| A.R. Kane | |
|---|---|
Rudy Tambala and Alex Ayuli |
|
| Background information | |
| Origin | East London, England |
| Genres | Alternative rock Dream pop Alternative dance Trip hop |
| Years active | 1986–1994 |
| Labels | Rough Trade 4AD One Little Indian Luaka Bop/Sire |
| Associated acts | M/A/R/R/S, In Rain, Sufi, Alex!, MusicOne |
| Past members | |
| Alex Ayuli Rudy Tambala |
|
A.R. Kane (or A R Kane or A.R.Kane) were a British dream pop duo consisting of Alex Ayuli and Rudy Tambala that formed in 1986. Their name was partially derived from their first names, the "A" in Alex and the "R" in Rudy. The duo hailed from East London. Ayuli and Tambala were also part of the one-off recording collective M/A/R/R/S, which included the group Colourbox, in 1987. Their song "Pump Up the Volume" became a surprise worldwide number one chart hit.
Contents |
Critic Jason Ankeny[1] describes A.R. Kane as "arguably the most criminally under-recognized band of their era," suggesting that the duo's innovate music was a seminal influence on later developments such as dream pop, trip hop, acid house, and post-rock. Their lyrics which frequently dealt with such topics as water/oceans, love, colours, childhood, and dreams were often surrealist. Their music was usually danceable, due in part to its strong dub influence, and ethereal.
Alex was formerly an advertising copywriter, one of the very few black creatives working in the London ad business (1983–1990). He started his ad career at JWT before moving on to TBWA where he was associated with the creation of two pan-European Lego tv commercials. The director of one of these commercials, Matt Forrest, invited Alex and his art director team mate to write a music video for Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy's track "Unkiss that Kiss". The music video was filmed inside and outside the historic L'Escargot restaurant in London's Soho.
A.R. Kane began by releasing two 12" singles, each on a trend-setting U.K. indie label (One Little Indian and 4AD). The duo then released a string of singles and two ground-breaking albums on Rough Trade Records - 1988's sixty-nine and 1989's "i". Critics found both albums difficult to define, genre-wise. sixty-nine was more consciously rock-based, and its sound could be likened to the nascent shoegaze movement; "i" was more slick/poppy, covering a wide variety of styles over twenty-six tracks (ten of which were short noise interludes). "i" also spawned what is arguably A.R. Kane's best-known song, "A Love From Outer Space". Both albums achieved wide critical acclaim, particularly in UK magazine Melody Maker, where they were championed especially by critic Simon Reynolds. The 6-track rem"i"xes EP featured remixes of songs from the "i" LP, done by Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins and by A R Kane themselves.
Rough Trade went bankrupt in 1991, hindering the band's momentum and leaving them label-less. In 1992, David Byrne's record label, Luaka Bop, released a 15-song U.S. retrospective of the band's work, entitled Americana.
After an early-1990s hiatus, follow-up album New Clear Child (1994) was not received as well due to a seeming lack of a coherent direction and a feeling that the ideas were merely re-hashes of works that were completed more succinctly in the earlier two albums.
A.R. Kane's first two albums were reissued in the U.S. by One Little Indian in 2004, and New Clear Child was reissued by 3rd Stone in 2000.
Since the dissolution of A.R. Kane, Tambala made ambient- and dub-based music with his sister Maggie under the alias Sufi[2] and released the 1995 album Life's Rising on Caroline Records. Tambala is currently working for Ministry of Sound as Head of New Media, and has previously worked for Virgin Digital in non-musical related roles. He current records as MusicOne.[3]
Ayuli was known to be a museum curator in the U.S. He put out releases under the name Alex!.[4] In 2006, Ayuli contributed vocals on two tracks ("Soulsong" and "Passage") of the album "Primario" by the Mexican record label Static Discos artist Fax. He will also appear on Fax's forthcoming album, Zig Zag.[5] Ayuli appears in Beautiful Noise, the documentary on the shoegazing music scene of the 1990s [6]
Bands such as Long Fin Killie, Slowdive, Dubstar, The Veldt, Apollo Heights and Seefeel have cited A.R. Kane as an influence.