Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Malcolm Catto (2001)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Malcolm Catto grew up in Stevenage, England and started his musical career playing drums in Phil Parfitt’s band Perfect Disaster, which also included Josephine Wiggs who would go on to play bass in The Breeders. Perfect Disaster released their debut self titled album in 1985 with contributions from Catto, and it was later re-released in 1987. But by then Catto had left the band and moved to London, where he joined a “60’s style garage punk band” Margin of Sanity, before Catto switched to guitar and joined The Weeds. It was during this period that Catto began collecting rare Funk 7" records, and this new interest led Catto to explore writing his own music, which was said to have been influenced by the “train blues” music from the 1920’s and ‘30’s.
While playing at a New Years Eve party in 1997, Malcolm Catto met Jake Ferguson, and the pair formed Barefoot, who would become The Soul Destroyers, which saw Catto returning to drums, and also featured Jack Yglesias and Ade Owusu as members. The Soul Destroyers were described by Catto as “a straight-up late 60’s funk band”, and would later evolve into the “psych-jazz-funk” of The Heliocentrics.
In 1998 Catto released his debut solo EP Granny’s Got A Brand New Buggy on Stark Reality, a record label run by Catto as a sub-label on Gerald “Jazzman” Short’s Jazzman Records. Catto’s 10" EP was released under the name Popcorn Bubblefish and was followed in 1999 by Metropolis / The Withered Claw, another Popcorn Bubblefish release which was pressed as a 7" promo and featured two songs from Granny’s Got A Brand New Buggy. An official release from Stark Reality never came out, reportedly because at this point the rights were sold to Mo’ Wax.
These early recordings were recorded on a Tascam 244 Portastudio four track recorder, with a minimal setup including his drum kit and guitar, as well as a bass which Catto had borrowed from a neighbour. In 2011 Catto discussed his early career with Star Wax magazine.
I wanted to make a record that reflects my different musical influences. At first I did a 10 inch for Gerald which was awful...He played it to his girlfriend, and she strongly advised him not to put it out. That put an end to this project…
A friend of mine, Gareth Goddard…had a small store with Gerald Jazzman at the Camden market in London and he played one of the tracks there…[and] James Lavelle…walks around at this time and asks him: “What is this track?”. He replies something like: “It’s Malcolm Catto, he’s making music in his room”. He wanted to meet me to hear other productions. I subsequently switched from a 4-track Tascam to a Tascam 38 with a reel to reel tape recorder sound. Then I had the money to produce an album, and my only regret at that time was that I spent all the money available on studio material…
The first of Malcolm Catto’s Mo’ Wax releases arrived in 2001, with two single Rock and Copter, released in July, preceding the release of his debut album. For his Mo’ Wax releases Malcolm Catto reverted to using his full name, and Popcorn Bubblefish became the title of his album, which released on August 13 and featured the previously released Metropolis, as well as thirteen other new songs.
The artwork for Malcolm Catto’s Mo’ Wax releases were handled by EYƎ, aka Yamatsuka Eye or Yamatsuka Tetsurō, who is best known as a member of the Japanese noise rock band Boredoms. As DJ 光光光 (DJ Pica Pica Pica) he contributed the song Onsen (Spa) to the Mo’ Wax compilation The Art Of War: Who Dares Wins, and he has continued to work as a musician and visual artist.
In 2002 the Mo’ Wax website called Malcolm Catto’s music “a mad molotov cocktail of sound which can only be described as ‘unique’”, and upon its release, reviews for his album were favourable, with The Times, London reviewing it twice. On August 3 2001 The Times described Popcorn Bubble Fish as “a collection of short, lo-fi, instrumental tracks, skilfully built around a variety of obscure breakbeats, that proceeds with a wonderfully infectious syncopated strut”, and they likened the album to blaxploitation movie soundtracks and the early albums of the James Taylor Quartet. Later, on August 18 2001 The Times reviewed Catto’s album again and awarded it 3/5 stars, writing that “Malcom Catto’s debut LP bridges the gap between Mo’Wax’s past and future…Catto’s tracks are lo-fi doodles over massive, scratchy breaks and winsome melodies. Recalling early Money Mark, Catto is a cult-in-waiting.”
Following Popcorn Bubble Fish, in 2002 Catto released Bubblefish Breaks, an album intended for use by hip hop producers to sample without having to worry about any licensing. This was his final release on Mo’ Wax, which itself was closing down at this point, and that year also saw the final release on Malcolm Catto’s Stark Reality label, which had released music by Catto’s band The Soul Destroyers, as well as from other acts such as Cherrystones, Little Barrie, and Mr. Chop. Meanwhile, Bubblefish Breaks found its way to Eothen Alapatt, aka Egon, who had been working with Stones Throw Records, the home of Peanut Butter Wolf and Madlib, and in 2003 Catto appeared on Madlib’s Shades of Blue album, on Madlib and Egon’s Sound Directions project, and on Egon’s debut album Curse Of The Evil Badger.
Malcolm Catto also worked with DJ Shadow, having first met due to their shared interest in collecting rare Funk 7" records, with Catto renowned for his collection, and earning himself the nickname The Baron, or “Malcolm Baron Von Stevenage”. While finishing his debut album, Catto had spent time with DJ Shadow and they collaborated and recorded together over the next few years, with Catto also joining Shadow on tour following the release Shadow’s album The Private Press in 2002. One of Catto’s live performance with DJ Shadow was later included on Shadow’s In Tune and On Time DVD, and he also contributed drums to Shadow’s third album The Outsider, released in 2006.
In 2005 Malcolm Catto and Jake Ferguson released Winter Song / Dance Of The Dogon as The Heliocentrics, a group which differed from their previous Soul Destroyers collaboration as, according to Catto, The Heliocentrics “try to jointly create something modern and representative of us in the here and now, rather than something formulaic and retro.” The Heliocentrics would release their debut album Out There in 2007 on Now-Again Records, a sub-label on Stones Throw which had been set up by Egon. Catto recalled how this came about:
[Madlib and Egon] dropped by our studio one day while in London and asked to hear what the band had been up to. I played them our just finished LP and told them the response of our label at the time which was “some very interesting ideas on this demo, when can we hear the actual album?” Madlib turned around and said “I’ll put it out” and that was that.
The Heliocentrics have continued to release albums regularly, with several on Now-Again Records, and have also released albums in collaboration with The Lloyd Miller Trio, Orlando Julius, Melvin Van Peebles, and Mulatu Astatke, who they recorded an album with in just over ten days.
Malcolm Catto has also compiled Funk compilations, and contributed to and produced several releases from other groups, including multiple releases in 2020 alone, such as contributing drums on Skinshape’s Umoja, mixing, writing, and playing drums on The Gaslamp Killer’s Heart Math, producing, recording, and mixing Idris Ackamoor and The Pyramids’ Shaman!, recording and engineering Nightports w/ Betamax’s self titled album, recording and mixing Yussef Dayes’ Blackfriars, and producing and mixing Raúl Monsalve y Los Forajidos’ Bichos.
2020 has also seen the release of a new collaborative album between Malcolm Catto and Little Barrie, with Quatermass Seven released in October, and two new albums from The Heliocentrics, both released on Madlib’s Madlib Invazion record label, with Infinity Of Now released in February and followed by Telemetric Sounds in August.
While he has remained prolific, Malcolm Catto’s only solo releases were on Mo’ Wax in the early 2000’s, and they remain out of print, currently only available to stream on YouTube. But although Catto has yet to announce plans for a new solo release, as follow up to 2001’s Popcorn Bubble Fish and 2002’s Bubblefish Breaks, he has already discussed The Heliocentrics’ future plans, telling The Passion of the Weiss in February that they were “currently working on material with members of the Sun Ra Arkestra”. With no release date announced as yet, we can at least be reassured that there is more from Malcolm Catto coming soon.
