Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: South (1999)
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…
South were a trio, featuring Joel Cadbury, Jamie McDonald, and Brett Shaw. As Mo’ Wax signed a new partnership with XL Records/Beggars Banquet at the end of 1998 James Lavelle needed to sign new groups, with artists such as DJ Shadow no longer part of the label. Lavelle heard a tape of South and decided to sign them, making them one of the first groups to sign to the new era of Mo’ Wax, with James Lavelle telling The Face, “Since the UNKLE record, I’ve wanted to work with more bands…The label has to move on.”
South had recorded their original demos using a four track recorder, and it was these demos which became their first releases on Mo’ Wax, starting with a series of three 7" singles, with the first, Time To Riot, released in November 1999. These were followed by further singles and promo releases while the band set up in Wessex Sound Studios, London, the same studio where The Clash’s London Calling and The Sex Pistols’ Anarchy In The UK were recorded. The South album sessions took shape in the studio over Summer 2000, and their debut album From Here On In was released in March 2001. But prior to the albums release, James Lavelle had the members of South help him with two other projects. First was the UNKLE Vs. South Remix of Ian Brown’s Dolphins Were Monkeys, and then Lavelle asked South to collaborate with him on the soundtrack to Sexy Beast, the debut film directed byJonathan Glazer, who had directed UNKLE’s Rabbit In Your Headlights video in 1998.
The Sexy Beast soundtrack was recorded in under two weeks, with Joel Cadbury telling Jockey Slut in 2000, “We had eight days to deliver it, so we just jammed around the visuals and then sculpted it around on the computer.” Cadbury later explained further how the project came about in 2002:
Well, that was right in the middle of the album sessions. We took two weeks out to do that and Jonathan Glazer had approached [James] Lavelle [U.N.K.L.E.] and they needed like seven or eight scores done in two weeks. Lavelle didn’t think we wanted to do it, and because we were already set up in his studio he thought he wouldn’t be able to do it on his own. But we could all really attack it — a combination, tag-team sort of force. It was just a fantastic experience to work like that and sculpt music around a film and…it didn’t come out like anything U.N.K.L.E. had done and it didn’t sound like South, but after we’d done it we took elements of what we learned in doing that and used it in the album after.
The soundtrack was released in 2001, following the movies January 2001 UK release, and featured several songs which also appeared on From Here On In, though they are listed as “UNKLE with South” on the soundtrack, and two are remixes .
Both the Sexy Beast and From Here On In sessions were produced by James Lavelle, with additional production from Rich File, and Joel Cadbury praised James Lavelle’s vision for the album, later explaining what it was like to work with him in 2001:
With James it really was an open exchange of ideas. We just listened to a lot of music, talked a lot about it — James had a good idea of how the record was going. He was a good catalyst for taking it further. We really like raw beats, raw sounds, and that comes out in the record. It’s just the way we record.
Having their label boss produce the album gave the band a lot of freedoms, according to Brett Shaw, who was also happy working with James Lavelle, telling Indie London, “we had free reign to do what we wanted with it, and at the age we were, we did do pretty much what we wanted with it.” Likewise the band were pleased with Rich File, who they likened to being their fifth member, due to the work he provided on South’s debut, with their unofficial fourth member being Will Harper, who also helped on the album and tour.
Upon its release, From Here On In entered the UK Independent Albums Chart where it peaked at #21, but it didn’t enter the official Top 100 Top 100 UK Album Charts, only peaking at #150. Reviews for the album were favourable, with NME awarding From Here On In 6/10, while Pitchfork gave it 6.9/10 and described it as “inches away from being a success”. The Guardian gave the album 3/5 and wrote, “With correct guidance, South could yet mature into something special. After bearing with them during the two years it took to make this album, it’s hoped Mo’Wax will allow them time to go that extra mile.”
In Japan From Here On In was preceded by the release of a compilation which collected their previous Mo’ Wax singles, and followed by another compilation featuring remixes and exclusive tracks. One of the exclusives was Remind Me, which had been intended for From Here On In until, “with the album’s running time spiralling out of control something had to give. Hence Remind Me got the chop.” Another song which was part of the album sessions, but not considered for the final tracklist was With the Tides, which was later made available as a download from the South website.
In the USA the album was released later in 2002, with a slightly different tracklisting, and two new song Too Much Too Soon and Save Your Sorrow, which replaced Broken Head III and Southern Climbs.
Another EP was set for release in June or July 2002 titled Nothing Personal, which would have been made up of five songs, including Estimation, With The Tides, Out In A Day, and Hopeless, with at least one more song said to have been from the USA edition of From Here On In. While the EP was cancelled, Out In A Day was later made available to download from the bands website, and South explained the reason for the EPs cancellation was down to “politics” and licensing, with everything finished on their end.
Presumably the Nothing Personal EP was intended for Mo’ Wax, but in 2002 the label began to shut down, and Joel Cadbury explained some of the issues with Mo’ Wax during an interview from 2004:
It’s one of those things that again didn’t run necessarily smoothly because it’s all about who’s in a position to do something, and not many labels are really. It’s tricky…Mo Wax wasn’t in control of their destiny because they sold out to a parent company. And that’s why we signed to them. At the time it was like, ‘Wow, you just got signed to Beggars Banquet, they’ve got loads of money and you can do whatever you want.’ Unfortunately, when you look back, James (Lavelle) has spent however much he’s spent on our record and about seven or eight other records, he just got caught in the crossfire. It wasn’t like they didn’t do the right job for us. They weren’t actually in control. And that’s not all his fault. It’s partly his fault, but it’s partly all our faults.
With Mo’ Wax gone, South moved on and would release their second album on Kinetic Records, who had also released their debut in the USA. In the meantime South began building up a fanbase in the USA thanks to South’s Paint The Silence being included in the ninth episode of The O.C., a teen drama TV Series set in California, which aired in 2003. The songs inclusion has led to a lasting popularity, and as of writing Paint The Silence has 5,628,898 streams on Spotify compared to all of South’s other songs which are under 100,000 streams. Paint The Silence was later also included on the first of The O.C. soundtrack albums, and in 2004 South’s Nine Lives appeared in the twenty fifth episode of the show. While Paint The Silence had appeared on South’s debut album, Nine Lives was from the follow up With The Tides, which was released in September 2003.
Upon its release, Joel Cadbury spoke to Billboard about South’s second album, and how it differed from their debut:
There’s a lot going on…In that way, it’s similar to ‘From Here on In,’ because creating soundscapes and textures and deconstructing, we’ve always enjoyed that. We just felt we had to do it in a more accessible way for people coming to this record, [so they won’t] necessarily have to listen through 70 minutes of music and reprises and interludes just to pick out the tracks. It’s good for us to make this a more accessible record and therefore just take that next step, which I think will be quite a big step for us.
Some of the songs for the cancelled Nothing Personal EP were worked on again and included on With The Tides, and the final album included twelve songs.
With The Tides reached #21 on the UK Independent Albums Chart, and three of the albums singles entered the Top 100 UK Singles Charts. Reviews were also good again, and the album was awarded 7.3/10 by Pitchfork who wrote:
When South bring their best songs to the table, it bangs…[and] the boldest thing that South could do at this point to help diversify their albums would be to step out from behind the blanket of texture they’ve wrapped themselves in, and simply let their craft work for itself. While that seems unlikely, what South has now is slowly coming into sharper focus, and though it’s no masterpiece, With the Tides is certainly a good record.
With The Tides was followed in 2006 by a new album Adventures In The Underground Journey To The Stars, which was reviewed favourably, and followed by Up Close And Personal, a live CD/DVD which also saw release in 2006. Fans didn’t have to wait too long for more, and in April 2008 South released their fourth album, You Are Here, and wrote on their MySpace:
We’ve never been the sort to jump on a bandwagon and start writing commercial ballads to sell more records…The South way has always been to push boundaries and never record the same record twice…by the time we started on our fourth and latest album, we felt like we were finally in a place where we could commit to tape the ideas in our heads, to the standard that matched the quality of the music. And this brings us to where we are now. “You are here“ our latest album, riddled with the experiences and creativity of the past the tip of our journey from here in on in, we hope you enjoy it.
The album was awarded 4.8/10 by Pitchfork who wrote an unfavourable review likening the album to unfinished demos. All Music meanwhile gave the album 4/5, and while they noted that the sound of You Are Here might shock some fans, they wrote favourably about several songs, and in particular praised the production, almost a complete opposite of Pitchfork’s review. All Music closed their review with the comment that “South sound ready to take on the world”, but while that may have been true, this was the bands final album.
Following their final release each band member continued to work on other projects, with Joel Cadbury working with James Lavelle and UNKLE again. Infact each of South’s members have worked with UNKLE, with Jamie McDonald contributing to their remix of Breakbeat Era’s Bullitproof and UNKLE’s More Stories and End Titles albums. Brett Shaw, worked on UNKLE’s remixes of Placebo’s Without You I’m Nothing, and Furslide’s Over My Head, and contributed drums to UNKLE’s Mistress on the album War Stories. While Joel Cadbury contributed to UNKLE’s remix of Garbage’s The World Is Not Enough, and several other UNKLE releases up until 2011’s Only The Lonely EP.
Outside of UNKLE and South, Jamie McDonald released two solo EPs in 2010, which featured appearances by Joel Cadbury on bass, and in 2014 he formed Wide Skies with Hannah Caughlin. Wide Skies released a series of singles, but their debut album appears to have been delayed indefinately from its announced release date of 2016. More recently in September 2020, McDonald started a radio show on Lyme Bay Radio, with each show based on a theme, the most recent episode being on percussion.
Brett Shaw, who produced the final South album, now runs 123 Studios where he works as resident producer, engineer, and mixer. Shaw is credited as engineer on Lady Gaga’s 2016 album Joanne, and for co-production/writing and engineering High As Hope, the 2018 album from Florence and the Machine. In 2019 he co-produced, engineered, and provided percussion on Foals’ Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost: Part 1 and Part 2 albums, and through 2020 he has been announcing further releases which he contributed to on 123 Studios’ social media.
Joel Cadbury, outside of his work with UNKLE, also contributed to the 2015 album Evangelist, which was produced by Toydrum (James Griffith & Pablo Clements) and Gavin Clark, who all worked on UNKLE’s End Titles album alongside Cadbury. He also collaborated with Scanner on music for a film shown during the 2012 London Olympics, and also in 2012 Scanner and Cadbury released a song called Céleste. Since then, Joel Cadbury has created soundtracks to several film and dance productions, and in February 2020 he appeared on the debut album from Humanist, performing vocals on two songs.
While South’s last album arrived in 2008, over twelve years ago, in 2020 someone from the band started an Instagram page dedicated to South, which led to a collaboration between the band and 1 of 100 in the form of a South t-shirt. While it isn’t clear if the South Instagtram page is meant to suggest South are returning, or if it’s just for the memories, they have teased something new is coming, but what exactly that is hasn’t been announced.
