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Loose Ends VibeZ

Ten tracks from the British band who made one of the most sampled records in soul history and never quite got the credit at home.

Loose Ends

Loose Ends — Carl McIntosh, Jane Eugene and Steve Nichol — formed in south London and became, in 1985, the first British Black group to reach number one on the US R&B chart. That is a genuinely significant milestone and it is remarkably little discussed.

Their sound was a specific British thing: the sleek machine funk of the mid-1980s crossed with a jazz-funk sensibility that came out of the UK's rare groove and soul weekender culture. Working with producer Nick Martinelli in Philadelphia, they arrived at a hybrid that was polished enough for American radio and strange enough to stand apart from it.

What to listen for

"Hangin' On A String (Contemplating)" is the record. That number one R&B hit is built on a groove that has been sampled and interpolated endlessly, and the production — that dry drum machine, the clipped guitar, the enormous space — still sounds contemporary forty years on.

"Slow Down" is the other one DJs reach for, and "Stay A Little While, Child" is the most beautiful thing they made.

"Don't Be A Fool" and "Nights Of Pleasure" are the deeper cuts that the British soul scene holds closest.

"You Can't Stop The Rain" and "Symptoms Of Love" show Jane Eugene's lead vocals at their best — a cool, slightly detached delivery that suits the production perfectly.

"Hold Tight" and "Don't You Ever (Try To Change Me)" round it out.

Listen throughout to how little is happening. These records are built on subtraction, and the space is what gives them their weight.

Go deeper

So Where Are You? (1985) and Zagora (1986) are the albums.

Nick Martinelli is the producer to follow — a Philadelphian who worked extensively with British soul acts and shaped a great deal of the transatlantic sound of that decade.

For the wider British scene: Incognito, The Brand New Heavies, Soul II Soul, Omar and Central Line. And for the sampling trail, "Hangin' On A String" will take you through a startling amount of 1990s hip-hop and house.

A closing note on the British angle. Loose Ends reaching number one on the American R&B chart in 1985 should be a much bigger part of how British music history gets told, and it is barely mentioned. The UK soul scene of that decade — the weekenders, the pirate stations, the specialist DJs — produced music that competed on equal terms with anything from New York or Philadelphia, and almost none of it has been properly documented.

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