Heaven Taste by no-man was originally a 21 minute instrumental from 1993, featuring Steven Wilson, Ben Coleman, Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri and Mick Karn.This 2016 12″ vinyl release comes out on June 10th on Finnish underground dance label Sähkö, and is available to buy from Burning Shed.
The 2016 Steven Wilson edit of the original mix is obviously my favourite version on the 12″ – and I can’t wait to hear this on vinyl (this review is from digital copies of the two tracks).
If you don’t know Heaven Taste yet, it has a lot of the hallmarks of early no-man – plenty of breakdowns, soaring violin and guitar lines, but sadly no Bowness vocals as this is one of the bands instrumental pieces.
Heaven Taste is one of the rare studio tracks by no-man to feature Jansen, Barbieri and Karn (Japan / Raintree Crow) who toured with the band in the early 90’s. The track is powered by an impeccable groove that kicks into gear after the twinkling synth, violin and guitar intro, and its instantly clear that you are listening to Steve Jansen and Mick Karn, one of the late 80s / early 90s great rhythm sections.
Heaven Taste is built on repetition and repeated motifs but it would be too easy to label this music as trance, as there is a lot going on – too many layers, peaks and troughs for it to be so easily lumped into the one genre.
Just before the half-way mark we are treated to a short, wonderful piece of Mick Karn bass playing and then the percussion and keyboards ease the groove back in.
I love the space in early to mid-period no-man – take a listen to the bands work on the Speak album or Flowermouth and prepare to be amazed.
I take every opportunity to enthuse about the music of no-man, so I’m always going to prefer the original performance over a remix, but the 9 minutes long Jimi Tenor rearrangement sits well with me. The point of a remix is to give the listener a different taste from the original, or maybe to tease something out of a song in a style or using a technique that might be somewhat alien to the original artist.
This process might also lead to a new audience gaining exposure to music that they may be unfamiliar with, and I certainly think this is the case with this ‘rearrangement’ by Jimi Tenor. There is enough of the original musicians performances to be a recognisable version of Heaven Taste, but it is a definite updating and re-imagining of the song, and this new arrangement takes the song to different and unfamiliar places.
New instrumentation has been added to the original early 90s performances, and whilst there are two or three short sections where Mick Karn’s fretless bass is quite high in the mix, there is noticeably less Jansen, Barbieri and Karn in this Jimi Tenor version, so its a very different beast.
Some of the synths and certainly the style of the flute lines would not be what you would expect in a no-man song, so its interesting to hear another musicians fresh approach to the track. I hope this 2016 re-imaging of Heaven Taste leads to more people seeking out and enjoying the music of no-man. And if you are already a no-man fan, you will enjoy these new versions.
Buy Heaven Taste (12″ vinyl) from Burning Shed
Visit the no-man website to hear more no-man music
Mr Kinski's Music Shack 
Always been a favorite of mine.
I actually got to interview the man responsible for the release, Tommi Gronlund
https://carolinaskeletons.wordpress.com/2020/01/07/interview-tommi-gronlund/
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