The Big Cheese

For a couple years now I have had a vinyl-collecting obsession. In general, I tend to hoard things to the extent that my room mostly consists of the many books, films, kitschy ornaments, posters and records that I cannot bring myself to let go of. My friends and family all know this so for my 20^th birthday one of my closest friends, Tom, bought me two vinyl records that he thought I would like. I did like them, so much in fact that I already had both of them! We laughed over it, saying that he just knew me far too well and I planned to trade them in at a vinyl store for two different ones.

A few months later I was sorting through and organising my records by genre. The two that Tom had bought me – ‘The Genius of Ray Charles’ and the self –titled ‘Dire Straits’ album, were still in my collection. As I lifted the Dire Straits album it felt surprisingly heavy to me and I realised that it actually contained two records. Considering the version of the album I already had contained only one vinyl, I pulled them out to take a look. It turned out that neither of them were anything to do with Dire Straits. Instead they were from something called ‘Big Cheese Records’ with the words ‘The Meltdown’ written on the description spaces. I put one on, out of curiosity, and was pleasantly surprised by what played. The music was a kind of eccentric, modern sounding jazz with elements of soul and funk. I listened to each disc on both sides, soaking up my new discovery. I then used the mighty Google to find out what ‘Big Cheese Records’ actually was.

Big Cheese Records are a relatively small, independent, jazz funk label from the early 90s. It is a French label that blend soul, hip-hop and funk with a jazzy twist, producing groovy, instrumental music. For anyone who is a fan of Stevie Wonder and upbeat scattered Jazz music it is a surprising little gem. If you get your hands on The Meltdown, the song ‘Secret Mystery of Hench’ is worth a listen as is ‘Get Down’.  

The best discoveries in life always catch you by surprise in my opinion.