Armando 'Don't Take It'

Apparently this record is quite a big deal, but I didn't realise it existed until I picked up the Thomos and Johnny Fiasco edits in Rough Trade. Obviously hadn't being paying enough attention. Anyway, it was resurrected a while back on Let's Pet Puppies and it's heavy, if you can find it on Discogs or eBay I'd recommend picking it up. It's probably going to be available a lot cheaper than this.

The story goes that, like lots of good things, Don't Take It was made in a hotel room. It was improvised and recorded (obviously) in a single take, during an after-party session. Despite those potentially adverse conditions it's an amazing piece of music. It's hard to believe it's twenty years old, two years old than Armando was when he made it.

As tends to be the case when people record things in hotels, the bathroom was used as a makeshift vocal booth. Sharvette Cole sat on the toilet seat and adlibbed her entire contribution, complete with occasional 'uh's and pauses that add to the rawness. Despite clearly being pretty talented and interesting she only seems to appear on one other record, Marcus Mixx's Shake That Thing. Thomos' edit retains Sharvette's women's liberation speech, whereas Johnny Fiasco's edit strips the vocal out and toughens up the drums a bit. Both of them make you feel like you're in the hotel room with them, and make it hard to resist a bit of air-303...

You can here the Johhny Fiasco treatment here. Personally the one for me is the Thomos version though. If you want to hear that you'll probably just have to buy it.