Oliver: Smith & Mighty - Too Late (22 February 1992)

Had I not been brought up in Falmouth, then Bristol would have done just as nicely for me.  Beautiful area around it, thriving city centre, easy to get out of and back into, situated perfectly when it comes to reaching the rest of the country, plenty of sport to get interested in and a wonderfully diverse cultural scene - not least its music scene.

In the 90s, the focus on Bristol's music scene began to shift away from Snakebite quaffing heavy-metal biker band cliche and onto a strain of dance music that sold by the shedload, made stars of its leading exponents and which produced some sounds which by their very texture and tone could have come for nowhere else but the M5/M4 interchange.  However, we're still a few years away from the word, "trip hop" making its presence known.  Instead, Smith & Mighty, who knew all the right people in Bristol, but who never quite got the same exposure, serve up a delightfully eclectic mix that while fusing together Lynchian style drones, horror movie vibes, Florida Soul and more, sticks to one of the fundamental but little known rules of music: there isn't a record in the world that can't be made even better by sampling This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both of Us by Sparks.



Videos courtesy of Anonymous (Smith & Mighty) and Sparks.