Synonyms for voodoo include voodooism, hoodoo, enchantment, necromancy, sorcery, witchcraft, witchery, devilry, divination and wizardry. Over these two SH101 parts, Simpson added a sequence from the Roland TB303, the machine originally designed to be a bass line–playing partner to Roland’s TR606 Drumatix beatbox, but whose squelchy tones were co–opted by pioneering acid house producers. It was released in the United States in 1989 by Warlock Records. Web site designed & maintained by PB Associates & SOS. “It was interesting. “I’d buy stuff from Eastern Bloc,” he recalls, “and I was saying to these guys, ‘I’ve got all these machines at home that make this music.’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ So I played them a tape and they were like, ‘What, you do this yourself? View by: Highest Rated; Most Recent; Oldest First; No Comments Add your thoughts. Simpson says his favourite reworking of the track remains the one by Chicago house pioneer Frankie Knuckles, operating under the name Paradise Ballroom, who stretched the track out with bubbling percussion and piano breaks into over eight minutes. Learn more. I love the way like these kids go, ‘Aw yeah I love this hiss, I want some tape echo with dirt.’ And I’m like, ‘Keep it’. It’s all stuff that I can do live. From Voodoo Ray to Infinity and beyond – the story of the UK's biggest rave anthems Together acts such as Baby D and A Guy Called Gerald created tracks that defined a scene and a generation. [3], The track contains samples of comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, taken from the first Derek and Clive LP, Derek and Clive (Live), specifically the "Bo Duddley" sketch. In this article we will use the word Voodoo to mean the religious practice of communicating with Spirits, along with the magickal practices for trying to better our situations in life. Learn more. Although used for evil by Chucky, the Loa Damballa is not entirely malevolent, as for Chucky's former master, the firm believer in voodoo named John Bishop (also once known as \"Doctor Death\"), viewed Chucky's actions as an abomination which makes Chucky indeed an outrage against nature, suggesting Chucky's particular branch of Damballa worship was heretical, (befitting his status as a seri… "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" is a song recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1968 that appears as the final track on the Electric Ladyland album released that year. Voodoo probably isn't what you think it is. “He just made it sound like more of a New York-style thing.”, These days, laughs the producer, new unofficial remixes of ‘Voodoo Ray’ are constantly being uploaded to SoundCloud and other sites. Voodoo Ray’s Manchester Escape to Freight Island 11 Baring Street Manchester M1 2PY And, yeah, it was a good thing [laughs].”, ‘Voodoo Ray’ began life as a home recording experiment for Gerald Simpson, when he was trying to multi–layer sounds on his Tascam four–track from the monophonic Roland SH101. I'd say, 'Oh, I'm just going home to do some programming,' then nip off to another studio. However, voodoo is more a way of life. But we didn’t have an outlet. “It was basically just a lot of reprocessed stuff,” he explains. I just wanted to create a tapestry on tape, because I’d started to do that with the Tascam four–track. Lifting a spoken word sample from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s Bo Duddley sketch, from their 1976 comedy album Derek & Clive (Live), where Cook says “voodoo rage”, Simpson found that the sample had cut off, reducing it to what sounded like “voodoo ray”. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble- Voodoo Child (Slight Return) By this time A Guy Called Gerald was one of the pioneers of drum and bass and the Roland gear has largely been replaced by Akai equipment. With me, I’m happy and satisfied with that.”, With his next A Guy Called Gerald album, Automanikk in 1990, Simpson secured a major deal with CBS. People used to build their own amplifiers and speakers. Well, I stand up next to a mountain And i chop it down with the edge of my hand Yeah Well, i stand up next to a mountain And i chop it down with the edge of my hand Well, i pick up all the pieces and make an island Might even raise a little sand Yeah 'Cause i'm a voodoo child Lord knows i'm a voodoo child baby I want to say one more last thing I didn't mean to take up all … It was fun just slipping out of their basement and taking the drum machine. Aaron Dessner: Producing folklore And evermore, Inside Track: Steps ‘What The Future Holds’, Distant City Studios - A Drum Room With A Difference, Re: Getting Logic to control/sync with Akai DPS12. They'd be like, 'Where are you going?' So as well as being able to trick for time in the sampler, you’d be able to throw it onto tape and go back and still do things.” Given that the 808 offered the luxury of 11 separate outputs, Simpson began to experiment with treating the drum machine’s sounds with different effects. The recording was based on an earlier home demo recorded by Simpson. Vodou is also known as Vodoun, Voodoo, and by several other variants. Louder still were the sound-system house parties that Simpson first experienced in Moss Side in the ’70s from around the age of 10. It was interesting. According to Second Hand Songs, the raucous, electrified blues romp has gone on to be recorded by over 65 artists, including Stevie Ray Vaughn, Ben Harper, Earth Wind & Fire, Buddy Guy, and more.But after a similar (and similarly named) Hendrix song played … Recently Gerald Simpson has rekindled his love affair with Roland X0X gear, as can be seen in this shot of his 2013 Rebuild collaboration with Graham Massey. The same sound but its two oscillations are creating a third oscillation. “That’s one of the reasons why I got back into using the Roland stuff, just trying to step out of only using the computers. "Voodoo Ray" and the surrounding EP were recorded over two days in June 1988 at Moonraker Studios in Manchester. I was a synth junkie,” he admits. I was like, ‘Naw, I want that machine that makes them beats. By this time A Guy Called Gerald was one of the pioneers of drum and bass and the Roland gear has largely been replaced by Akai equipment. Then you’d put a reverb on it or something. “The label put it out, but in the style of someone who’s had stuff out already,” says Simpson. Quickly, he found himself being drawn to breakdancing more than his more traditional dance studies and, learning the art of turntablism, began DJ’ing. The contents of this article are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, whether mechanical or electronic, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers. “Yeah, I dunno,” he grins. Voodoo isn't a cult, black magic or devil worship. “I did that version because I was going on an American tour. So if you could find movie soundtracks on vinyl, you’d be like, aw wow. Voodoo is practiced all around the world. The Voodoo doll is a form of gris-gris, a ritualized form of invoking the spirits, or fate, to act in a defined way towards a targeted person. Gris-gris, also spelled grigri, is a voodoo amulet originating in Africa which is believed to protect the wearer from evil or brings luck. The word voodoo, which has many different names and spellings (like vodun, vodou, voudou, vudu, vodoun, vowdown, vooodooo, vundun) is the name of a West African animist, spiritual folkway. “I remember we did this track called ‘Spend Some Time’, which was like a soul and funk track. For the once tech–obsessed teenager from Moss Side, this represents success far more than any record sales or big gigs ever could. “For me, a really important thing is imaging, just getting the stereo in the right place,” he stresses. I want to do it myself.’”, The first drum machine that he bought was the comparatively primitive Boss Dr Rhythm DR55, a step–time programming beatbox with only four sounds — bass drum, snare, rim and clap. “I got the 303 to do a counter riff and I think it kind of covered up the timing,” he laughs. The supreme being; derived from the French bon Dieu, meaning "good God." So there were all these things that you could do. I wanted everything to be really clean, and the space around everything to be clean, so when it came to doing the stereo imaging, everything was clean and in its own space. A Steelpan cover version was also used in artist Jeremy Deller's work English Magic, which was displayed at the Venice Bienale in 2013. “There was a bloke who would come to school, he had a ghetto blaster and he would sell tapes,” he remembers. "[8] British magazine Mixmag placed the song at number 46 in its 100 Greatest Dance Singles Of All Time list in 1996, commenting, "A lovely, wibbly-wobbly thing, Voodoo Ray is pretty much the first British acid house record, and sounds like it was recorded by banging on metal pipes. [1] The recording was based on an earlier home demo recorded by Simpson. Running out of sample time on the S900 was to accidentally produce the title of ‘Voodoo Ray’. I do a lot of cleaning and a lot of spacing. And then when we found one, we just exploded. I used to love spending time treating every single instrument. I was amazed at the space. Re: Lost settings for automap-wrapped plugs? Gerald Simpson playing live with 808 State’s Graham Massey at Manchester’s Victoria Baths, 1988. “Going from the Dr Rhythm to an 808,” he says, “it was like, ‘Oh my God, I can do all this stuff.’”, At the same time, Simpson began to learn more about sound from listening to jazz fusion records on his cassette Walkman. I thought if you could have a balance of these things, basically it could be unlimited.”. What is voodoo?