“You want me to spank myself? No, I want you to spank ME.” – These words captured the twisted imaginations of a specific type of DJ back in 1994 when Tim Love Lee released the debut single on his fledgling record label, Peace Feast. For the next ten years, Lee released a steady stream of sample-based urban exotica. Doped up, blissed-out or living on the margins of the acceptable, it all found a loving home in his aural universe.
In 1997, Tim Love Lee released the seminal Confessions Of A Selector album. FACT Magazine called it the 36th best Trip Hop album of all time, stating,
“As boss of the Tummy Touch label, Tim Love Lee had an important part to play in the development of downbeat and trip-hop…Confessions of a Selector might be his finest achievement, not quite reaching fully into the trip-hop cookie jar, instead relying on Lee’s estimable crate-digging expertise. The genre’s hallmarks are there, but prettied up with luscious tropical vistas and an eccentric (but smart) cut-and-paste quality.”
Other press accolades also heralded the album, and Lee stating “Monstrously Funky” (Mixmag), “A liberating album, awash in Latin percussion, thumping breakbeats & BBQ jazz organs” (XLR8R), and “If you’re listing the dance-music world’s oddballs, you’ll want to place Tim Love Lee right at the top” (Time Out).
To mark the 25th anniversary of Tim Love Lee’s debut album Confessions Of A Selector, Tummy Touch has re-issued Disco Inserts Volume One – originally released as a white label in early 1995 on Peace Feast Records. This collection of DJ tools, breakbeats and re-edits laid the groundwork for Confessions Of A Selector.
Apparently, the cost of new blank floppy disks forced Tim to reuse so many of these samples! You can listen and download it here!
In addition to Disco Inserts Volume One, Lee has dropped a new compilation of B-sides and bonus tracks from back in the day called Confessions Of The 36th Best Trip Hop Producer Of All Time, out now, with a playful, cheeky name that reflects FACT Magazine’s rating of the original Confessions.
With the rise of lo-fi and chillout music, popularized by playlists and YouTube videos and exacerbated by the global pandemic, few may note how trip-hop laid the foundation for this sound. A big brick in that foundation is Tim Love Lee’s debut album Confessions Of A Selector! It’s no wonder that Paper Magazine called it “Wistful, string-soaked bits of Moog-enhanced genius,” and that URB Magazine stated, “Tim Love Lee is the epitome of cool.”
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