A Brief Biog of My Sad Existence

To discover the pivotal moment when James-Mitton Wade (AKA Carlito) decided to begin a career in music production, you have to go way back to 1989. For this was around the time when – along with fellow clubbers Ian Scott and Tim Grantham – James used to regularly attend a dingy club in Coventry called ‘The Eclipse’. So overwhelmed with what they heard, the three of them decided to venture into the studio, recording under the collective name of ‘Essence of Aura’.

Drawing influences from DJ’s such as Sasha, Fabio & Grooverider, Frankie Valentine and Carl Cox, to name but a few, Essence of Aura released their first single called ‘Cryogenic EP’ on DJ Phantasy’s Spooky Tunes label. Soon after, they decided to start their own record label, namely ‘Outstanding Records’ and released a number of singles including the ‘Destiny EP’, ‘Distortion EP’ and ‘Can I Dream’. With the help of Amnesia’s promoter – Mickey Linas and Danny Mahar from Fibre Optic, the group also began to perform PA’s at a number of clubs including The Que Club in Birmingham, Club Kinetic - Stoke On Trent, Quest in Wolverhampton, the Hippodrome – Manchester and of course The Eclipse in Coventry.

In 1995, James began to hang out at the infamous Speed night at the Mars club with Fabio and LTJ Bukem as residents. This led to James’ first connection with Moving Shadow and resulted in a release entitled ‘Northern Lights’, followed by the classic ‘So This Is Love EP’. Essence of Aura continued to release a few more singles before James decided it was time to focus on a solo project under the pseudonym ‘Carlito’.

This decision proved to be a very wise one, as his first single was to be the sublime ‘Heaven’ / ‘Carlito’s Way’. A truly soulful 12” that absolutely blew Fabio’s mind, so much so in fact, that he decided to start his own label – Creative Source, and release Heaven as the debut single.

The first meeting between Carlito and DJ Addiction was at Speed in 1995, although James had heard Addiction play at the Eclipse many times earlier, but never made the connection. Realising they were like-minded individuals with similar musical tastes, they decided to combine forces in the studio, and came up with their first release ‘Future Elements’ / ‘I Want You’ on Creative Source. The success of the single prompted two short tours of Italy on behalf of Creative Source and Moving Shadow.

Towards the end of 1997, James decided to team up with fellow engineer Mike Hall, and a Birmingham singer going by the name of Sophie Perks, to form a three-piece outfit known as ‘Guardians of Dalliance’. Aiming towards a Jazzy / Down Tempo / Breakbeat flavour, they began work on their debut album ‘Diffusion Rooms’, which was later released on Moving Shadow in 1999.

Not content with producing albums, Carlito has also turned his hand to compiling them, with no less than three for Moving Shadow. The first, in 1996 entitled ‘Trans-Central Connection’ featured many talented Drum & Bass artists from the Midlands area. This was followed by ‘Trans-Central Connection II’ in 1998 and more recently ‘Professor Tsung’s Art of Science Funktion’ featuring artists such as E-Z Rollers, Fellowship, Solid State, Aquasky, Flytronix and of course Carlito himself.

Without doubt, Carlito has certainly been a key figure in the Drum & Bass scene for the past decade. His reunion with DJ Addiction has certainly given him a new lease of life, evidently displayed in their well-received tracks such as ‘You Got Me Thinking’ and ‘Just Wanna Be’ on Creative Source, and of course the massive ‘Supergrass’ and ‘Perfect Combination’ on defunked. They then brought us the fantastic ‘A Better Day’ for the ‘Soulful Behaviour LP’ on defunked, which also featured Carlito’s first solo track for quite some time entitled ‘So Liquid’.

More recently Carlito has released ‘One Time’ / ‘Feel My Love’ for defunked and he also has two tracks entitled ‘Let It Flow’ and ‘Turn It Up’ which are forthcoming on the ‘Mind, Body & Soul LP’ on defunked.