The Messiah Blog (Prelude, Year 1, and Year 2)
Hello,
Its time for a blog - a blog so bloggy its in two parts. And we are going to talk about Messiah, their epic forthcoming box set, and all the other things there are to say that are Messiah related! So let's jump right in.
The Messiah Saga: Prelude
I have been a huge Messiah fan ever since I got into raving. The music they made was always full of samples from movies and hip hop, and was always manic and rough in a way that many artists could never seem to match. There was a feeling of restlessness, and of anarchy, and of things going off the rails that ran through most of their work, and I loved it. It had the reckless energy of hip hop artists such as Public Enemy and the cut and paste attitude of M.A.R.R.S mixed with the toughness of Stakker Humanoid. For me, it hit the absolute sweet spot, a combination of sound and ideas that I couldn't resist, and they quickly became one of my all time favourite acts, alongside other rave legends such as Hyper-On Experience, Eon, NRG, Acen, and Automation (more on them soon, believe that!!!)
Still, the odd thing about my abiding love for Messiah's music is that my first taste of it was with the relatively obscure "Prince Of Darkness" track - which was released in 1990 of Deja Vu Recordings. You can hear certain threads of what would become their style - the movie samples, the relatively strange arrangement, but this first release is quite different to tracks such as 20,000 Hardcore Members and There Is No Law.
Nevertheless, I absolutely LOVED "Prince Of Darkness". I saw Dj Hype play it at Berwick Manor, and he did a back to back with two copies of the record, cutting it up, messing with the beeps, and doing all sorts of incredible tricks. I remember that I bought two copies of it just so I could go home and do the same thing.
I couldn't of course.
Dj Hype was and is a supremely talented turntablist and I....wasn't.
Nevertheless, "Prince Of Darkness" embedded itself in my consciousness.
The Messiah tracks that appeared on Kickin' Records soon after were different beasts, like they had found their style and they would go for it...and go for it they did, with each consecutive record becoming more and more bombastic and also, more popular. By the time Temple Of Dreams came out, UK rave music was hitting the charts, and I was touring the UK alongside my fellow Smart Es playing various clubs, raves, and more commercial events. The "circuit" as it was quaintly called back then. Also on the circuit were The Prodigy, The House Crew, Blockbuster (Give Us An E!), East 17 (inexplicably), Urban Hype (I think?) and of course, Messiah. So we would see them every now and again. I was far too shy to say anything mind, but yep, they made an impression on me, lets put it like that.
Having said that, it always stuck me as a little peculiar that Messiah would end up charting and grouped in with the above listed names. Their music was never especially commercial - the opposite in fact. Even Temple Of Dreams, with the somewhat dreamy vocal...was a pretty rough sort of record for the most part. But it was a weird time, and there it was.
Like many of us, Messiah signed a contract for bigger and better things based on their chart success, only to find themselves pressured to make music that wasn't really what they wanted to make. And also like many of us, they eventually decided "nope". And that was that. For a very long time.
The Messiah Saga: Year One
Fast forward a few decades, and some impossible things had happened to me. I somehow found myself working with some of the artists who I had admired and idolized for decades. Artists who had influenced me more than words can say. I was, unbelievably, releasing music from Hyper-On Experience, and from Acen, and from NRG, and more. Even now I still find that sort of incredible. But by 2019 I did find myself thinking "you know who I would love to work with?"
Ace of Bass.
Haha, kidding, Messiah. I would LOVE to work with Messiah.
And so, the great hunt began. And failed immediately. Mainly because, as Cindy would tell you, I am shite and finding things - I dont even know where my laptop is and I am using it to write this. But it also failed because the two guys from Messiah are especially difficult to find. One has a name that is very obscure, and the other has a name that is very common, so wherever I searched, I either found millions of people or no one at all. Not to mention, neither of them are fans of social media and were not on it. That left the trail a bit cold, really. I did not know any of the Kickin' artists, Kickin' was gone, and, well, yeah. Huh.
Anyway, after years of hoping they would just sort of appear from behind a burning bush (haha, bible reference 1), someone said "you should ask Junior Tomlin, he did their art."
So I did.
And Junior was like "Oh, yeah, I know them" and within 24 hours I was talking to Messiah on the phone and telling them about what I do and seeing if they wanted to do something while desperately trying not to squeak in excitement.
The good news was, they were up for all sorts of interesting musical things.
The bad news was, it was going to take some time.
They wanted to do new material - which is also what I wanted. Yay. But they hadn't made music in over 20 years, and had no equipment. Boo. But they did still have ALL their samples and work on DATS and floppy disks. Yay. But they didn't have any way of accessing them. Boo. And so on.
Still, the main thing was that they wanted to do it, and over a period of months, the idea of remixing Acen's Trip To The Moon came up, and they jumped at the chance to do that.
All they needed to do was rebuy, and then relearn how to make music on current software after a nearly 30 year break.
I must admit, when I heard that, my heart sank. I realise I am not the most technically proficient person, I struggle when my phone upgrades from OSwhatever.07 to OSwhatever.08. But who can possibly go from making music on an Akai and an Atari, skip 20-25 years, buy Logic and other vst software, and then make music again? Thats just impossible. I mean, I love the early equipment, but its not even in COLOUR lol. Most of us who have been in the industry all this time had slowly learned the changes in the equipment. To go from 1995 to 2022 in one jump is...well. Its different now, lets leave it there.
But thats exactly what they did. They bought everything they needed, and then they spent time learning how to use everything, and a few months later, I get sent the Messiah Remix of Acens "Trip To The Moon".
If you haven't heard it, you should check it out. Its an amazingly good track and it does NOT sound like the first track they had made in decades. The production is exceptional, the composition is spot on, and it is very, very Messiah-y
I was impressed and ecstatic. Why wouldn't I be? Despite my love for their previous music, it can be very hard to make old skool all these years later, even if you have kept busy in the music industry. But neither of the Messiah guys had - they both had very different jobs, far outside of the music industry for decades.
Anyone who makes music will be massively impressed by this - and they should be, because it is massively impressive.
So ended Year One of the Messiah Saga.
Year Two: Knite Club
All through year one, I had been...not pressuring, but...encouraging new music to be made, and also asking about the back catalogue and the possibility of represses. They were out of their contracts, and they had their publishing back, but there were still some legal issues to sort out before any progress could be made on repressing old material.
While that was being sorted out, I was working on the line up for Knite Club 2. We had bought Acen in for Knite Club 1, and that had been huge. Having Messiah for the "second coming" (bible reference 2, hoorah - more to come lol) was something I very much wanted to do. For a while it was a "No" but mainly because they were not yet ready. So I would ask every few months, starting from about ten months before the event. About two months before it, they finally agreed, having worked out how they could do a set and make it special. Messiah, I have found, come by their reckless sound with meticulous planning and strict rules, both for how they make music, and how they want their live act to be.
Because of this, everything they do is very well executed, with attention to every detail. This is why their set at Knite Club 2 was incredible, and why when it came to finally getting the current box set together, it took 18 months to do, rather than just three or four. It is also why the box set is so exhaustive, full of small details, and carefully put together to showcase thier music how they want it to be showcased. It is, by far, the most incredible package I have ever had the pleasure in putting together...but I am getting ahead of myself. All the next information is for the second part of this blog, Year 3, which will be put online in the next few days with a full reveal of the box set and its contents...for now...hold tight, cos its going to get crazy!