Pan Electric Sweet As Rain

Five years ago, while on tour in Japan, Claremont 56 founder Paul “Mudd” Murphy heard Pan Electric featuring Pops Mohamed’s “Sweet as Rain” for the very first time. It was, he says, one of those “moments” that only music can provide.
Over the years that followed, Murphy found himself returning time and again to the dreamy and alluring composition, which had been released on a couple of CD only compilations. So, at the tail end of 2017, he got in touch with Pan Electric producer Matt Coldrick to see if he could give the track a vinyl release for the very first time. Happily, Coldrick agreed, and the magical original version – backed by an extended remix set to appear on the next Pan Electric full-length – will finally be appearing on wax.
“Sweet As Rain” can trace its roots back to a trip Coldrick made to Ethiopia in the late 1990s to work on the soundtrack to a charity film, Teme-T-Teme, which was made to raise awareness of problems surrounding “street children” in Ethopian cities – often orphans who had fled the countryside for a better life. While out there, Coldrick set up a temporary studio and made field recordings of local musicians performing traditional songs. These naturally made it onto the film’s soundtrack, but also into a new composition Coldrick was working on some years later following a visit from legendary South African musician Pops Mohamed. During Mohamed’s visit, the pair jammed ideas around an acoustic guitar riff; Mohamed provided kalimba and percussion, with Coldrick adding rich electric piano parts and typically tactile production. With the addition of elements of Coldrick’s Ethiopian field recordings, “Sweet as Rain” was born. Today, it sounds every bit as magical, loved-up and dreamy as the day it was recorded.
For this Claremont 56 vinyl edition, Coldrick has also delivered a fresh Album Version that stretches out the track’s sunrise-friendly majesty to ten marvellous minutes. Naturally slower to build with greater emphasis on showcasing the track’s various instrumental elements, its arguably even better than the near peerless original version. Certainly, Murphy approves – after all, who wouldn’t want to bathe for longer in its vivid aural colours, horizontal dreaminess and life-affirming Ethiopian vocals?
Since “Sweet as Rain” was first released, Coldrick has donated half of all royalties generated from the track to Charity: Water, a voluntary organisation dedicated to improving access to clear water in some of the world’s poorest countries. Coldrick will continue to donate royalties from the vinyl release of “Sweet as Rain” to support the charity’s work in Ethiopia.