Lightning Head

Lightning Head is a project from Glyn “Bigga” Bush, former “midi maestro” of Rockers Hi Fi and current spearhead of Magic Drum Orchestra.

‘Studio Don’ is the pivotal first solo album from Lightning Head aka Glyn “Bigga” Bush, former “midi maestro” of Rockers Hi Fi and current spearhead of Magic Drum Orchestra. Originally released on the fledgling Best Seven imprint, (part of the Berlin-based Sonar Kollektiv label family, founded by DJ Daniel W. Best) in 2002; ‘Studio Don’ fuses batucada rhythms, Latin piano lines, funk riffs, reggae off-beats, space echoed bass dub, to create a sound-pallet that garnered support from Gilles Peterson, Mr Scruff, Kruder and Dorfmeister, Ross Allen, Ashley Beedle and many more.

Now re-issued on Tru Thoughts, ‘Studio Don’ is an album that has stood the test of time: “The idea was to imagine a cross-pollination of music from Cuba and Jamaica (which are only about 90 miles apart)”, Glyn explains. But the musical outcome is more of a straight line starting in New Orleans going down through Havana, finishing up in Kingston: “Straight outta Kinky Funkston”. Peppered with vigorous dancehall rhythms, ‘Studio Don’ amalgamates a wide pallet of genres to create a sonic output that still sounds fresh today: “I noticed certain similarities and overlaps in musical styles and started experimenting with putting dub basslines with Latin rhythms, or having a reggae guitar skank played on percussion.”

Lightning Head was initiated as a request from Sonar Kollektiv’s Daniel Best, asking Glyn to write a 7” in a funky dancehall-break style. This catalysed the start of Lightning Head’s musical journey, inspiring Glyn to write “Me & Me Princess” using a Singing Bird vocal sample that he found on DAT tape. “I wanted to keep it stripped, raw, funky and have lots of clavinet and dirty bass.” As Glyn continued to work on the record, more and more influences were transported onto the album, such as the rich and idiosyncratic sounds of samba percussion (despite being a couple of years before Magic Drum Orchestra was formed).

With ‘Studio Don’ Glyn created an album where you can travel from Kingston, Jamaica to Havana, Cuba, the Bronx in New York to Brixton, London, from the original funk sound of New Orleans, to the open spaces of Dorset, England – where the album was put together. But what’s the formula for creating a global masterpiece, without a single sample? “My thing has always been to really study music – whatever the genre, learn how to play it and try to reproduce it faithfully whilst still making it my own”.