Artist: Add n to (x)
Title: King Wasp/Hit Me
Format: 12" Single
Label: Satellite Records
Catalogue Number: STL008
Year of Release: 1997
Notable features: Comes with a pair of Add n to (x) 3D glasses, all the better to see the big scary wasp on the front cover with...
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I bloody love King Wasp. It reminds me of getting ready to go out in Leeds in 1997, I would play it incredibly loud, so most of the street I lived on at the time (the most burgled street in Britain, as a matter of fact) must have heard it too. It’s a cover version of the old blues number King Bee, originally by Slim Harpo, and it's been covered by many people before, but this is by far the best version I've heard.
Now I’m
a big fan of innuendo (the smutty pun, not the Queen album) so I think it’s
worth reprinting the lyrics to King Bee in their entirety:
"Well, I'm a
King Bee
Buzzing around your hive
Yes, I'm a King Bee, child
Buzzing around your hive
I can make good honey
Let me come inside
I'm young and able
To buzz all night long
You know I'm young and able
To buzz all night long
When you hear me buzz, little girl
You know some stinging's going on
(Well, buzz
some) I'll sting (yeah)
Well, I'm a King Bee
Can buzz all night long
Yes I'm a King Bee
Can buzz all night long
Well, I buzz better baby,
When your man is gone."
I think you
know what he’s talking about*.
It’s a
curious fact that when I was listening to this song regularly before going out,
I was going through what you might call a 'dry-spell' - the longest period of unenforced celibacy on record. I never thought about the link before... the ladies of Leeds obviously have a lot to thank this band for.
Anyway, this is another belter by Add n to (x). Starts with a high pitched wail like a V1 closing in on your house, then the bass riff and shuffling blues drums kick in, sounding like it’s sampled from an old 45 complete with added vinyl crackle.
If you know the original you’ll know it has this great bassline, or at least a great part to the bassline about every 4 bars, which I’m finding hard to describe... it’s kind of like the sound when someone’s eyes pop out of their head on stalks in a cartoon, only much, well, bassier. Add n to (x) clearly realised that this is the best part of the original, so just sampled that bit, and you get that noise every bar here. Genius. Vocals are vocodered again, and they don’t bother with all the lyrics, but enough to get the sexual-predator gist of it. There’s also a great bit of vocodered scat near then end, before finishing on, literally, a high note.
I saw them play this live in a cathedral in
Manchester as part of some electronica festival or other (which, incidentally,
I attended with Paula Temple, whose influence on my music collection will
become apparent in later months. (I’m pretty sure I made an arse of myself in
front of her friends as well, but have never taken the trouble to confirm my
suspicion)). Jega was playing, as I recall, and so were Gescom, who I was
looking forward to, being a huge Autechre fan. They were bloody awful.
Add n to
(x), on the other hand, were superb. Clad in black leather and wearing synths
like guitars, doing the whole foot on the monitors Quo-esque rock thing with
them. Great fun. King Wasp and The Black Regent are the two reasons you need to
buy the album On the Wires of our Nerves. Get it, get it out, and get it on (as the actress said to the
bishop).
So what
about the B-Side? It’s called Hit Me. There’s a tinny drum beat, and a voice
(guess what, put through a vocoder!) repeating the instruction to ‘Hit Me’, and
loads more old synth action. It’s on the album too, so no real need to go
buying the 12” unless you want those 3D glasses, as they seem to have stopped
giving them away inside cereal boxes, preferring DVDs and pedometers
these days... (fade out, rambling about the youth of today not knowing they’re
born...)
___________________
*In case you don’t he’s talking about the protestant work
ethic and helping out in the community
