Original Sounds: London Edition Vol.2.

Curated by our Creative Director Mark Brown, the second volume of Original Sounds: London Edition is an exploration of the city’s notorious tribes and subcultures and the mix mash of beats and melodies that kept them blending and moving.

There’s no debate with this one: London has, and always will, trump its major city counterparts when it comes to the underground. The capital of this little island has been a petri dish of sorts in how it’s nurtured some of the most arresting, divisive and beautifully shocking musicians and bands that subscribe to a range of different identities. From Modernists to Rockers, Reggae heads and Soulboys, Jazz Funk, Pub Rockers and Punk, London has allowed them all to cross over and draw inspiration from one another.

We kick off proceedings with the national treasure Rod the Mod with his track ‘Mama You Been On My Mind’. Stewart was, of course, the Highgate schoolboy who sang with Long John Baldry and The Jeff Beck Group. He later joined The Faces in 1969 which was a rambunctious bunch of raggle-taggle carousers. The following decade, he embarked on his solo career and all of his early to mid 70’s work is well worth exploring.

Staying in the 70s, sex and drugs and Rock’n’Roll would tumble out from London’s smoke-filled and beer-soaked pubs in a cohesive cartwheel. They were, of course, driven by the sounds of Ian Drury’s Kilburn & The High Roads and a group of pre-punk, pub-rock legends who preferred playing in those kinds of watering holes than anywhere else. After five years, Dury moved on and established the new wave Ian Dury and the Blockheads and his lyrical poetry, wordplay and observations of British everyday life have cemented his legacy as one of the UK’s greatest and most original wordsmiths.

Moving on, Mark has included West London’s finest Mick Jones, who founded Big Audio Dynamite with help from Don Letts. The band had a distinct London energy with a post-punk attitude and knack for absorbing and crossing over distinctive London sounds. Also, their stage presence and sense of style were both equally lauded so.

The playlist then pays tribute to The Young Disciples, who just so happened to have been wearers of early 90’s Kirk Originals. While that’s an accolade we’re most fond of, they were, of course, Acid Jazz pioneers who worked with James Brown’s bandmates Fred Wesley & Maceo Parker to create another distinctly London sound with an equally distinctive visual aesthetic.

Naturally, Mark’s playlist doesn’t forgo on Jazz, for it’s a genre that has always been able to call London one of its homes. It’s shifted, changed and has always been absorbed by new generations of enthusiasts and students but remained true to its past. The Ezra Collective re-define London Jazz with Afrobeat, hip-hop and soul but managed to connect it to 1960’s London Jazz by coming together at a competition at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho. Honing from Camden is Nubya Garcia with her African-flavoured saxophone and who could forget the north Londoner Amy Winehouse, whose Grandmother dated Ronnie Scott and was raised on the sounds of Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra.

Naturally, Mark’s playlist doesn’t forgo on Jazz, for it’s a genre that has always been able to call London one of its homes. It’s shifted, changed and has always been absorbed by new generations of enthusiasts and students but remained true to its past. The Ezra Collective re-define London Jazz with Afrobeat, hip-hop and soul but managed to connect it to 1960’s London Jazz by coming together at a competition at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho. Honing from Camden is Nubya Garcia with her African-flavoured saxophone and who could forget the north Londoner Amy Winehouse, whose Grandmother dated Ronnie Scott and was raised on the sounds of Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra.

All in all, this 15 track playlist offers an eclectic and varied feel with each individual song profound in its effect on London and wider British culture as a whole. You may or may not have heard some of them before (Mark does have niche knowledge when it comes to matters of such importance) but we’re sure you’ll like and appreciate them nonetheless.