Body Action

Description

I’ll be straight up, this press release got long! but f**k it, it’s about the connection you make with music and this time it is a long story. Plus there’s at least two serious points to make: Groove Armada are a consequential part of the story of dance music, particularly in the UK (and this EP shows that the story isn’t over yet by a long way….) Life is strange and wonderful so enjoy it and the connections you find on the way. First Facts. Then the story. Facts are we have three jacking stripped back house tracks built for dancefloors by some of the best to ever do it landing 21st Aug 2026 on Shall Not Fade. Groove Armada’s ‘Body Action EP’ drops on 12” vinyl & digi AND we are gassed about it. Lead track ‘Body Action’ is a heads-down stripped back 808 workout. It’s proper gear, a pumping house cut for the DC10 terrace. ‘Gangster Girl’ should be studied. It’s a culinary masterpiece from a pair of three starred chefs. The ingredients are 2000’s minimal percussion, ragga vocals and a rude AF bassline but the result is just quintessentially Groove Armada… Deconstructed to make the dancefloor bounce but signature Groove Armada; immediately identifiable, and so much more than the sum of its parts. Then there’s ‘U Found Love’. I said this section was for the facts: so Fact. this one is HUGE. A feel good and emotional house anthem complete with a killer vocal that's been playing in our heads and putting smiles on our faces for months. This one reaches back on the House lineage for those classic M1 organ chords. Hands up. Smiles wide. Find Love. Now the story… I have been a Groove Armada fan since the first time I heard ‘At The River’. I don’t actually know when the first time I heard it was because it was everywhere. It was the cornerstone of at least one, probably two summers for me in the late 90s, it was the soundtrack to my imagined Ibiza, the downtempo Cafe Del Mar / Cafe Mambo at sunset ibiza anti-athem for whatever riviera you could conjure. It was “chillout” for many. But this was no one hit wonder there was depth and legitimacy in those early Groove Armada tunes. Born from the early parties they promoted Groove Armada’s output covered house, trip-hop, breakbeat, downtempo and big beat too. Cornerstones for the new everyraver at a time the underground was going overground fast. It was the age of the CD, Ministry of Sound compilations were good and not yet weekly and the collective thirst for dance music culture hadn’t yet tipped into full blown commercialisation. Every Ibiza, Dance, Chillout compilation that was worth listening to featured a Groove Armada track. Their name could sell 10,000s of CDs across every high st in the land. And this was a good thing. The point is coming, but back to some facts, quickly! ‘At the River’ was first released on Tim ‘Love’ Lee’s ‘Tummy Touch’ label (more on Tummy Touch shortly) it featured on the first pressings of Groove Armarda’s first album ‘Northern Star’. (which is a great album!). And it was also on their 2nd album, ‘Vertigo’ which was released on Jive Records (bare with here). Jive is one of those labels you know but you don’t — it was part of Zomba which later merged into BMG, which then merged into Sony BMG and has now in 2026 been relaunched under RCA — ANYWAY… Jive is a massive legendary catalogue including many important records from 2Pac, Tribe Called Quest and… HERE IT COMES… if you look on Jive Records Discogs page you’ll see Groove Armada’s Vertigo album sits sandwiched between Britney Spears – Oops!... I Did It Again album and Back Street Boys - Black & Blue album. SO.. my point, finally. Just like the entries above and below on the Jive Records Discogs page Groove Armada are a massive act on a global, generational scale. And I’d argue that Britney and Back Street Boys did as much over their careers to get teenage girls (and boys) into music as Groove Armada did to get people in general into dance and electronic music AND that Groove Armarda’s catalogue and Live & DJ performances continues to do a lot of heavy lifting in that respect today. What is different here though is that ‘At the River’ will be 30 years old next year and while my inbox is open if Britney wants to fire over some tunes Groove Armada actually did. That’s more than a catalogue with longevity, it’s true consistency. This is just what they do and have always done and that is what is so remarkable. Ok so thats the first point well made I hope.. Groove Armada have had a substantial impact on dance music, and a hint at the second. But let’s also be clear - these 3 tunes bang. On to the second point.. Releasing records is a wonderful thing. One of my first jobs in music was working for Tummy Touch Records (remember them from earlier…they released the first Groove Armada tracks circa ‘97..) . It was a happy accident.. I’d been working at another record label in the same building in Shoreditch and Tummy Touch needed someone to ‘run’ the office. (well “run” is over egging it, more “be in the office”). I never met Andy & Tom, but at the time it felt slightly serendipitous being around their music and I did get a taste of the scale they had achieved when I had to entertain an MCPS audit because the label had pressed and sold so many copies of Groove Armada records that no one could keep up. (I’ll never forget that dull as dishwater auditor who bored me to tears for a week and everyday tried to get me to expense lunches for him (“there is no expense account mate”) as he fingered through the folders and folders of sales/invoices. Everything was paper back then, and this was my music industry and from what I could see Groove Armada were winning it. So roll on 20 years and here I am releasing Groove Armada on Shall Not Fade and it feels like a full circle moment. What’s madder still is that the Shall Not Fade offices now are in the same building in Shoreditch as the Tummy Touch office was. And while I’m sure no one else finds much meaning in this geographical serendipity – particularly as I’ve never actually been in the same room as Tom & Andy nor do i have any idea if they have ever been in the building I am writing this press release from & dealt with an MCPS audit in 20 years ago – but what is magical is connection. Connection is not always direct or physical or even mutual but for each of us connection can bring joy, joy when things fit, joy when they are familiar and joy when they are consistent. So in addition to the bodily joys these new Groove Armada tracks bring to my ears (and the walls of this room), many many others will take great joy that these tracks will continue the connection they have with Groove Armada’s music. And that Groove Armada continue to be so consistent in their output only amplifies the joy in that connection. Groove Armada have always made very very good, accessible, enjoyable, feel good music to make you dance and smile. And that’s what it’s all about really isn’t it. Body Action by Groove Armada is out 21st August 2026 on Shall Not Fade.