Breaking the barrier

A guest post from ART58Koen for your delectation!

Remember Farq’s post about Grace Jones & Compass Point All Stars? 

Well, this is a kind of follow up post about what happened with those Compass guys. Problem was that they were never a real band, just a bunch of great musicians who recorded together only for a few albums providing meat and bones for Grace Jones (3), Black Uhuru (3), Barry Reynolds (1) and Joe Cocker (1). 

Under their own name only 2 tracks were released: Peanut Butter (1981) and Demolition Man (1982), the first one becoming the blueprint for Grace's Pull Up To The Bumper and the second was just the Grace track without vocals…

Wally Badarou said in an interview:
"Sly & Robbie were to be the modern reggae core of the combination. Barry and I were to bring rock and electronic overtones to the picture. It all worked out well beyond expectations. Probably because we all brought much more than what was initially expected from us individually: Sly & Robbie, Mickey and Sticky were all open to new horizons already; Barry brought his unique mixture of powerful rock guitar and subtle writing skills; my natural eclecticism allowed me to create classical, jazz, funk and/or African textures and counterpoints wherever needed. Chris Blackwell was the soul behind anything that went on down there. Even in his absence, people remembered where they were, and why they were there. But whenever he was around, just his presence was enough to propel anything to higher levels still; production, performance, maintenance, mood, anything. Only when musical outcome started to impact the outside world, we realised we could learn deeper from each other; then we got closer somehow, but never to the point of walking down the street as a band.Only Chris fully understood our potential, and dreamt of us gradually aiming at a real 'band' situation, sort of permanently based at Compass Point. This never really happened."

 They did attempt to record as a band, but gave up eventually. Only one track survived from those sessions and became the title track of Sly & Robbie's international solo album: Language Barrier. Produced by Bill Laswell in New York it was quite a change from what they done prior 1985, no reggae at all, more a very loud mix of funk and hiphop. Despite decent reviews it didn’t do that well. Only 6 tracks, including a Miles Davis cover (Black Satin), but it kicked ass for sure. Featuring guest musicians Herbie Hancock, Bob Dylan (harmonica!), Afrika Bambaataa, and Manu DiBango with Bernard Fowler on vocals and Doug E Fresh as human beatbox it was ahead of its time and still quite listenable.

This was the very first CD I bought in Amsterdam many years ago and hearing "Make 'Em Move" through the shop's headphones nearly knocked me off my feet!
As far as I know there weren’t any additional tracks recorded, but "Make 'Em Move" and "Get To This, Get To That" got the Paul "Groucho" Smykle treatment.

I'll post ART58Koen's question to unlock the music below in the comments.