There was a point about halfway through the eighties at which it seemed like Some Bizarre were the only label of substance and I'd never need to bother with anyone else's records ever again. It seemed as though pop music had stopped being a wanker, or was at least doing something kind of interesting; and then the Smiths came along to restore order, to calm the fears of those who foresaw the extinction of proper music made by white blokes with guitars and a love of the jangly sixties, like we knew before all those - well, you know, can't say no names or nuffink but name me one good reggae song, yeah?
Then Cabaret Voltaire were suddenly on Parlophone, The The were similarly elsewhere, Psychic TV failed to be anything like as interesting as promised, and Stevo's thing had seemingly vanished off the map. Excepting a vaguely recalled clip of something trading as Blowzabella on some youth TV show, it had all gone quiet. I suppose it may be significant that this apparent disappearance probably coincided with my giving up on music papers, but I don't know, and the subsequent history of Some Bizarre is a strange and obscure tale populated by artists you've never heard of - Monkey Farm Frankenstein and others.
That said, I'm not sure I'd actually heard of Stex, but Johnny Marr of the aforementioned Smiths plays on this record so I assume it will have been paid at least some attention, even if I was looking in the wrong direction at the time; and I assume from the scarcity of posthumous information on the internet (a realm wherein one may learn even the birth dates and respective shoe sizes of all three members of Naffi Sandwich if you look hard enough) that they're probably still owed at least fourteen of their allotted fifteen minutes.
I say they're but, so far as I can tell, Stex was he, and specifically a he of Lewisham - which is actually where I was living in 1992, but never mind. Stex seems to have been something to do with the developing garage scene, and I gather that, aside from Johnny Marr twanging away on a couple of numbers, we also have the involvement of an Altered Images dude, with Dave Ball possibly twiddling something or other. Spiritual Dance is uptempo bluesy soul of a kind which was admittedly fairly common in 1992, but done with the sort of feeling which connects it firmly to its roots, and which therefore distinguishes it from the formless, generic pish gratuitously emoted by all of those Alexander O'Neal types. Guitars chop and chunk like Nile Rodgers, and the computer bass squelches with a warmth I hadn't even realised I'd missed, and the mood is uplifting without getting stupid, whilst smouldering like Imagination's New Dimension, or the broody opening bars of Diana Ross's Love Hangover; and really it's just a fucking tremendous soul album, a lost gem in every sense. Stex may have seemed an odd labelmate for Einstürzende Neubauten, but if you listen close it becomes difficult to miss the kinship with The The and even Cabaret Voltaire's funkier material.
What the hell happened, Stex? You should have been fucking massive.
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