Player One – Different Strokes (1999)

Alternative title: Another crap night out in Oberschöneweide

Ravi McArthur is a true diggers’ darling, and I only mean that half disparagingly – look at any of the two dozen-ish releases he’s been involved in, and even if it’s not pricey (yet), its “wants” will most likely outweigh the “haves”. And while I am often bemused by the swarm’s decisionmaking process about which obscure and mediocre late 90s Tech House person is next in line to become highly sought after among Hoppetosse heads and CdV creepers, I can fully understand why McArthur’s incredible run of 12”s from the mid-90s to the mid-00s has struck this kind of chord. Take this example: This guy (together with longtime collaborator Tom Gilleron) made a House record named The Poon Tang Clan – How Deep Is Your Muff? and it’s not just good but GREAT.

So why do people love the man’s work? McArthur’s tracks often manage to thread the needle between classic Deep House sensibilities and sparse, minimal arrangements that can Tech-House it up with the best of them, while alluding to elements from 90s Breaks business, UKG and Electro House in a calm and collected way that does not seem gimmicky. And of the many amazing tracks McArthur produced, “Another Crap Night Out In Eltham” is my favorite.

Recordselling my soul

I knew none of this when an original copy of Different Strokes by McArthur’s Player One alias fell into my hands at Recordsale, the Berlin-based record selling sweatshop at which I used to spend my days back when I still aspired to be a music journalist and to smoke weed all day. The task was simple: We had to go through crates of records, find them on Discogs, grade their condition and put them in the system to be sold. It was around that time that I started to get enthusiastic about deeper House and Electro, after being consumed by Hip Hop, Disco, Funk, Jazz and such for years. At that point I was pretty excitable. Give me a smooth Rhodes-y chord progression and I’d probably buy that record for our employee discount, which was fifty percent at the time – or a hundred, depending on who you talk to.

The working conditions at Recordsale sucked for many reasons, but the vibe among us employees was great, and it wasn’t just the discount and the digging opportunities. I met so many people there who ended up being formative for not only my time in Berlin and my “”music career””, but my development as a person. At I remember being introduced to so many things there, like Joe Claussell by the legend Dimitry, to Italo Disco sessions with Jan, to incredible Reggae Disco bangers by magic man Bogdan, to the depths of late 80s House by my dear friend and early party collaborator Ali, and to Baltimore Club and UKG by my dear friend “Piano Chris” aka Bob Ross from Friends.

Funnily enough, when I picked this record out of some crate I was working on, it wasn’t for “Another Crap Night Out In Eltham”, the objectively monumental slam dunk of Different Strokes, but for “U Wot ?” – a Disco’d-out breaks-y House sleeper with smooth chords and an incredible moment when a some horns come in around 1:50. I just rediscovered this one today and was pretty stunned. It’s funky, it’s class, and it pales in comparison to the magnetic “Another Crap Night Out In Eltham”, which I fell in love with in the years after acquiring the record. 

“Eltham” is minimalist yet expressive, it’s percussive and tooly, yet full of melodies, it’s moving forward yet melancholic. It builds slowly but decidedly, and when that stab fully kicks in it’s pure ecstasy. I have so many fond memories of playing it out (which given how pricey the record has become I should probably stop doing) but I’ll talk about the first one.

Crap night chronicles

The first time I remember bringing the record with me, it was at this event, where our Ghetto-House-inspired label/ collective was unexpectedly asked to take over the night programme of Future East, a festival that showcases mostly Middle-Eastern experimental music. It was a great opportunity to see Istanbul Ghetto Club, and to invite some friends and colleagues like Acidfinky, Zeynep, and Mehmet Aslan to play for us, but it was a bit of an odd vibe. Musikbrauerei is huge, and everyone had just witnessed some amazing live concerts. There was some proper Techno-ing happening downstairs in an arch of the building, but our upstairs floor took a while to get going.

Even more annoyingly, though: This was at a time when I pretty much only played records. I did not know at all how to use Rekordbox at all, and only owned a handful of digital tracks. Imagine my disappointment, when I wanted to mix in the first record in a B2B with Bob (Young Lychee), and the booth was simply not isolated whatsoever, resulting in the worst needle skipping I’ve probably ever witnessed aloud. We ended up managing digitally, at least that’s what I remember. But that also meant: I couldn’t play “Another Crap Night Out In Eltham”.

Luckily, this wasn’t the only gig I was set to play that night. After this one, we were supposed to play together at the magnificent Kaos in Oberschöneweide, where our dear friends and label-mates Turk & Fin organised a soli-party with their Some Lush Frequencies collective. After we finished up the set, Bob spontaneously decided to stay, so I swiftly jumped into a cab all the way to the other side of town to make it JUST in time for the gig. I remember being very excited to play some classic House, and I started with Plez’s “Can’t Stop (Acid Rain Forest Mix)” which with its hypnotic bassline let me forget all about feedback noise. 

Fast forward to halfway through the set, when I decided it’s time to cue up “Another Crap Night out in Eltham”. The record starts percussive and minimal, and I remember that moment when chords first start coming in not hitting the Kaos-dancefloor as I hoped. But boy, when that stab sound slowly creeps in during that breakdown, always just a little more muffled than you want it to until JUST before the drums return… real movie magic.

Throughout the set I was pretty worried about my performance, more than usually. One of the reasons was that legend Stella Zekri, who was already popping off at the time, was hanging out on the dancefloor. Her and the SLF crew go way back to legendary parties at Zigraer Strasse, and she was playing before me on this one as a favor. Either way: I have a vivid memory of this track really hitting, which gave me the confidence to initiate an extensive hang afterwards.

Sitting around some table in the middle of this huge warehouse, we simply talked about music with clenched jaws and big smiles for hours. We talked extensively about Newcleus and early Hip Hop, and when we were about to head back to the dancefloor I remember us being like “Nah, actually let’s just talk about music more”. And that’s what we did until the sun came up and I was booty-called to Neukölln where I drunkenly crashed into a table and spilled tea over some really nice photo books. Great night!

Stalking a British man on the internet

Memories aside, what is Ravi McArthur doing now? It’s been around 20 years since his last release, he does not seem to DJ anymore. What is he up to?

Well, he’s happy. Or at least he looks happy on his profile picture in what I’m fairly certain is his LinkedIn. And why wouldn’t he be? He seems to be an in-demand tech professional in the Greater London area with a great career behind him. And he produced some of the best electronic music ever made. I’d be smiling, too.

While googling around for this text, I stumbled upon this IG-post by McArthur’s peer Asad Rizvi, now known mostly as Silver Linings. In the text he describes hanging out in Friedrichshain as part of a Euro-tour by the Reverberations-boys in 1998, hitting an Imbiss and the like. I’d like to think that just a few hundred meters from where I’m writing these words now, some young bright-eyed producers ate some shabby Berlin food for a couple of Marks, blissfully unaware that they were in the process of creating some truly touching art, which would reverberate almost 30 years into the future.

PS: Didn’t know where to fit this but our man did an official loungy Disco House remix for Robbie Williams’ “Rock DJ”, which is probably among the middest things he ever did, but If that is not a fun fact I don’t know what is.
PPS: When I recently played this record at Cologne’s Gewölbe, it popped off, as it always does, and I remember my dear m8 Anatoli fka Play Boy Joe of Das Ist Das Ja collective running up to me and asking whether I’d spent 300€ on this one. I didn’t but honestly I probably would.