, elastic bassline is really the song's central motif, echoed by Sim Lister's sax, then there is the other shouty slogan, "Out of the flesh, out of the flesh, taste the sweat!", followed by the vocal "Ooooh oo-eee-ooooo ooooh" referenced by Fairclough, and bashing along above everything is the gated snare turned up to eleven that marred nearly every single song of the 80s. Listen closely to the four-tap drum bit at the beginning of the song: isn't that the sound that MTV used between ads and clips for years, along with samples of "There Is No Love Between Us Anymore" by Pop Will Eat Itself and "Peace Sells" by Megadeth?
The way I recall it, music journalist Amrik Rai was so taken with the Sheffield scene in general and Chakk in particular that he started a record label in Sheffield, FON Records. FON released Chakk's second single, "You," then Chakk got signed to MCA, got a huge advance, spent it all (?) to build FON Studios, added John Stuart as a second vocalist, recorded their album for MCA, Ten Days in an Elevator, the album tanked (it just wasn't that great, they completely lost whatever it was that gave their independent singles a sense of urgency), released two more singles on FON, one as Chakk ("Timebomb," which did recapture the spark) and one as the backing band for South African band Swanhunters ("Bloodsport") (why did a band need a backing bad? I never understood that), then split up. FON released a John Stuart solo single ("Black and Blue" backed with a gorgeous version of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze"). Mark Brydon became a producer and then formed Moloko (way too camp for me) in the 90s with singer Roisin Murphy (now a solo artist, recently seen bashing her head on a chair on PerezHilton.com); other members joined other bands that I've never heard at all. In other words, it all just fizzled out. But it was great fun there at the beginning! You can stream a few more Chakk songs at the Chakk MySpace page.
