The Shamen - Move Any Mountain

Mixed by Diffusion / Mastermix

The Shamen were a British electronic music group that was most active during the early and mid- 1990s . Initially formed in Scotland by Colin Angus, Keith McKenzie, Derek McKenzie and Peter Stephenson in the 1980s as a psychedelic -influenced indie rock act, they debuted with the 1987 album Drop .

Eventually Derek McKenzie, Keith McKenzie and Stephenson left and Angus was joined by William Sinnott (aka Will Sin). By the time they released the 1989 album In Gorbachev We Trust , they were already flirting with the indie dance formula popular in the Madchester era. When En Tact was released in 1990 , they had completed the transformation to a rave act. This album was perhaps their most popular, spawning several hit singles such as "Move Any Mountain" and "Make It Mine".

Sinnott drowned in an accident just following the release of En Tact , but Angus continued on, recruiting the rapper Mr C. (real name Richard West). Boss Drum followed in 1992 and featured a noted spoken-word collaboration, "Re:Evolution" with Terence McKenna , and one major, although controversial, hit: "Ebenezer Goode".

The song was accused of promoting drug use due to the refrain Ezer Goode, Ezer Goode -- implying the phrase 'E's are good ('E' being slang for the dance drug Ecstasy , aka MDMA ) -- and due to similar double-entendre drug references throughout the song. The subsequent storm of publicity helped place the song at the top of the UK charts for 4 weeks. This echoes similar references in previous songs such as Synergy' s "M D M Azing... we are together in ecstacy".

Axis Mutatis in 1995 did not make as much of an impact in the charts. Early special editions of this album featured a bonus disc, "Arbor Bona Arbor Mala", a bizarre ambient album. The Shamen continued recording into the late 1990s , releasing several LPs with an increasingly experimental bent. Their penultimate studio album, "Hempton Manor", followed an acrimonious split with their label One Little Indian . The first letter of each track spell out "Fuck Birket", referring to label founder Derek Birkett . Releasing their final album UV in 1998 , they have now split. Mr C. has since become a moderately successful House music DJ .

This text is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Shamen ".