Interview / Rudy Tambala / A.R. Kanę / A Love From Outer Space

Me and my mate Davey used to play records by A.R. Kane. In our teens, listening to them on cassette, driving around in his car. trying to escape the boredom of Croydon. “When You’re Sad” and “Lollita”, especially. Then I left London for uni, and money for anything other than booze and drugs became scarce. I lost touch with the duo until I returned, in 1989, at the tail end of the extended “Second Summer Of Love”. Christian, someone I’d met at a temp job, lent me a copy of a fanzine called “Boy’s Own”. In it was a chart, compiled by the DJs Terry Farley, Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Rocky & Diesel , Kevins Swain and Hurry, and Andrew Weatherall. Man, I poured over that list, trying to make some sense of this “Balearic Beat” thing. I only recognised a handful of names: Sting, Roxanne Shante, Red Box, Boy George, Big Audio Dynamite, The Beloved (The Beloved I knew were sorta Smiths wannabes), and A.R. Kane. I obsessively, eventually, tracked everything down, but it was the familiarity…