In 1980, the 9th Creation began working on new music at a Modesto studio, South East of Stockton. The studio was suspiciously cheaper than all of its competitors. After recording weeks of material, the band discovered the reason. “We didn’t know that the guys that were running the studio were drug dealers,” A.D. Burrise recalls. “There was a big raid.” All the studio’s master tapes were confiscated by the DEA. J.D Burrise unsuccessfully sued the DEA to recover the tapes. Luckily Mike Micenheimer saved cassette mix-downs of some of the group’s songs from those sessions. “A Step Ahead” is the the 9th Creation’s lost album. 8 unreleased songs of pure soul, funk, disco and boogie.

We are proud to present this lost album for the first time. The ultra talented Jacob Arnold also wrote the complete story of the band that we are presenting with never seen before pictures.
Finally the CD version includes bonus tracks from the Love Crime 12”, the Mellow Music 7” and 3 previously unreleased (rough) demos.
(Because of the source of these recordings, please know that (sadly) some of the songs have drops in stereo and are not 100% audio quality.)

LP Tracklist: CAT# PastdueLP09

A1- A Step Ahead 5:14


A2 - More & More 4:21


A3 - Body Energy 4:52


A4 - Always Be Lovers 4:24

B1 - Let It Shine 4:45


B2 - Beautiful Lady 5:02


B3 - Party Down 4:42


B4 - Music Is My Pen & Paper 4:02

CD Tracklist: CAT# PastdueCD09


1- A Step Ahead


2 - More & More


3 - Body Energy


4 - Always Be Lovers


5 - Let It Shine


6 - Beautiful Lady


7 - Party Down


8 - Music Is My Pen & Paper


9 - Mellow Music 


10 - A Step Ahead (7” Version)


11 - Love Crime 


12 - Maybe


13 - She’s The Kind


14 - Bygones


15 - Satisfaction Guaranteed (Demo)


16 - Whenever You Need Me (Demo)


17 - Love Can Find A Way (Demo)