086: Lost in Spice, by Kamel Nitrate

Kamel Nitrate (United Kingdom/Portugal)
Lost in Spice (2003)
10 tracks, 54 minutes (2019 remastered version)
Spotify • iTunes

Kamel Nitrate were, until not too long ago, a group that seemed to come and go in a blink. They had one great album, played around for about a year or two and then seemed to disappear almost completely, save for a couple of remixes here and there. But they left a deep impression on me.

The Kamels as they were then were a bunch of musicians orbiting around the nucleus of producer and multi-instrumentalist Tony Marrison and the excellently named DJ Nelson Dilation. Together with a group of excellent musicians including Portuguese singer Maria João Branco, they created a sound that epitomises dubtronica for me. Not only does it have dub and electronica in heavy doses, but the influences are global. Every continent is represented musically in some way or another, whether as samples that drive the direction of whole tracks, to something as small as a chromatic passing note in an organ solo.

The resulting album, Lost in Spice, is a proper party record, and an annual sound of the summer. Since getting the album in 2003 (or perhaps a little earlier – if memory serves me right, me dad got a hold of an early copy direct from the source), this album was never too far away from my speakers.

It took all the way until 2016 for Kamel Nitrate to rise again, with Tony Marrison rallying some worldwide friends to create the sequel he had always envisioned in the form of Lebanon Elevator. I even got a personal thanks in the album sleeve for the support, too, which was nice.

And then, as a lovely surprise, Lost in Spice came back around – they released a remastered and slightly extended version just earlier this year. The original mixes were lost to the hard drives of time, so Tony had to painstakingly put everything together piece-by-piece and it sounds lovely and sparkly for that. It’s great to get to appreciate it all over again, and I really hope this re-release gets this classic album the wider listenership it always deserved.