Joseph Malik - Proxima Ebony Variant Issue (2025)

When myself and co-producer, Daniel Walls began working on ‘My Whole World’ with Kameelah Waheed, we thought it was just going to be an EP. But, after taking some advice from label boss Jo Wallace, she said, ‘Take your time and make an album’. After 2 years of work with producers and musicians from around the world, I wanted to deliver an anthology of music, showcasing fifteen tracks from my 2023 ‘Proxima Ebony’ LP brought up to date in 2025 with incredibly diverse remixes from an all star line up to form the ‘Variant Issue’ release on my beloved Ramrock Records.

We begin with the Variant Issue Orchestra’s remix of ‘My Whole World’ and their stunning collaboration with New Jersey hip hop poet, Kameelah Waheed. My cousin, Francis Lovecraft and his string section, ‘The Variant Issue Orchestra’ from Brooklyn, deliver exquisite live strings, arranged by myself, which brought the production team close to tears during the recording. On the next track, ‘Proxima Ebony’, we pay homage to Hip Hop with US rapper, Capitol A on vocal duties, DJ Nasty P on the kuts, and me and Daniel Walls combining our talents as the Oddball Creatives remix collective. We took the original bass, keyboard and string arrangement stems of North Street West studio boss and musical maestro, Darren Morris, looped them up and completely reworked the track to be more in the style of 90s Boom Bap Hip Hop. Then we enter the Nigerian funk fuelled, ‘Adjust like Dat’, dedicated to my late father, Francis Ukachukwu, who was a Fela Kuti super fan and he had a huge vinyl collection of Fela’s music which inspired me during the making of the track. I wanted to include the ‘sound’ of my childhood hero, Stevie Wonder and in order to pull this off, we brought in Steven Christie from the Proclaimers on electric piano, Daniel Walls on drums and percussion, award winning jazz trumpet player, Colin Steele plus Darren Morris on Fender bass and clavinet, with DJ Nasty P on the kuts with Jo Wallace on backing vocals. Cuban Brother, Mike Keat delivers his rap that steals the show, sealing the deal on this all-star line up of Edinburgh talent with the Easter Road Northern Soul Band. Saleem McGroarty aka ‘Sound Signals’ and myself have known each other since 1988 and both of us have a deep love of Hip Hop and Dub music and he was the first producer I called to remix Kameelah Waheed on ‘Be A Lion’. Saleem absolutely nailed it with his signature ‘sound system style’, keeping fellow Hip Hop artist, Nasty P on the kuts in the mix which really shows the legacy of Edinburgh Hip Hop and the sheer respect we have for each other.

As a huge Prince Paul fan, I take my interludes very seriously - hence I brought in the Variant Issue Orchestra on ‘Interlude 1 - Toyko to Edinburgh’ with album tour guide and the star of the show, Japanese jazz artist and Kyoto Jazz Massive’s front man, Shuya Okino adding an international flavour to the proceedings with Daniel Walls on drums and piano, Nasty P on kuts and additional European musings from Spanish selector, DJ Pupilas all the way from Madrid. Shuya and I go way back to our Compost Records days and meeting him again on my Japanese tour re-enforced our friendship and musical bonds. Shuya picked what I consider to be the hardest track from the original album, which he reworked and recorded in Japan with his full band, Roots Soul, including band members from Osaka Monaurail. My musical brother delivers a Jazz Funk homage to Chic and it changed the whole direction of ‘Proxima Ebony - Variant Issue’ as we’d forgotten that we had to make people dance! A backstage meeting in Edinburgh with Cuban Brother, Mike Keat led to him introducing me to Shaka Loves You from Glasgow and after chatting, we found that we both had a strong connection with top man, Craig Charles who has supported all my musical output on his BBC 6 Music ‘Funk and Soul Show’, as well as SLY’s recording, resulting in a massively positive impact on our careers. So, I asked them to do a remix of ‘Trouble with a Capital T’, and the Glasgow boys delivered their upfront boogie monster, solidifying the Soul and Funk connection in Scotland where the East Coast joins forces with the West Coast.

We’ve established that I consider ‘Adult Contemporary’ to be the trickiest track from the original ‘Proxima Ebony’ album to remix. The inspiration for the Oddballs ‘Adult Contemporary’ club mix came to me when I was dancing in the middle of the dance floor at my local soul night, La Beat Soul Club, to Gladys Knight’s ‘No-one can love you more’, with its powerful piano intro, building to Glady’s soaring masterpiece. I knew I had the ideas to present to my co-producer, Daniel Walls and a year before the project, I’d asked him to work on the track and it took him another year to say ‘yes’ to remixing it. Once I’d played him the beat, we embarked on this extended club mix of sheer joy - a devotion of dancefloor love for our heroes, Larry Levan and Sylvester and we learnt so much during the making of this remix, that we knew the Oddball Creatives had now finally arrived.

The album wouldn’t have been complete without the skills of another Edinburgh producer and leftfield genius, George T who reworked ‘Only Fans’ in his instantly recognisable style. It had previously been remixed by House legends, X-Press 2 but with my vocals and Jo Wallace and Darren Morris on backing vocals, George made the track into something out of this world. The next track is very special to me for personal reasons. Marga, aka Spanish DJ Pupilas, is the woman I not only wrote ‘Trouble with a Capital T’ for but also the love song ‘High over Low’. I wanted to return to my story of true love lost with ‘Crazy days and nights in Madrid’ with her second appearance on this ‘Variant’ LP with her tour guide voice over, with Nasty P on the kuts and the Oddball Creatives on the late night beats for late night freaks….which leads us neatly into the rework of the greatest love song I’ve ever written, ‘High over Low’. On this variant version, the song has been reworked by Edinburgh producer and Proclaimers keyboard player, Steven Christie, who takes us to Brazil, France and the world’s romantic destinations with his exquisite keyboards and accordion playing, with DeLata’s Chris Franck on acoustic guitar, long time co-writer David Donnelly returning on double bass and Jo Wallace and Darren Morris on backing vocals to create the heart breaker of the album.

This is the grand finale of my five album releases in five years. The ‘Variant Issue’ pathway has led us to the end of this unique collection of remixes and we return to ‘My Whole World’ but this time, the track takes on a far different and darker approach in its composition than its first jazz incarnation at the start of the project. With Kameelah Waheed and the Variant Issue Orchestra string section taking centre stage, Daniel Walls delivers some beautifully atmospheric drums with Paulo Riddle on some very subtle percussion and Darren Morris underpinning the whole rework with a plaintive piano solo. I’m on string arrangement, leaving the listener on the sombre high point of audio pleasure to savour and contemplate – and to press play again and again. Please enjoy.

I’ve always been a fan of dubs, due to my love of legendary producers, Dennis Bovell and the Mad Professor plus Sly and Robbie so I’m really happy to include three exclusive bonus dub nuggets on the digital LP release. ‘Adjust Like Dat (Naija Dub)’ kicks of the trio of dubs where I gave carte blanche to the Wallace and Morris production team to do their magic on this dub. ‘Be A Lion’ (Sound Signals Dub Version One)’ is a result of long time collaborator, Saleem McGroarty aka Sound Signals, exploring the song’s structure and converting the track dub wise to take it to a different place. The final dub comes from my fellow Edinburgh resident, George T with his ‘Only Fans’ (George T Dub)’ which myself and Daniel Walls still sit back and marvel at this wonder of ‘Spaghetti Junction’ production. George drops his outré dub outing on us both, finishing off the full digital ‘Proxima Ebony – Variant Issue’ LP.