This Film’s Crap Let’s Slash The Seats – David Holmes – Released April 20th 1995, Go! Discs
David Holmes had a clear agenda when he released his genre-defying debut album back in 1995.
First, to acknowledge his roots but not allow himself to be defined by them, second, to share and celebrate his influences and third, to signal his future aspirations.
Prior to this album Holmes was best known as a Belfast techno DJ. Slash The Seats helped Holmes gain renown as one of electronic music’s most versatile producers, setting him on his eventual path to Hollywood composer.
The album also features contributions from other top producers, musicians and performers, including Gary Burns, Keith Tenniswood, Sarah Cracknell, Steve Hillage and Jah Wobble.
Gary Burns recorded with Jagz Kooner as The Aloof and both men also recorded with Andrew Weatherall as the Sabres Of Paradise.
Keith Tenniswood, aka Radioactive Man, also recorded with Weatherall as 2 Lone Swordsmen.
Sarah Cracknell was the lead singer with Saint Etienne (another Weatherall connection there) while prog rock guitarist Steve Hillage might best be known to 90s ravers as one half of the psy-techno group System 7.
And then there’s the legend that is Jah Wobble, the former Public Image Limited bassist and post-punk icon turned wildly prolific dub evangelist.
That’s quite a lot of shining talent packed into nine tracks. And 28 years on it hasn’t dimmed even slightly.
So, with the release of Holmes’ first album in 15 years, Blind On A Galloping Horse, the time seems right to revisit the album which started it all.
Acid Auteur
As with all DJs of his era, David Holmes didn’t start off with a career path in mind.
Growing up in a town that was famous for all the wrong reasons (birthplace of the Titanic being the least of them) opportunities were few and far between.
Belfast was a city trapped in an endless cycle of poverty and violence where any or all forms of entertainment served as a welcome escape.
So wee Davey developed a love of movies and an obsession with music from a very young age, going to the pictures with mates while spending the bulk of his money on records.
He also inherited hand-me-down vinyl from his siblings allowing him to quickly build up a large and diverse collection.
He started off DJing in his teens, first as a hobby before eventually landing proper gigs.
As luck would have it, he just so happened to be in the right place at the right time and in possession of massive amounts of raw talent.
Wasn’t long before his career took off. DJing led to remixing, remixing led to producing and this, in turn, led to an album deal.
Pretty standard script so far – but in 1995 Holmes flipped it.
Holmes’ first hit track was 1992’s De Niro, released under the alias Disco Evangelists.
It was notable for its sample from Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to Once Upon A Time In The West, the first of many cinematic homages which would come to define his career.
See, David Holmes has always been what’s called a DJs DJ, a consummate tastemaker who was never content being associated with one style of music or even one aspect of the music business.
Hence the smorgasbord of styles and sounds on Slash The Seats and the clear signals, now obvious in retrospect, of his cinematic ambitions.
Coming from a city known for its cultural partitions, Holmes’ mission from day one was tearing down boundaries wherever he found them, and music was the obvious starting point.
Growing up in Ireland in the 90s, David Holmes was one of our heroes. So it should be no surprise to hear that I bought this album the instant it arrived in my local record shop.
It’s worth mentioning that in 1995 the Northern Ireland peace process was still embryonic and the mood was one of cautious optimism with the cautious comprising 80% of that equation.
Slash The Seats acknowledges its place in history, albeit in passing.
Holmes cleverly bookmarks the album with two variations of the same melody, one evoking the Ghosts of Belfast Past, while the album’s sublime finale presaged the Ghost of Belfast Future.
Culturally, Holmes was tapping the zeitgeist too. Keep in mind Ireland was “trending” in the early half of the 90s, which saw a soaring interest in Irish music and culture in general at the time.
(That was a mixed blessing though. I vividly recall the frustration of trying to explain Northern Ireland’s occupation to geopolitically challenged Americans whose only points of reference were Harrison Ford movies and a shitty song by the Cranberries.)
But alongside Belfast, there’s Berlin, London and Detroit, not to mention a generous, glittery sprinkling of Tinsel town.
Put it all together and the result is an incredible debut from a true artist, one that says, without hesitation, this is who I am, this is where I’m from, here’s some of the music that I love and here’s my vision for the future…
Shake Your Brain
The opening track, No Man’s Land, starts with the chiming of a funeral bell, the sound of hollow footsteps echoing across tiles and the slamming of a jail cell door.
We next hear a heartbeat accompanied by haunting cinematic strings, followed by a synth melody evocative of Irish traditional music.
Then, from the other side of the divide, we get the sound of marching drums. These get progressively louder while an acid arpeggio is added.
The initial tribal drums are further augmented with militant marching band snares, putting it all very much on the orange end of the litmus paper acid test.
To the casual listener, this is a Celtic-sounding track with marching drums, whereas an Irish person will instantly recognise how every single musical layer is carefully selected, steeped in history and heavy with cultural nuance.
I imagine David Holmes has mixed feelings about his hometown and no doubt this track proved cathartic. A way of opening the album by saying, yeah, this is where I’m from, but it ain’t necessarily where I’m at…
Slash The Seats hyperjumps from Belfast to deep space for some schlocky sci-fi and we can now enjoy the album’s cinematic theme in earnest.
The track begins with a series of movie samples – “the planet just exploded sir” followed by some 303 acid. We then get some frantic rolling gabber kicks and a ruff hiphop style breakbeat.
I absolutely loved this track at the time and I’m happy to say it’s held up wonderfully.
As for those movie samples, the source was unknown to me for years until recently. I love when that happens, I’ll be watching a movie then suddenly I jump up and go “hey! That’s from…”
It’s rare that happens now what with the internet and all though I experienced it recently watching the 1974 movie Dark Star.
Dark Star kept cropping up on my various movie nerd channels and I was curious to watch it for context. It launched John Carpenter’s career and, oddly enough, also enjoys the distinction of being the progenitor of both the Alien franchise and Red Dwarf.
Set in deep space, it’s a dark comedy about a bunch of blue-collar Joes (essentially a planetary wrecking crew) slowly cracking up on a comically malfunctioning ship.
It began life as a shoestring student sci-fi project that was then hastily converted into a feature. Though it has since gained cult status the bombed at the time.
So I can totally understand why, having paid to go see a movie where the only alien is a giant painted beachball, young David and his buddies may have opted to deface the cinema’s upholstery.
Shake Ya Brain is named for Holmes’ old club night in Belfast. It’s the first real techno track on the album, though hardly a conventional one.
It’s got far more shuffle than your average techno track, with a triplet kick at the end of every second bar and fuses elements of dub techno and breakbeat to create something distinctively funky.
This was one of my first “signature” tracks which inevitably (and usually ineptly) featured on all those mix tapes I recorded back in the day.
It’s actually a bitch to mix out of, I discovered, because there’s lots of stops and starts in it. So this one really taught me how to anticipate breakdowns by looking at the record and reading the actual groove.
Listening back to it now, I can close my eyes and vividly see the lights of my shitty ole Kam belt drives dancing across the platter while I furrow my brow attempting not to fuck up another mix…
Ah memories!
Got Fucked Up Along The Way is a track I’d never attempt mixing with anything because, in all the years since, I still can’t think of a single track that’d go with it.
As previous, it’s techno Jim, but not as we know it, with off-kilter drum programming and added licks of jazz guitar plus live bass supplied by the legendary Jah Wobble.
Wait, did I call Jah Wobble legendary already? /Scrolls up… yeah I did.
It’s not lazy writing I assure you, because there’s no better adjective for him is there? And I also used the word prolific, which again is also accurate if maybe understating things slightly.
(In addition to David Holmes and the aforementioned Andrew Weatherall, Jah Wobble’s extensive list of collaborators includes Adrian Sherwood, Bill Laswell, Bomb The Bass, Bjork, Sinéad O’Connor, Massive Attack, The Orb, The Shamen and Primal Scream, to name but a few.)
Got Fucked Up Along The Way is a track which rewards you with repeat listens as there’s a lot of percussive nuance here that you might not necessarily notice first time.
Similarly, it’s not one to listen to on your phone and instead demands to be played through proper speakers with quality bass response to fully be appreciated.
Gone is another reminder of why David Holmes is the leader of the DJ pack.
Combining a more blunted Bristolian-type beat with synths that sound straight out of Sabres of Paradise, it features the vocal talents of St Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell singing what, in essence, amounts to a cover from the 60s girl band The Shangri-Las.
This once again serves to showcase the breadth of influences and talent which have since become synonymous with David Holmes.
But back in 1995 absolutely fucking NOBODY was expecting a Belfast DJ, then best known for blasting out proper banging techno, to drop a downtempo ballad in the middle of his debut album.
Gone blew everyone away and also helped make him a darling of the music press.
Almost 30 years on the track stands out as a career highlight and sits perfectly on so-called trip hop (I still loath to use that term) playlists next to artists like Portishead and Massive Attack.
But enough of that weepy shit.
As the credits roll it’s time to change reels for the next movie. Time for some more atomic thrills and cheesy sci-fi shenanigans with The Atom And You.
Following a prolonged info section, replete with cinematic chords, we get some hyperactive DJ Shadow-esque drums and burbling acid with dub effects heaped on top for good measure.
Time hasn’t been quite so kind to this one as some of the other stuff on this album, though I attribute that more to the “big beat” scene which was kicking off around the same time. Wasn’t long before that market was oversaturated, which is why this track now sounds notably dated compared to the rest of the album.
Minus 61 In Detroit is the purest techno track on the album and is the closest in musical terms to what most people were expecting from Holmes at the time, including myself.
Unlike the previous track, this one definitely still holds up. You could drop this into a set today and it would still get people moving and, as with Shake Ya Brain, it’s also eternally etched in my memory.
As the track ends I can’t help but hear the distinctive kicks of Red Two by Dave Clarke over the top, since I always mixed those two tunes together while practising on my first ever set of decks.
Inspired By Leyburn mashes 60s spy noir with 808s and acid while System 7’s Steve Hillage provides some John Barry/Bond score-inspired guitar over a classic Funky Drummer break.
Actually no, on second thoughts, these beats are too gritty for Bond. They’ve got more of a Harry Palmer vibe.
Coming Home To The Sun is the closing track and sees our hero coming full circle.
It’s the classic hero’s journey really, returning to the point of origin, but since our tale began, a transformation has occurred.
It’s the same basic melody as No Man’s Land and that haunting Celtic Spirit remains BUT
the mists are rising, the thick clouds now parting and at last those golden rays of sun are glinting through.
It’s another career highlight, this track, with ethereal vocals reminiscent of Clannad (and artistes like that), but with a steady breakbeat groove to keep it galloping along.
The funeral bells are now notably absent and now, when that big iron door slams, it’s being deliberately slammed in the face of the past, so at last we can look ahead to our fledgling future.
Division Bells
These days Belfast is merely a point on the map.
Back in 1995, however, it was something of an elephant in the room.
Simply by coming from the city, one was expected to make a statement about the place.
The opening track, No Man’s Land, was therefore a clever way to open the album while tackling this thorny issue head-on.
Belfast was, and to a lesser degree still is, a city divided. No Man’s Land may be a term from the WWI trenches, but it also served as a perfect metaphor for the sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland.
Being from one community meant there were certain no-go areas you dare not set foot in. Yet these divisions eroded on the dancefloor.
Two communities turned against each other by the machinations of a decaying empire, a class war masquerading as a religious one resulting in a seemingly endless cycle of bloody reprisals and a cultural chasm which seemed could never be bridged.
And yet…
If you believe the traditional narrative, it was all down to the politicians but there’s a reason Orbital made the tune Belfast.
We must never forget that it was people power, not power politics, that changed Northern Ireland, and much of that came from the optimism of the age, as epitomised by rave culture.
What once seemed impossible slowly became imaginable, until finally, it was inevitable.
Peace became a reality because enough people demanded it be so.
Worth keeping in mind that point. In the years since we seem to have forgotten that we still have the collective power to bend politicians to our will.
The Planet Just Exploded Sir
This Film’s Crap Let’s Slash The Seats stands out as one of the finest debut albums of the 1990s.
Almost 30 years on the album still holds up remarkably well while at the same time serving as the perfect snapshot of the times.
Through it, David Holmes took the opportunity to reinvent himself. From here on in he was no longer viewed as just a techno DJ, he was now a highly versatile and genre-agnostic producer.
Just a few months after the release of Slash The Seats, Holmes teamed up with hard rockers (and fellow Belfast natives) Therapy? on their fifth album Infernal Love, providing what’s referred to on the inlay card as “insanity.”
Holmes released his second album, Let’s Get Killed, in 1997, the same year that another famous Belfast export became the subject of one of the highest-grossing movies of all time.
Incidentally, the release of Titanic was when the world hit peak Irishness. We were doing grand for a while until cultural appropriation by Celine Dion killed it. (Ah well, at least we still have the Oscars.)
The following year. 1998. saw the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, which helped to bring an end to hostilities in Northern Ireland.
It was also the year Holmes produced his first ever soundtrack for the movie Resurrection Man, before later going on to work on projects with director Steven Soderberg.
Bow Down to the Exit Sign was his third album in 2000, followed by two more movie soundtracks, including Oceans 11, in 2001,
In 2002 he scored the movie Analyse That starring Robert De Niro.
This means, in the space of a decade, Holmes went from releasing a track called De Niro, which sampled the soundtrack to a movie that starred De Niro, to essentially creating music for De Niro.
I love joining these little dots.
But seriously, can you imagine how must that have felt for the Belfast cinophile? Fohgedda bout it!
That same year came album number four, the soul-tinged David Holmes presents The Free Association, followed by his fifth album, The Holy Pictures, in 2008.
From there it seemed he’d taken a break to focus on movies until this November, when he released his sixth studio album, Blind On A Galloping Horse.
Like Slash The Seats, it puts Holmes’ influences front and centre with an inspirational roll call for all dreamers and misfits to make their voices heard.
It also continues the work he started back in 1995 with No Man’s Land, by dealing head-on with themes of anger and division.
The overall message, of course, remains one of hope.
After all, we’ve been here before, so we know that peace and reconciliation are possible. All it takes is some optimism and collective action and Blind On A Galloping Horse is perfectly crafted to inspire both.