Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Visionistics (1994)
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…
Visionistics only ever released one 12", Mysterious Ways, which came out in 1994 on Mo’ Wax, and features four versions of the title track, J.D.’s Hip Hop Jazz Remix, Jazzy Dub Mix, Mystery Mix, and Original Version.
David Stubbs, writing in Melody Maker’s September 17 1994 issue, called it “pretty generic Mo’ Wax stuff.” He continued, explaining:
All the hallmarks are there. A deceptively languid, marrow-shuddering riff, over which a sad, piercing trumpet solo à la Miles Davis meanders. Meat and drink to weird beards, bohos and Bass Clef types who’ve grown out of nosebleed techno and are looking for something richer, slower, smokier, more pensive.
Mysterious Ways got some radio play, appearing on John Peel’s BBC Radio One show on August 12 1994 in England, and also made its way on to Australian radio in October 1994. On August 4 the 12" had began to enter the UK Singles Chart, but only reached #123, missing out on a spot in the Official Top 100 before dropping back outside of the Top 200. This was its only chart appearance.
Mysterious Ways was written and performed by Dick Cuthell, with Jerry Dammers producing, and both Cuthell and Dammers co-producing the Jazzy Dub Mix, Mystery Mix, and Original Version, while Dammer is credited solely on J.D.’s Hip Hop Jazz Remix.
Dick Cuthell began his career working as an engineer and producer for Island Records during the 1970’s in Jamaica and London, where he worked as assistant engineer on Bob Marley’s Exodus album. Cuthell continued working as engineer, producer, and technician on several releases across the 1970’s and 1980’s, and also regularly contributed brass performances through to the 2000’s. Cuthell contributed to releases by artists from a wide range of backgrounds, such as The Specials, Eurythmics,The Pogues, The Madness, and Trevor Jackson’s Playgroup album.
Jerry Dammers was a founding member of The Specials, and described himself as the “primary songwriter and keyboard player” for the band. The group had originated as The Coventry Automatics in 1977 before becoming The Specials in 1979 when they released their debut self titled album. The group renamed themselves as The Special AKA in 1982 after breaking up and reforming with a slightly different lineup, with both formations of the group featuring Dick Cuthell and Jerry Dammers as members among others.
While The Specials had broken up, three of their members (Lynval Golding, Neville Staple, and Terry Hall) formed The Fun Boy Three who released their own self titled debut in 1982, which featured Dick Cuthell contributing horns, and members of Bananarama.
The Special AKA released one album before breaking up, but The Specials later reformed without many of the bands original members, leading Jerry Dammers to suggest in 1997 the band should change their name as neither himself or the other original members Dick Cuthell, Terry Hall, John Bradbury, or Rico Rodriguez were part of the new group.
Jerry Dammers later recorded a new song for The Specials in 2003, with Dammers telling Uncut Magazine in 2009 that it featured original members Rico Rodriquez and Dick Cuthell. The new song, Victims of War, was meant as a continuation of the sound the band had been developing on 1981’s Ghost Town, but nothing from this session ever saw release and The Specials continued to tour and release albums without Dammers.
While Mysterious Ways was the only song Dick Cuthell and Jerry Dammers released together as Visionistics, outside of their work as Visionistics and in The Specials both members also contributed production and instrumentation together to Jam Rico, the 1982 album from The Specials’ trombonist Rico Rodriguez, releases by Amazulu, and Robert Wyatt’s The Wind Of Change single.
More recently Dick Cuthell was interviewed in 2017 for Port Magazine where he discussed horns, but has since been quiet and it’s unclear whether he is still performing.
Meanwhile, between 2009-2014 Dammers was touring his Spatial AKA Orchestra which re-interpreted songs by Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, Cedric Brooks and Erik Satie. Then in March 2020 Dammers announced he had been working on new music, telling British GQ he has hours of music which he has been recording over several years. No release date has been announced at the time of writing, and Dammers told British GQ, “I’m not a perfectionist but I want this to be good.”
