Listen: Baby I Love You So / Colourbox
Baby I Love You So / Colourbox

Not having been a follower of 4AD, I’d hardly paid attention to Colourbox until catching ‘Baby I Love You So’ coming from a co-worker’s office at Elektra back in ’86. To be precise, I was just walking by, and thought sure I’d found a fellow Augustus Pablo fan playing a new remix. From the hallway it was hard to tell the difference.

Instead, what I found was Colourbox. Despite the synth heavy version, I’m pretty sure it’s one of the best white dub tracks I’ve yet to hear. And what a surprise too seeing it scale to #4 on the UK Top 40. And so the 7″ found a permanent place in the collection. Without rhyme or reason, I proceeded through life continuing to pay little attention to both band and label.

Years later I put two and two together to find they, with A. R. Kane, had an even better single the very next year. This time under the moniker of M/A/R/R/S with their sole release ‘Pump Up The Volume’, so strong it couldn’t be kept from #1, even charting at #13 in America.