Secure shopping

Studio equipment

Our full range of studio equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices.

Visit Juno Studio

Secure shopping

DJ equipment

Our full range of DJ equipment from all the leading equipment and software brands. Guaranteed fast delivery and low prices.  Visit Juno DJ

Secure shopping

Vinyl & CDs

The world's largest dance music store featuring the most comprehensive selection of new and back catalogue dance music Vinyl and CDs online.  Visit Juno Records

“It was just a case of choosing the producers who we loved” – Crazy P discuss their ‘curate’ series with 20/20 Vision’s Ralph Lawson

Ashley Beedle, Hardway Bros and A Certain Ratio head the list of guests on Crazy P’s ongoing EP series

It’s been a while since we heard from nu-disco dons Crazy P. While last year saw the release of a fine set of reworks of tracks from their most recent album, 2019’s Age of the Ego, the band’s activities have been curtailed significantly by the era of COVID-19, countless lockdowns and – more significantly for an outfit whose stock-in-trade has always been their incendiary live performances – seated, socially distanced gigs.

“We’re scarred for life, but we got through it – some better than others,” lead singer Danielle Moore reflects during a group Zoom call also attended by Crazy P founder members Jim Baron and Chris Todd, and 20/20 Vision label founder Ralph Lawson. “We managed to do a few gigs that were all seated. It was quite weird, because when you’re at a live gig and everyone’s sat down, you can see them waist up punching the air. That’s odd. I think people were happy to get out, but it also slowed a lot of people down. A lot of people are still taking time to readjust.”

We’ll have to wait a little longer to see Crazy P strutting their stuff on stage with the full live band, but 2023 does promise plenty of musical treats for those who love the long-serving outfit – not least their ongoing ‘Crazy P Curate’ project, which began as a series of four-track EPs and will soon take in a tour of intimate venues at which they’ll be DJing alongside some of their favourite artists.

More of that in a moment. First, it makes sense to get to the bottom of the release series, which sees all three core bandmembers ‘curate’ EPs on 20/20 Vision featuring exclusive, previously unheard tracks from artists they admire. “We were keen to find a good project that we could do with 20/20 Vision,” Jim Baron says. “We worked with the label on a couple of albums and it was always a great relationship. I’m sure the ‘curate’ project was your idea, Ralph.”

Lawson initially looks puzzled. “Maybe it was,” he reflects. “I wanted to work with Crazy P again and it was just a case of finding something that would fit. As a label, we love a lot of different music. We are obviously known for deep house and electro, but we also love disco and Balearic, Adriatic, cosmic, psychedelic, tripped out sounds as well. We’d not been doing much of that, so when we were thinking, ‘How could we do this?’ Crazy P were the first name that sprang to mind, because they’re one of the foremost bands in that scene. To have the band come in, curate something and make it their choices, very appealing.”

With such an open-ended remit, how did the band set about approaching the project? “I think originally we were talking about it being more within the disco genre, but I think it soon became apparent that was making it a little too narrow and that artists we asked might want to expand their sound a little for it,” Baron explains. “I think it was just a case really of choosing the producers who we loved and wanted to get contributions from and going from there.”

Ralph Lawson: pic by Jon Shard

Baron’s production partner, Chris Todd, agrees: “We learned early on that if you’re asking people to come up with tracks, new material, you can’t really be too regimented in terms of what they present to you. It’s not like you’re going through their back catalogue and choosing a track which you know, you’re choosing artists that you admire and letting them do their thing. When we started to get the material back, it was really varied. So, there’s house, disco, more Balearic, cosmic stuff. It’s just become this really nice, varied group of tracks.”

That’s certainly true; across the three EPs already unveiled (there’s an unspecified number still to be announced and released), you’ll find chugging dub-disco psychedelia (Felix Dickinson reworking ASHRR’s ‘Fizzy’), exotic and energetic 21st century disco (Ashley Beedle), sun-soaked boogie/synth-pop fusion (Change Request and Saucy Lady), sunset-ready downtempo goodness (Manchester legends A Certain Ratio going against type), heady cosmic disco (Hardway Brothers, Daniele Baldelli and Marco Dionigi), hazy Balearic club cuts (new school Polish hero Das Komplex), tactile deep house (Lea Lisa) and dreamy, head-nodding loveliness (Red Rack’em).

“I think what’s important, thinking about the process, is the selection of tracks. If you go to an artist, you can give them a brief, but artists will do what they want to do and it’s their interpretration,” Lawson says. “You have to give credit to the artists involved for what they delivered. I had a really interesting chat with Martin Moscrop from A Certain Ratio. He said, ‘Everybody else will be doing disco, so I’ll give you something different’. Red Rack’em did something similar, so you genuinely don’t know what you’re going to get. Diversity runs through the series.”

Fittingly, there’s also a fresh Crazy P track in there – the acid-flecked, mid-tempo wonder of ‘People (We Can Transform)’ – and material from Todd’s long-running solo project, Hot Toddy (Baron also records solo material as Ron Basejam and JIM). “I like the idea that’s there’s a kind of Crazy P Marvel Universe going on, and then they bring it all back together with the band and projects like Crazy P curate. I was a comics collector when I was younger, so I always want to know what the backstory is. What was the origin of Ron Basejam? I want a whole comic about that!”

Baron, Todd and Moore laugh, before bringing the discussion back to the next phase of the project: the Crazy P Curate tour, which begins at the end of April and will take in dates across the UK – as well as an extended ‘takeover’ at the Love International festival in Croatia in July.

“We had a discussion and we decided that wanted to do something a bit more intimate – smaller venues where we had a better connection with the audience,” Danielle Moore enthuses. “So instead of Manchester, we’re doing the Golden Lion in Todmorden, which is the town where Chris and I now live. For the South-East, instead of Brighton we’ve opted for the Arts Club in Margate, which felt right. And in Bristol, we’ve gone for Propyard because Jim played there last year with Maxxi Soundsystem and Tom from PBR Streetgang and we could use their open-air courtyard and do a day event. So, a lot of thought has gone into it.”

Just as they did with the vinyl EPs, the band have ‘curated’ and programmed the line-ups, recruiting those featured on the EP to DJ. As with the music showcased on the series, DJs will be given a free rein to go wherever they like musically. “That’s definitely the idea – we’d like to keep the same ethos as the series,” Todd confirms. “There are also a few acts on there, like Sarah Bates and Saucy Lady, who are going to include a live element. As much possible, we’re trying to make each night unique and an interesting musical event. We’ll be throwing in a couple of numbers as well, so it won’t just be straight DJ sets and each event will be different.”

Incorporating live elements into DJ sets is something that Crazy P has always done well; after all, their much-loved Crazy P Soundsystem sets feature material from their ‘multiverse’ (their own collective tracks, solo cuts, remixes and side projects), with Moore acting as singer, MC and host.

On the Crazy P Curate tour, the band will just be DJing – odd semi-live number notwithstanding – and are naturally looking forward to dipping into different parts of their record collection. “With the DJing, we all play differently and bring our own thing – whether we play disco-y or a bit more soulful, or deeper, or housier,” Moore enthuses. “When we did the show last week, me and Jim were talking about this. I see it as a different entity to the band and the soundsystem, but that doesn’t stop people asking us to play Crazy P tunes though. Sometimes it gets on your tits, sometimes you go ‘yeah, OK’.”

All three laugh heartily. “In the first five minutes of the set, the phones will be thrust at the DJ booth with messages telling us to play this or that Crazy P tune,” Baron chuckles. “To be honest I’d be happy to just play other people’s music instead!”

Matt Anniss

The first two Crazy P Curate EPs are out now on 20/20 Vision. Volume 3 will be released in May 2023. Pre-order it here.