I first heard of them when the video for 'Bassline' was screened on Whistletest (introduced, if memory serves, by the redoubtable Mark Ellen). I liked what I heard....
But what really sold me on the idea was Simon Reynold's review of the 'Music Madness' album in Melody Maker. Amazingly, I still have the cutting (dated 6/12/86), in which Simon fueled my early-80s synthpop obsession by stating that:
"Their greatest influence, though, is European electropop - the scrubbed, spruce, pristine textures and metronomic precision of Kraftwerk and Martin Rushent's Human League. While the brainy British bands of the day dedicate themselves to noisy guitars, it's up to Mantronix (and House Music) (very fucking prescient Simon - Ed) to uphold the spirit of 1981, to cherish the bass sound and electronic percussion of "Sound Of The Crowd" as a lost future of pop".
So there I am, stranded in the mid-80s, listening to 'Dare', John Foxx's 'Metamatic', The Normal's "Warm Leatherette" etc etc, cursing the current pop climate and Simon says something like that - I'm very fucking excited. I had to order the album specially from my local dead-beat record store, but Christ it was worth the wait. I loved that record, yet strangely, any attempt to play it on the Sixth-form common room stereo was met with threats of physical violence from my fellow students. You see, in the little town where I grew up, there were three basic types of teenagers: the U2 and Dire Straits loving casuals, the leftie-pop Weller & Costello heads, and of course the Goths. Believe it or not, people used to stare at me 'cause I was wearing a baseball cap! A few years later, after I'd headed off to the city, the kids started getting into weed and the whole scene changed to hip-hop 'n' ragga. Nice one. I feel vindicated.
But I digress....
Music Madness remains an all-time fave 80's album for me, and led me off into whole new musical directions. The next album 'In Full Effect' was great too, although it lacked much of the clinical Euro influence. Interestingly, Kurtis didn't lose the plot until the departure of MC Tee, who Simon described as having "a refreshingly adolescent voice, almost sweet - words are slurred, there's the tiniest suggestion of a lisp", in comparison to the "megalomaniac viciousness" of the then current crop of Hip-Hop artists. I think Tee's vocal style was absolutely essential to the overall nature of the Mantronix sound. What the hell ever happened to him? Did he split of his own accord, or did Mantronik kick him out to make room for the divas? The fact remains: Mantronik with M.C. Tee is the biznizz. Mantronik without Tee is a bit more hit 'n' miss. Although Tee wasn't actually involved in the music's construction, could it be that Mantronik relied on Tee's ears as a kind of 'taste-filter'? Okay, enough heretical theories...
One final point: I kinda lost interest in Hip-Hop for a while around about '88, '89. The reason? That faggot House music currupted my ass. Thank the Lord!
Yo, Mantronik! Where'd you learn to rock the beatbox like that? Your daddy treat you bad?
