Scritti Politti - Absolute (12" Version)

Scritti Politti - Absolute (Version) / 12 Inch Extended Remix

Scritti Politti originated in late 1976 after seeing the Sex Pistols' Anarchy tour at Leeds Polytechnic.

Green Gartside, who was studying fine art at the university, his childhood friend Nial Jinks, and fellow student Tom Morley initially played a type of DIY intellectual punk.

The name Scritti Politti was an homage to the Italian Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci. Gartside liked the meaning of the name – political writings – and that it sounded rock and roll, like the Little Richard song Tutti Frutti.

The band eventually moved to London and became part of the squatting scene around Camden and Mornington Crescent.

Gartside was inspired by Smokescreen by The Desperate Bicycles, a punk single he bought at Rough Trade record shop.

He realised it was possible to record a 7-inch record without music industry backing. Their own first single, Skank Bloc Bologna, was hand-packaged on their kitchen table and featured the production budget on the sleeve (recording £98, mastering £40, pressing 2500 x 13p, labels £8). They also produced a booklet called How To Make A Record.

By 1979 the band had recorded the 4 A Sides EP and Gartside took it to Rough Trade to play to Geoff Travis. Travis played the record in the shop while customers were browsing, before agreeing to distribute it and sign the band to his label.

Scritti Politti didn't have a hit single on Rough Trade but had a top 20 album, and their single The Sweetest Girl was featured on the NME C81 compilation. While it only reached number 64 in the UK chart, it became a top 40 hit for Madness four years later.

Around this time, Gartside became ill with panic attacks. He took a sabbatical in Wales to recover, where he listened to his sister's record collection, which included lots of Black American pop music including Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan (he particularly particular her cover of The Beatles’ We Can Work It Out), and the funk sound of Zapp, including the voice box used by Roger Troutman – who he would later collaborate with.

Gartside decided to make a drastic change of direction with the band for their second album: "I liked settling down on the opposite side of the divide between independents and major pop people, in a craft way. I didn't know how to do it and I wanted to find out," he explains.

The first fruits of the new approach were the 1984 single Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin), which, with the help of major label backing, reached number 10 on the UK chart, followed by Absolute, which reached number 17. The album spawned a third hit in 1985, The Word Girl, which reached number 6. The album itself reached number 5.

These tracks had a very different production to the earlier Rough Trade and it had been quite a journey to get to it.

Travis had introduced Gartside to American musician David Gamson, who was using some of the latest electronic tech. The two got on well and began collaborating on songs, each bringing ideas to their sessions.

"In American RnB music at the time there was a lot of programming and synthesizers," Gamson explains. "It was this weird fusion and pop music that we were both into. We never discussed how much electronics there should be. We were just both into the same stuff."

Whilst creating demos for Cupid & Psyche 85, their label invited Nile Rodgers to mix one track, Small Talk. Gamson says he was keen to be a producer and watched from the back of the studio and was intrigued by Rodgers' approach realising that what is removed from a mix can be as important as what is added.

Travis then introduced the pair to Arif Mardin, the producer for Chaka Khan, including her 1984 number one hit I Feel For You (a cover of an early Prince track), for recording sessions at The Power Station in New York.

Gamson thought this meant the end of his involvement, but Mardin called him when the sessions began and said: "Did you do these arrangements? Get down here!" Mardin worked on three tracks before Gartside and Gamson felt they knew what they wanted and were ready to go off and produce the rest themselves.

The sessions made use of the very latest tech – Roland TR-808 and Oberheim DMX drum machines, a Mini Moog, Roland Jupiter 8 keyboard, and the new Yamaha DX7 synth, with FM-style sounds.

But Gamson explains that although Absolute and other tracks from Cupid & Psyche 85 sound sequenced, many are not. They simply recorded them carefully at half-speed, and them doubled the speed back up. "We wanted to do sequenced music but also with feel. I didn't just want it to sound like a machine. I wanted it to groove too."

The tracks were then mixing and post-produced at at Trevor Horn's Sarm Studios in London. Fairlight samples were added with assistance from Simon Climie (later of Climie Fisher), with the exception Absolute, where Sarm's Fairlight specialist JJ Jeczalik contributed, whilst his colleague Gary Langham mixed the track.

Quite the combination of talent, experience, imagination and ideas then, resulting in a unique sound that is very well represented by this extended "dub" style remix on the B-side of the 12-inch version of Absolute.

Year: 1984

Label: Virgin Records

Cat no: VS 680-12