Sci-Fi-Lo-Fi Vol. 1

Though he’s perhaps best remembered for bringing together acid house and rock music, as he did on Primal Scream’s landmark Screamadelica, late DJ and producer Andrew Weatherall was also an aficionado of rock and roll in its most unadulterated forms, as evidenced on this now hard-to-find compilation he put together for Soma’s Sci.fi.Lo.Fi series. Weatherall traces the echoes of rockabilly’s riffs and rattles through an absolute treasure trove of obscurities and gems from the likes of Link Ray, Tav Falco and Charlie Feathers through The Fall, The Cramps, Killing Joke and some far more obscure names before managing to seamlessly end on his own scratching dub skank, Feathers. Worth it alone for the inclusion of the deadpan rumble of Spilled Your Pint by Gallon Drunk spin-off The Flaming Stars.

It’s an act of wonderful Weatherallian perversity to make his 2007 mix album for a much loved techno label – Glasgow’s Soma – mainly rockabilly. To be fair, the Sci-Fi-Lo-Fi series was touted as an “influences” series, and what’s more it perfectly illustrates the way that Weatherall was able to apply DJ logic to more or less any sound, so there are layers of logic to this too. It kicks off with a first half of old, raw American twang from the likes of Link Wray and Charlie Feathers, takes a swerve mid way through via T Rex and The Fall, then ends with anything goes electro-dub-rockabilly including his own early vocal experiment “Feathers,” a remix of Primal Scream, and a bit of old favourites The Cramps and Killing Joke. It’s an object lesson in deconstructing the false binaries between purism and eclecticism, influence and innovation and scholarship and fun.