ELMORE JUDD

'Tron Song' Video'Rats' Video
Insect Funk, the new album by Elmore Judd, is released by Honest  Jon’s in September 2007 – fourteen tracks of weird soul made in  Tufnell Park, north London.
Who is Elmore Judd? Listening to Insect Funk should give you a pretty  good idea. The first thing you’ll notice is that he’s got an amazing  record collection. Insect Funk references an array of artists and  styles; from between-the-sheets soul and P-funk to art-school disco  and rock avant-gardism, UK hip hop and African roots music, horror  soundtracks and jazz.
You’ll also notice that Elmore Judd has a vivid imagination; his  world is populated by pirates, rats, Snakefinger, dead men and Tron.  He lives in London. And he obviously knows how to have a good time -  Insect Funk is an ecstatic, danceable, menacing record. He’s probably  the man at the party having more fun than anyone else and he’s  definitely going home with your date. Sound too good to be true? It  is good, and it’s almost true. Tease apart Elmore Judd’s multiple  personalities, and you’ll find something like this….
Jesse Hackett made the first Elmore Judd record, Angel Sound, more or  less on his own back in 2005, had a thousand copies made and sold  them outside Rhythm Records – formerly Honest Jon’s – on Camden High  Street. ‘I’m not such a bad salesman,’ Jesse remembers. ‘One day I  sold ten. And they were a tenner each, so it was £100. Not a bad  afternoon’s work.’ Drummer Tom Skinner made a brief appearance on  Angel Sound, but he’s all over Insect Funk, playing a kit, primitive  drum machines, scaffolding poles and pots and pans. Guitar duties are  handled by Chris Morphitis, childhood friend of Jesse and Tom. He’s  also the bouzouki player and rembetika enthusiast. ‘He’s half Greek’  Jesse explains, ‘and he’s really got in to his Greek thing. He’s  interested in 1930s underground Greek music, really dark, weird  stuff, all about smoking hash and funny goings on in brothels’.
Enrique Joyette is the band’s secret weapon. His sweet vocals sit  behind Jesse’s on the record, but live he’s a full-on soul shouter.  He also kept the band alive while the record was being made, bringing  his mum’s West Indian cooking to the studio. ‘We’d have no money,’  says Tom, ‘but at least we’d have something to eat!’ Leon de  Bretagne, the unmistakably French bass player, has also played with  Bilal, John Legend, Ty and Estelle. Keeping it in the family, Jesse’s  brother Louis also lends a hand with percussion, keys and production.  He’s a veteran of the UK hip hop scene, turntablist to the Taskforce  crew and originator of the £10 Bag mix CD series.
Insect Funk was put together in Jesse and Louis’s studio space, just  off the Camden Road, in a pretty much derelict warehouse. Their  nearest neighbours were the upholsterers upstairs, and the band could  – and did – make as much noise as they wanted. Jesse: ‘We recorded  smashing some scaffolding poles out in the courtyard. Just started  throwing them around to give it that industrial edge…’ You can hear  the results of this al fresco recording method on Don’t Lie, a cover  of the Snakefinger tune and the only non-original track on the album.
Sessions were relaxed and the band set up was as near to live as  possible, a situation that influenced the sound and shape of the  record. ‘We had loads of jams, weird ideas… we’d normally start just  by playing. I don’t think we ever started with a song first. It was  much more about just playing and catching free ideas, as they came  up,’ explains Jesse. Not that it was all free-form chaos, according  to Tom: ‘We’d go back to these things and refine them – by that point  maybe Jesse would have written some words and we’d construct the  songs around them.’
No-one could accuse Elmore Judd of making simple music; they operate  on the principle that if you’ve got a groove it can only be improved  by a bit of bouzouki. Found a hook? Scuff it up, play it backwards  and really make it sing. Ask them who they imagine their listeners to  be, though, and they’re totally direct and uncomplicated. ‘People’  says Jesse. ‘Doesn’t matter about age, or a scene, or a style.’ ‘It’s  our sound,’ agrees Tom. ‘It’s not nu-rave.’
Future plans include lots of gigs. They’ve got an enthusiastic fan  base for their live shows; joyful, sweaty parties where all are  welcome. They’re already working on the next record, but not at the  Camden studio. Jesse shakes his head. ‘It burnt down. The whole  building was torched. We lost everything. The room was just …charred.  Including our multi-tracks with our album on. I was convinced it was  fucked, but we managed to clean up the boxes a little bit and send  them off to Roland and the hard drives were fine. They recovered all  our material, the whole album.’ He’s philosophical about their  losses, though. ‘It was horrible but it was just… things. You’ve  still got your ideas and the music inside your head.’
So that’s Elmore Judd; musician, music lover, survivor, fabulous  figment of a collective imagination.