It's Warm Out....

Swamp Children - So Hot

Ripped from a vinyl album released on Factory Records (FACT 70) in 1982 to high resolution 24-bit flac audio. Meanwhile in Manchester we had the Swampies who later became Kalima. Here's some latin-jazz-pop from Manchester's streets, charming yet naive at times, this is the sound of kids who loved jazz dance, making a jazz dance record whilst learning to play instruments (and a guitarist masquerading as a drummer) borrowed from A Certain Ratio. Having said that John Kirkham does show some classy virtuoso work on the guitar. Not the greatest pressing ever, so if you want crackle free sound please seek out the reissue cd compilation on LTM.

A1 Samba Zippy (Part One)
A2 El Figaro
A3 Tender Game
A4 Magic
A5 Sunny Weather
B1 Samba Zippy (Part Two)
B2 No Sunshine
B3 Spark The Flame
B4 Secret Whispers

Swamp Children - Little Voices / Taste What's Rhythm

Apart from their superb cover of Shining Hour and the delectable Feeling Fine album, Kalima were, in this scribes opinion, bloody awful. Factory were never a jazz label and no matter how much they tried, Kalima never obtained credibility as a jazz band. Whilst I could never criticise the musicianship of the various band members (which included four fifths of A Certain Ratio), Anne Quigley's voice could never stand up to the close scrutiny following Factory's declaration that she was a "torch singer".

Originally, Kalima were known as Swamp Children with a much rawer and darker jazz/pop/funk sound much akin to Maximum Joy, which worked better. Their debut 12" Little Voices was produced by CV's Stephen Mallinder and ACR's Simon Topping at the Cab's Western Works studio in Sheffield.

The follow up, a latin tinged Taste What's Rhythm on Factory Benelux was a taste of what was to come, but was saved by the superb ACR funk workout of Softly Saying Goodbye with ACR's Dojo on slap bass. There was also an album, So Hot but it wasn't.

Little Voices : ripped from a 12" single released on Factory Records (FAC 49) in 1981
A1. Little Voices
B1. Call Me Honey
B2. Boy

Taste What's Rhythm : ripped from a 12" single released on Factory Benelux (FBN 16) in 1982

A1. Taste What's Rhythm

B1. You Got Me Beat

B2. Softly Saying Goodbye

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