Seven Inches of Joy #8 - Quickspace Supersport

Quickspace Supersport - Quickspace Happy Song (#1) [Kitty Kitty Corporation 1995] - Cat # CHOOSY01

Like all good (and some god awful) music this really reminds me of where I was at when it was originally released. I seemed to spending all my free time hanging around North London, watching bands that never went anywhere, but still have a huge place in my heart. This was the heyday of Mo' Wax, Warp, Too Pure and a whole slew of wonderful British labels and artists. Despite '95 being the height of Brit Pop, if you made the effort to scratch beneath the surface you'd find there was so much more going on. It wasn't just people wearing Union Jack underpants, conning themselves that the swinging 60's were happening again whilst bigging up Tony Blair. Well not for the most part anyway.

So for every Blur and Oasis there were ten other far more exciting bands to follow. Quickspace Supersport, (who later dropped the Supersport) were one such band. I used to catch them live at least once a month, and at every gig there seemed to be a line up change. The one constant was founder member Tom Cullinan, who'd previously led Th' Faith Healers to nowhere in particular.

This was their debut single, and it manages to capture those early ramshackle gigs fairly well. It sounds like they pretty much went into the studio played it through a few times then pressed it up. It has a warm fuzzy feel to it, sounds are not isolated but rather just bleed into one another. Of course the whole thing is juddering to a halt before you've even had a chance to start singing along. All the way through it sounds like it's about to collapse in on itself at any moment, tempos rise and fall and off key vocals are the order of the day. It'll never be mistaken for a Trevor Horn production.

So all these years later this little seven inch still gets it's fair share of time on my record player, and still sounds as good as it did on the day I bought it. The lack of production helps make it less a product of it's time and more something that continues to sound fresh and vibrant to my well worn lugholes. Great little hand made sleeve too, and the first release on their own Kitty Kitty Corporation label to boot. Quickspace went on to release loads more music, some of it even better than this track, and yet it's always this piece of vinyl I dig out to play when I need that kick that only music can deliver.