“Imagine the future” with Jonah Sharp aka Spacetime Continuum and Los Angeles-based rave project DISCOSXXX.

One of the great UK chill-out room legends, Jonah Sharp began his career as a session drummer in the late ’80s acid jazz scene before moving onto a world of samplers, drum machines, synthesizers, and electronic music. His early solo productions as Spacetime Continuum are considered one of the first examples of “ambient techno” bringing an avant-garde and improvisational approach to electronic dance music that would take over the blissful come down rooms of the ’90s post acid house raves in London.

Sharp has continuously pushed his sound forward throughout the ’90s, ’00s, and beyond through constant experimentation and collaboration. His list of collaborators include global legends Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra, Mixmaster Morris, Pete Namlook, Ursula Rucker, Move D (together as Reagenz), Tetsu Inoue, Terence McKenna, and Bill Laswell (to name but a few).

“Electronic music [is] always going further, always inventing new sounds and explorations on a rhythm.” – Jonah Sharp, SF Weekly (1999)

If you’re a follower of this site, you may have encountered Sharp’s music in our Teaching of Sphinx: Haruomi Hosono’s 90’s Downtempo and Abstract Electronica feature or listened to his solo work and collaborations with MLO (Jon Tye & Pete Smith) on Music from Memory’s recent ambient archival explorations.

This Friday, Los Angeles-based rave project DISCOSXXX will be hosting a very special night of musical bliss featuring a rare live performance of Sharp’s classic project Spacetime Continuum. In anticipation of the event, Jonah Sharp and the DISCOSXXX crew shared a few favorites from the formative years of the early ’90s tripped-out electronic scenes in London, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Tickets for the event available here: https://ra.co/events/1670853

The Black Dog – Virtual

Jonah Sharp: I first heard this at Mixmaster Morris’s flat in London 1990. Playful, funky and mystical this record was hugely inspiring to me as a producer it really opened my mind to new possibilities. As the sample in the tune says “imagine the future.”

Glimmer Of Dope – Glimmer Of Dope Theme 3

TK (Warehouse Preservation Society): This one goes out to all the Room 2 ravers of the mid-nineties West Coast and beyond. In 1993, our dear friend Daum Bentley aka Freaky Chakra, dropped a massive bomb on the coast in the form of “Hallicifudge” on the legendary Exist Dance label, with all ears on the b-side’s “Trancendental Funk Bump”.  An instant classic if we ever heard one. You couldn’t go anywhere without catching this one for a good couple of years. Then, he transcended things even further with his follow-up 12’s “Peace Fixation”, and then the menacing “March Of The Tangent Prone EP”. This was “end-times music” before we ever heard the term. 

Then, out of nowhere comes this hot pink bubblegum colored 12″ by an artist called Glimmer Of Dope, but upon closer look, one could discern this was a new alias by our favorite wild child, “Freaky” Daum himself. He completely flipped the tables on us with this record. Clocking in at close to 9 minutes, this 100 bpm low-slung piece of sleazy sludge drips with the fattest buzzing bass and electric rhythm under a fearsome vocoder declaring a need for your loving. 27 years later, it’s still just as good as it was when first copped.

Daisy Glow – Sunday In The Park (S.C.O. Mix)

Tavish (Warehouse Preservation Society): Another one from the glory days of early nineties SF/LA, aptly named after the infamous Sunday afternoon renegade parties in Golden Gate park. This record is the epitome of raving in the Bay Area at this time, specifically 1993!! Daisy Glow was none other than Kelly “Kelix” Williams and Todd Wood aka “Mouse”, who not long after this came out, became TK’s roommate for several years (but we’ll save those stories for another time)! DG had several amazing records that fully encompassed all the love that was flowing through the city at that time, but it is Miguel Fierro aka Single Cell Orchestra’s (another live guest at the 2nd ever DISCOSXXX and long-time Freaky Chakra AND Spacetime Continuum collaborator) who’s absolutely mind-melting remix really took things to a different level– pure and innocent psychedelic and breaky, its a record that has more than stood the test of time, and one you would hear emanating from the skys all week long until Sunday. And because of our shared affinity for all things musical of this era, WPS has had no choice but to dust this one off in recent years, becoming a staple in our sets from jump street.

The Look – Glamor Girl (Probably A Dub)

SONNS: A rock-solid entry in the era of unstoppable remix work one Danny Tenaglia ran in the early to mid-90s, and this one was properly rinsed by a who’s-who of choice selectors from Twilo to Turnmills to Wicked and back, nailing it in the dub dept in more ways than one, and definitely more than probably.

Spacetime Continuum – Drug #6

Dave Aju: This was an easy call seeing as the man’s first SF live set I witnessed in ‘93 is a driving cause for this extra-celebratory DX3 event, and this track off the Fluresence EP of that same year blew me away in so many ways. I slowed down on looping pops’ jazz records and making boom-bap to copping a 909 & Juno in attempt to recreate such wizardry. It’s a clear peer of the better-known Detroit classics, and I’ve heard everyone from May and Mills to “The Guv” Weatherall (RIP) hammer this beauty through the decades. In fact, the way it musically morphs and taps various influential trajectories and feels always made me think: “If Sabres Of Paradise ever did a record on Transmat or Fragile that was destined for a West Coast warehouse, this is it!