Zero Real Time – 40 Year Anniversary [Running Back]

Greg Wilson returns to Running Back with another special project.
Forty years on from the release of the groundbreaking Street Sounds UK Electro LP, Real Time (two versions of which opened the separate sides of the album) finally gets a 12” vinyl release. Despite its prominence on UK Electro, it was the only track not released on 12” in 1984.

Zer-o, like Syncbeat and Forevereaction, was the same trio – Manchester musicians Martin Jackson and Andy Connell, alongside DJ Greg Wilson, making his first foray into music production. They also joined with rappers Kermit and Fiddz for the Broken Glass track Style Of The Street, one of the UK’s earliest hip hop releases. To suggest a burgeoning British electro scene, Street Sounds added fictional production and songwriting credits, as the music had exploded in New York during ‘82/83, with the Street Sounds Electro series, launched in October ’83, documenting these developments and unlocking a significant youth market who religiously collected these compilations.

Presented on this release is a Greg Wilson edit of Real Time, the retrospective dub (the original demo version of the track, which was the opening track on UK Electro), and an extra beats edit from Gerd Janson. Flipping the vinyl, you’ll find a couple of 2024 reworkings – the retrospective dub and the more downtempo introspective dub, courtesy of Greg and Ché Wilson, whose recent collaborations include remixes for Gabriels and Confidence Man.