Nobody Ever Talks About Warp 9

I used to love Warp 9 as a kid, but these days they seem to have been completely memory-holed.  I guess that's because they made more break dance music than strictly Hip-Hop.  But I dug that stuff, too, and I used to play their tape to death.  And honestly, they did both.  There are songs where they're straight-up rapping, the DJ's cutting... sure, it's electro disco-era stuff.  This is not made from the staple two turntables and a microphone, and you weren't checking for their MC's skills.  Even for 1983, nobody would put them alongside the Grandmasters Caz or Melle Mel.  And they're not delivering a serious "Message."  It's just a fun, "we're chilling the most" good time music, somewhere in between Break Machine and Newcleus.  In fact, if you appreciate Space Is the Place, you'd be totally in It's a Beat Wave.

And we'll get to Fade In, Fade Out, but It's a Beat Wave is what it's all about.  It's so good.  Every song on this album was a single!  These guys were a studio group, put together by their label like Timex Social Club, but their stuff is really well done, and pretty versatile.  Connie Cosmos, Dr. Space and Mr. C (not that Mister Cee) on the turntables.  The production on "Nunk (New Wave Funk)" is a killer, with a little help from Jellybean.  "Beat Wave" and "Master Of the Mix" are my favorites, if only for being the most straight rappy cuts.  I think Connie actually left after "Nunk" and it's a new girl, Ada, on the rest of this album.  But she sounds real cool rapping on "Beat Wave" regardless.  "Master Of the Mix" is all about the DJ skills, and no, the cuts aren't amazing.  But this was the era of "Rockit," well transformer scratches were invented, so this was about all you could hope for.  The fact that they put scratches up front at all was exciting.

"Light Years Away" is low-key pretty fresh, with a spacey vibe, their most Newcleus-y song, even dropping in a vocoder to deliver some words from the future towards the end.  But the songs on side 2 definitely got lighter and a little more mainstream pop.  "No Man Is an Island" is easily my least favorite, basically a flat out disco song, but it's still upbeat and catchy with a zippy little breakdown.  It's all well crafted.  But honestly, half the time I would just rewind side 1 back and give the side 2 stuff a pass.

But yeah, the second album was a disappointment.  They basically pulled a Whistle, who lost their main rapper guy, then later their DJ, and just carried on with the singers.  In this case, Ada left and the other guy took a back seat (he's just credited with Additional Background Vocals along with five other people now) for a new female singer, leaving the new official line-up of Warp 9 to be Katherine & Chuck.  I think you're meant to see those two on the cover with the shadowy drummer figure in the background and assume it's the same trio, but it's all different now.  Three years had passed since their 1983 album and they'd switched labels from Prism to Motown, too.  The older white couple who produced the group (Lottie Golden and Richard Sher) stayed the same across the album, but otherwise Warp 9 was just a totally new beast on a totally different vibe.

It's not bad, mind you.  The music is still well produced (I spotted The Sugarhill Band's Doug Wimbish playing bass in the album credits) and the new pair could still sing.  But they're just aiming for a sappier, duller R&B thing.  Their one single, "Skips a Beat" is probably the best song, that or "Big Fun."  The rest is pretty boring.  "The Cutting Edge" has a cool, little breakdown, but you can tell the musicians are on more of a rock vibe.  "King of Hearts" straight up sucks.  But otherwise, you could totally bop along to this in your car on the commute to work.

Apparently, I wasn't alone in being disappointed.  Fade In, Fade Out was the end of Warp 9.  Everybody went on to other projects in the music industry, though.  After all, it was a studio group.  But nothing else really Hip-Hop.  I wish we could've gotten a couple more "Beat Waves" while they were in that sweet spot, but I can at least hang onto what they did give us.