Reading · Moonbeam Levels

‘Not everything that counts can be counted.

Not everything that can be counted counts.’

I can’t remember when I first heard this saying, and I don’t know who to attribute it to, but … time to live by this adage. Focusing on the personal significance of an experience over follower counts, conversions or whatever KPI we’re told to fixate on nowadays, is not only comforting … it’s necessary.

One might draw a parallel with the wellness world here and the modern scourge of self-optimisation. Always looking ahead and striving to perform better can promote harsh self-judgment and erode joy. With this in mind, instead of belittling a rite of passage for me as a music writer and selector, why not celebrate it?

Between 2006 and 2008, I co-ran a club session in my home town, Brighton, with Graham Luckhurst (Jazz Rooms All-stars, Tru Thoughts, Mr Bongo) and Simon ‘Midtempo’ See. We set out to create a night that could slip and slide like a Balance or Co-Op at Plastic People in East London. From Joyce, John Klemmer and Johnny Hammond to Madlib, Theo Parrish and IG Culture, via Leroy Burgess and Patrick Adams.

Calm before the storm. Graham checking levels

Basement Soul became an almost weekly soundsystem social and underground throwdown at the Jazz Place on Ship St. There, extended family could pass through and air their latest discoveries, ‘headz’ could find community around their slightly offbeat or muso tastes, and tipsy revellers were welcome to stumble down the stairs for a late-night boogie.

Simon See in the womb alongside dancing crew Matt Morgan (Will Strange)

Looking back, the whole endeavour was a holistic musical education that stretched my understanding of the dance and forged long-lasting friendships. How we would trace the lineage from a Herbie Hancock production to a Likwid Bizkit dubplate in the dark, or effervesce as Joyce Sims’ ‘Come into My Life’ – a big radio track from my childhood – got revived and reloaded.

Occasionally, we would invite guests such as my old Straight No Chaser brudda Max Cole, Ok-Ma, Domu and Ryan Hunn (who later recorded for Ninja Tune and Young Turks as Ilum Sphere). For our first birthday party at the Komedia, a very young Andreya Triana came down from Leeds with her loop pedal station to support certified UK soul don Omar and his band.

Ok-Ma live at Basement Soul, 2006 (Will Strange)

There were road trips to Bristol and the Netherlands. Graham and I toured Estonia and Japan. Jeannie Hopper invited us onto her Clocktower Radio show DJ Culture in NYC. A compilation followed featuring exclusives from Kid Sublime, Soulphiction, Jneiro Jarel’s Shape of Broad Minds and Aroop Roy. We did things!

But as anyone who has run a local club night will tell you, it can be a grind. Slow nights, quiet nights, too many late nights taking their toll… As new roads open up, professionally and personally, a crew either mutates or disbands. The music remained our glue, even after we dispersed around London and beyond, but more time was spent attending other people’s gigs than putting on our own.

After reading about the fantastic work De School has done to create an archive of past sets, browsing club-related memories on the Museum of Youth Culture’s Instagram and listening to oral histories of sessions such as Charlie Dark’s Blacktronica, it felt right to document our own pivotal adventures in nightlife. So I invited Graham to talk through his memories and go back to back.

You will learn more about our motivations for starting the night, hear stories about a few regulars and appreciate how we used to build the vibe from doors opening to peak-time energy.

An extended family formed around Graham, who was the nucleus, including blood brother (Phat) Kev, Matt Neale and art director Pete Hughes. I would like to open up the floor to several of them and get their perspective on the night, so expect a part two very soon.

What would you like to know about the night or this era? Who were you into back then?

We didn’t have time to play any hip-hop, which was a crucial component in the Basement Soul sound. Something to rectify. And there will be lots more nominations for contemporary artists who would fit right in, were Basement Soul to make a comeback 😲 Let’s start with Kelela, GENA, Sessa, Nourished By Time, John Glacier, Michael J Blood and Marvin Jupiter.

Enjoy the show and I hope this heady act of remembrance inspires you to revisit (what you thought was) a footnote in your own life.

Stay close,

Amar

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