Presented by our guest reviewer Ellis May.
Flash Atkins is about to release Sanza Mibale Ya Bo Pemi’ on his home label Paper Recordings. He’s been running the Northern label alongside a couple of his mates since the 90s and has been putting out a style of wonky disco all of its own.
His Flash Atkins All Stars EP 1 is a tribute to the golden age of afro disco, when the sounds of 70s New York found their way to the continent and fused with local musical styles and rhythms.
It’s a pleasure to talk to Flash, real name Ben Davis, about the birth of his mask moniker, the music industry as it is today, and of course, about his new release!
Where are you today Flash and what are you up to?
I’m working at home then headed to the studio on my bike which is about a mile away. I’ll be putting the last touches on a mixdown of the next Flash Atkins EP on Paper Recordings and getting ideas together for the next release of my band, BOM Nation.
Where are you based?
I’m originally from Loughborough but have worked my way north via university at Sheffield, then Manchester and Stockport. I now live in the hills above Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire.
What do you love about Hebden Bridge?
Hebden Bridge is a small town of about 10,000 with lots of like-minded people. There’s loads going on with a cinema that has brilliant programming, a great live / club venue in the Trades Club, lots of bars, cafes and pubs, plus loads of artists, musicians and creatives. It’s beautiful; amazing countryside and lots of wild swimming spots, plus Manchester is only 30 minutes on the train and Leeds 50.
How is the health of the music scene in the North these days?
It’s great. I put on an Extinction Rebellion and local charities fundraiser called Disco-bedience at the Trades every year which normally sells out. We’ve had guests including Hot Toddy, Kim Lana, Léna C and Danielle Moore plus local DJs and we’ve teamed up with a local female DJ / gender minority school We Turn Tables to give some of their students their first break. I also run an irregular night at Nelson’s Wine Bar, a basement venue with a brilliant sound system. It seems to have taken a Norwegian turn as I had Third Attempt on earlier in the year (Calder Del Sol flyer) and have Kohib booked in November.
In the next town Todmorden, we’ve got the Golden Lion, one of the best venues in the country. It’s a slightly un-hinged pub that does great Thai food and has a wide range of acts and DJs that go from the small and leftfield to the big and credible like Gilles Peterson, Justin Robertson, Goldie, David Holmes, Erol Alkan, and the list goes on. It’s run by a veteran of the free party scene Waka and Gig, who once met is never forgotten. I’ve just played with BOM Nation in the top room with The Thief of Time, which sold out and was ace. It’s a real community hub; loads of great bars and venues have sprung up around it.
As someone who has been around the musical block, what do you think is going on with the scene today?
Crikey, now there’s a question, how long have you got?! Pretty f****d! There’s a huge amount of money being made from streaming but not for artists, it’s all gone upwards to the tech companies. The amount of money Spotify’s Daniel Ek makes is obscene compared to the royalties they pay out, and the fact he is investing in AI arms companies makes my blood boil. I wrote an email yesterday to them calling it out, so expect them to change company policy imminently. We have a conversation about twice a year about pulling our catalogue from Spotify but can never quite bring ourselves to do it.
Live venues are also under a huge amount of pressure, and it is getting harder and harder to do gigs and get people to come. Along with the AI revolution that is about to happen, it feels like the golden goose of the music industry is being tortured to death. It generates as much money as the financial sector and employs twice as many people, but politicians never seem to quite get it. The UK is such an amazing hotbed of creativity that is slowly suffocating and it’s making us far poorer as a nation. It’s pretty much impossible to have music a full-time career now. We’re very lucky at Paper as we started in the good days and have a big catalogue that keeps churning away. Having said that, as a punter there’s loads fantastic music around and it’s never been more readily available.
Who are the icons who have inspired the music that you make?
From non-dance music, I absolutely love J.J.Cale and Spacemen 3. Both are masters of the ‘less-is-more’ ethos, which I constantly struggle with in my own production as not being able to play any instruments very well, I keep piling things in to compensate. I also really admire a lack of ego, and J.J.Cale is a brilliant example of that, he was a total gent. For Flash Atkins, I watched Gruff Rhys’ film Seperado! that came out in 2010 and there’s a scene where he does a bonkers performance in an isolated community centre in Patagonia to an audience of locals who don’t have a clue who he is or what he was doing, and he does it wearing a transformers helmet. It’s hilarious and brilliant, and made me think I needed to go down the don’t-give-a-f**ck, route, not over think it and have some fun!
In dance music, I had a revelation in the Sound Factory in the early 90s listening to Junior Vasquez with Miles Hollway (Paper Recordings / Salt City Orchestra). The UK was still quite post acid house with lots of breakbeats and a bit all over the place, but he played eight hours of what was being called ‘deep house’ and New York garage. It was before we started Paper and had a big influence on what we were doing. I listened to one of his sets from back then a few weeks ago and with hindsight, it doesn’t sound underground at all, but at the time it was revolutionary.
In recent years, I have become really interested in African music and Fela Kuti, followed by Tony Allen, who are the ground zero for that. They are both incredible artists, up there with Kraftwerk and The Beatles in the way they have influenced music.
What were you doing musically before you started Paper Recordings?
I was a dyed-in-the-wool indie kid along with fellow Paper types Pete Jenkinson and Miles when we all met in halls of residence at Sheffield Polytechnic. There were people coming back from the Hacienda waxing lyrical what was going on, but we thought it wasn’t for us. I eventually moved to Manchester start a band with Pete and ended up working for the group, James. Everything changed at the Cities in the Park Festival in 1991 that was a line-up of the baggy / Factory scene that was going stratospheric at the time. I popped an E and for the first time and understood what the Happy Mondays were about, not having really liked them before. Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner’s band Electronic came on afterwards and I can still remember the rush I got when the riff from the Get The Message came in as if it were yesterday (photo attached). Then it was goodbye indie, hello rave!
What made you start the label?
The facts are a bit fuzzy, but Miles and Elliot were residents at Hard Times that was going guns and they started producing as Salt City Orchestra alongside Si Brad. Their first release Storm had been released on Tribal Records and they had done a track for the just started Hard Times label. However, it was knocked back, so we figured why not release it ourselves? We approached Azuli’s Dave Piccioni who offered us a P & D, and we were off to the races.
What was the mission of the label when you started out?
I’m not sure we had one really other than to mess about and release music we like by our mates. But when we did think about it, Factory Records were a huge inspiration and we wanted to be very design led with some mystery going on, hence the hidden messages in the first few releases.
Does the mission remain the same today?
Thirty years later there’s an element of still wanting to do fun stuff with your mates. It’s an excuse to talk to Pete most days and I love working with him and Chris (Massey). The label is still essentially what it always was, which is releasing music that we love. We’ve never put out anything that we didn’t believe in 100%, but the range has expanded, even more so in recent years. We put more leftfield, wobbly music out on Paper Wave and had Paper Disco but decided to put it all under Paper Recordings to keep things simpler. The last album of Africa-influenced music from BOM Nation is a long way from early Paper. People still talk about those days with rose-tinted spectacles and most of it still stands up, but that time was catching lightning in a bottle, we were in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. You have to evolve and grow as a label or what’s the point, otherwise everybody, including ourselves would get bored.
We also have a film production wing now called Paper Vision and have made two award winning documentaries, Northern Disco Lights and Wild Water, with our next one Inside The Outside in pre-production. Film making is very time heavy so we’ll be releasing less music in the next couple of years to focus on that.
Essentially, it’s a cottage industry where do everything ourselves and keep control, which works for us.
When and where was Flash Atkins born?
This is the official answer, taken from a fanzine / comic I wrote to go with my album ‘The Life and Times’, with all the chapter headings as track titles.
“There is no record of the birth of Flash Atkins in any hospital in the North of England and nothing is known of his parents. He was found on the doorstep of the Levenshulme Orphanage For Boyson January 1, 1968 at 6.34am wrapped only in a plastic Nettos bag. The date thereafter was his birthday…”
The less romanticised version is that Paper was on a hiatus after we ran into some financial difficulty. I had spent a couple of years learning my way round the studio, having made music previously sat at the back, smoking pot and chipping in ideas. The thought of just going out as ‘Ben Davis’ to DJ as I had before was pretty boring, so I thought I’d have some fun (see Gruff Rhys above). There were also a lot of superstar DJs around who took themselves extremely seriously, so it was a way of taking the piss out of them. A few years ago, Bob Sinclar put a shout out on social media for girls to send in videos of themselves looking ‘sexy’ and he would pick the sexiest to be in his next video. I mean ewwww! So, I sent him a video just sporting my underpants pouring lager over myself and asking, ‘is this sexy enough for you Bob? Weirdly, I never heard back. I’ve had a lot of fun with the character, but it collapses under any kind of analysis.
Tell us a little about the history of this masked muso?
I’ll give you a quick rundown of his life story, buckle up!
After being left on the doorstop, he was brought up in the orphanage where he didn’t speak until he was 8. He found he had the power to manipulate sound and was mischievous with it. One day he got caught messing around and was being punished, the kids were chanting his name, and he did a sound blast that deafened them all. It would go on to haunt him for the rest of his life.
He ran away and lived in a disused mill in Manchester and skulked around the city scavenging. One night he carts a very pissed Mark E Smith home who was collapsed on the canal towpath, who lets him stay in his flat while he goes on tour, which turns Flash round. He starts using his powers for good and doing super-heroey things, then going to the Hacienda just as acid house is breaking. He pops an E and manipulates the sound that is coming out of the speaker to create house music (see Acid House Creator pic, which is actually from the Hac). After enjoying the first summer of love he starts dealing, which eventually goes big and he becomes a cocaine addict with a drug empire. He ends up living in a massive house and everything goes through his head of security with whom he’s in love. They have a night of passion then Nuno (the security chap) does a hostile takeover of the business and Flash ends up destitute once more. He drifts into squat parties, and using his powers becomes a DJ, earns enough money to keep him in drugs and drink. But he knows it can’t last and as he hits rock bottom, he is rescued by the father of a girl he saved from being mugged many years ago who offers him the loan of a caravan in…. Hebden Bridge (see campervan pics). Here I still am and it’s all true.
Can you give us an overview of your new release.
It’s a live afro disco affair with a Bosq remix and dub.
How long did it take to come together? Did it flow easily, or did it take some time to perfect?
From start to release, Sanza Mibale Ya Bo Pemi has taken about three years but came together quite quickly once I’d got the idea. It started as a cover of Underworld’s 2 Months Off but turned into its own thing. You can hear the synth riff in the brass section. I’ve been sat on the finished track for quite a long time as I wanted to get the right remixer on board and we scratched our head for quite a long time about whether to do vinyl or not.
Tell us about any other artist involved in the release?
The whole thing is sessions that I pulled together. I used some local musicians like Athol Ransome (Haggis Horns) and Ben Adey who is an incredible bass player and proprietor of my local pub. Jules Brennan on synths and keys is part of the Paper family and I’d done a few tracks with Charlie Sinclair who plays guitar. The final piece of the jigsaw was Felix Ngindu on vocals, who’s an absolute star. He is now part of the band BOM Nation that I set up with Tom Lonsborough (2 Billion Beats). I’ve done extended sleeve notes of how the release came together on the Paper blog.
Bosq is a bit of a fave here..
Oh man, he’s incredible. It’s very rare I don’t play one of his tracks or remixes in my sets. He’s been an absolute dream to work with too.
Do you tend to take some time – after you have made a track – to leave it alone for a while to evaluate?
Well, three years in this case! Yes, as I generally work a long way in advance with the release schedule I tend to have a long time to sit on tracks and tweak things. Although, when I produce I normally just keep going until it’s done rather than have lots of different projects on the go.
Do you find the feedback of others is important to you in the production process?
I normally put it past Chris (Massey) and Tom, who very kindly do the last tweaks on my mixdowns. My mixing is OK bit there’s always room for improvement. My studio is a great space with lots of room, but not great acoustically, especially for mixing.
What are some of the challenges in putting out music currently?
Just the volume of stuff out there. It’s never been easier to get your music up and out, but to stand out from the crowd is really difficult.
What drives you to create music do you think?
The love of it! I’ve been working a lot with Tom on BOM Nation and another big room house project called Flash Beats. We always say that the best bit is being in the studio and making something that you’re both in to.
What other artists do you think are making great music right now?
There’s so much amazing music being made and some fantastic re-issues. There are brilliant producers coming out of Africa, and the genres are constantly splintering into fascinating sub-genres. I absolutely love the Ugandan label Nyege Nyege Tapes. Some of their releases are pretty out there and they are a big inspiration. We are releasing the debut album from Norway’s Lakeshouse on Paper at the end of October which I’m really excited about. It’s brilliant; leftfield and mainstream at the same time and I think they have the potential to step in to Todd Terje’s shoes.
What was the last record you purchased?
I buy a couple of records a month, the last was Wagadu Grooves – The Hypnotic Sound of Camara 1987 – 2016. There’s a track on it called Ñogome that I’m slightly obsessed with at the moment. It deep, electronic and psychedelic, managing to sound old and fresh at the same time.
What has been a highlight of the last year for you guys?
We released our film Wild Water and toured it at over sixty cinemas, plus it won some awards which was really exciting. Also, seeing the BOM Nation project come together and releasing our album Àşę has been great. We’ve started playing live and the shows have been going off. I’m really enjoying working in a team as I spend most of my time at home on my lonesome. The end of the year is going to be a big one for the label as we are celebrating our 30(ish) birthday along with Sprechen’s 10th with Lindstrøm performing The Little Drummer Boy accompanied by a 40 piece choir at Aviva Studios in Manchester on December 4. The following night will be a good old rave-up with him on at The Golden Lion.
What can we expect next from Flash Atkins and his All-Stars crew?
I’ve got an afrobeat idea cooking so watch this space!
Download/Stream Flash Atkins – All Stars EP 1: Sanza Mibale Ya Bo Pemi
on Bandcamp
Flash Atkins on Instagram
Paper Recordings
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