Shadows of Tomorrow: Malcolm Catto On The Heliocentrics' "Distant Star" A Chance Collaboration with DOOM & Percee P (MF DOOM Tribute)
Honestly, it doesn't even feel like there's a proper way to elegize an eccentric and extremely talented artist such as MF DOOM, who meant so much to so many of us for so many years for so many different reasons as truly unique as DOOM himself. So, what better way to pay tribute to The Man, The Myth, THE MASK himself than by speaking to those closest to him? With a heavy heart, I proudly present Shadows of Tomorrow; a new recurring column in tribute to DOOM in an effort to re-tell the tall tales, strange stories, and lesser-known tidbits of The Metal Face Villain himself. R.I.P. Daniel "MF DOOM" Dumile Thompson.
"Basically, through Egon, we were able to get Percee P to do vocals over an instrumental arrangement of "Distant Star," the first version of which was mixed by our friend and, at the time, Sydney-based co-producer of The Heliocentrics, Mike Burnham. We recorded horns, Thai guitar, a Balinese wooden gamelan, and extra percussion over here to send to Mike for inclusion in his mix in order to make the album and 12-inch version of the track discernably different from each other and to make it reflect more where we were, musically, at that time—ie: evolving from a studio rhythm section to a large completely live music ensemble. We, also, did our own mix of "Distant Star," as, although, we liked Mike's version, we thought it was a little close to the album version and did not get across the point that me and Jake [Ferguson] were keen to emphasize, which was that The Heliocentrics were a live band and we wanted that to be reflected on this record."
"We had re-recorded all new parts for the track (with the exception of the bass and drums) with live musicians, whereas on the LP verion, we used a lot of segments from old oddball records. It is the one on the B-side of the 12-inch entitled "Instrumental Version," along with a live track called "Space Time Girl," which was later sampled by Kanye West & Nas. We did this at our own East London studio called Quatermass Sound Lab, which, at the time, was based above an African church in a 1,000-square-foot old Victorian factory with loads of holes in the roof. Our version appears on the "Distant Star" 12-inch entitled Instrumental Version. Basically, there was never any talk of MF DOOM being involved in the track and we had no idea that he had even heard us or or knew anything about us."
"So, it was a complete surprise when I [received] a phone call from Mike saying he had [received] the accapella vocals from Percee P to mix with the instrumental track and at the end of Percee's rap, there was a verse at by MF DOOM. We were all pretty mystified and, obviously, blown away, especially, when we heard "DOOM"'s contribution, but none more so than a young [Shabaka Hutchings,] who was playing sax with us, at that time, and who is a massive "DOOM" fan. I remember him saying, at that time, that he knew every single lyric of his. I never found out how or why this came about, but after that, "DOOM" did ask us, through Egon, for us to send him a track for him to consider for [possible] inclusion on his new LP. We did, but after not hearing anything back from him for a duration, we put the track out on our second LP, 13 [Degrees] of Reality."
- Malcolm Catto (@theheliocentrics)
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