Blogariddims 18 / Rough
1993, as anyone who knows their history of hardcore music will tell you, was a prime year for breakbeat music in the UK. A mix of Shut Up N Dance-inspired breakbeat and sample-heavy rave was elbowing its influence onto the dancefloor and the resulting mash-up of hiphop beats, reggae subs and rave melodies created what, all things considered, has to really be marked out as drum and bass music’s finest hour to date…
Often less sensible of dance music ‘norms’ in terms of its arrangement, hardcore and early Jungle does weird shit all the time – just when you’re getting comfortable, it drop-kicks your ass into some new position. A bastard to mix (as you’ll hear in one or two places), the tunes nonetheless kick like a mule - even by comparison with Jungle in a 94/95 style. The slower tempo (than Jungle and later drum n bass) allowed the pounding kick-drums to occupy more space in the mix (reminds me of early Public Enemy in that respect – by comparison with the later snare-dominated g-funk and RnB styles that became prevalent in hiphop…). Despite the added difficulty of trying to beat-match the sometimes er, hasty drum-splicing and editing deployed on so many of these tunes, the range of breaks deployed in them (from even the most innocuous of producers) is staggering, and thus offers the DJ some serious compensation. Overall, the slower tempo (maybe 140-150bpm? Droid can correct me here…) (goes from about 144 to 158+ - Droid) certainly accommodated a different range of samples in the music – and thus generated a different rhythmic response: somewhere between skating and jogging to my ears today.
You can download the mix below, and Droid has left ample instructions on how to subscribe to the cast over his last few posts, but just in case.
Naphta - Blogariddims 18/Rough (86mb.mp3)
1 Naughty Trax Volume 1 – The Dream [Rugged Vinyl]
2 Egyptian Empire – The Horn Track (Foghorn Mix) [Fffreedom]
3 Skanna – Heaven [Skanna]
4 Metalheads – Saint Angel [Synthetic Hardcore Phonography]
5 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance (Tango Remix) [Moving Shadow]
6 DJ Hype – I Can’t Understand It [Suburban Base]
7 Wax Doctor & Jack Smooth – Rock To the Groove [Basement]
8 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance [Moving Shadow]
9 Kev Bird & Wax Doctor – Airspace [Basement]
10 Delirium – Days Of Our Lives (Tek 9 Hour Glass Remix) [Reinforced]
11 Kev Bird – Sub Zero [Basement]
12 DJ Rap & Aston – Vertigo (Q Bass Dark Mix) [Suburban Base]
13 Kaotic Chemistry – Space Cakes [Moving Shadow]
14 Rufige Kru – Terminator II [Reinforced]
15 Kaotic Chemistry – L.S.D. [Moving Shadow]
16 Omni Trio – Feel Good Original In Demand Mix) [Moving Shadow]
17 Sonz Of A Loop De Loop Era – What The…(Session Two) [Suburban Base]
18 New Decade – Rough [Out Of Romford Records]
1 Naughty Trax Volume 1 – The Dream [Rugged Vinyl]
2 Egyptian Empire – The Horn Track (Foghorn Mix) [Fffreedom]
Naughty Naughty’s ‘The Dream’ sets the scene for a ’93 selection: ravers on a mission to burn out somewhere deep in the Jungle. It’s beautiful opening section darkens up pretty quick, offering an Apache workout and some mutant growling bass, each unexpected development carried through with rough swing; you can hear the music as a whole unfolding and opening out, developing from loop-based hardcore rave in this track. Next up, Egyptian Empire’s superbly militant ‘Horn Track’ (not too sure, but I think this is a Mickey Finn remix?), an absolute monster that spawned numerous mutant ‘remixes’ – most recently from Photek in his g-thug guise, but none of them – not even the jungle ones from the Back2Basics cru – came close to these first mixes. Sounds a bit like it was produced in a toilet, but hey! That’s hardcore.
3 Skanna – Heaven [Skanna]
4 Metalheads – Saint Angel [Synthetic Hardcore Phonography]
And into Skanna’s ‘Heaven’… Skanna had a unique sound that peaked with this EP I think.. although he went on to release some later (highly sought-after) anthems in the Bukem atmospheric mould, his combination of the rough with the smooth here really shines, while his heavy reverbs and techstep-style beats suggest Nico-engineered techstep before Ed Rush ever first knocked round to Nico’s with a bag of green. Metalheads aka Goldie next, on the mysterious Hardcore Synthetic Phonography label, with the original mix of ‘Saint Angel’ off the ‘Angel’ EP. A real bargain-bin find this next one – in a cardboard box on the floor of some second-hand goods shop somewhere in London in ’94 on a weekend raving… guy didn’t want me to take it either as I only had a £50 note for a £2 record and he figured I was trying to pass him a dud: a close call! Anyway, this variant on the ‘Angel’ theme really lays down the law with its relentless churning and with its legions of screaming ghouls. A shame really, that a generation of copyists in dnb have been inspired since only to imitate the sounds rather than the attitude and sentiment therein. By the way, I notice on the ever-useful rolldabeats that a remix twelve of these tracks surfaced back in der day, also on the same label and featuring an Internal Affairs remix of ‘Angel..? I’d love to hear it if anyone has it…
5 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance (Tango Remix) [Moving Shadow]
6 DJ Hype – I Can’t Understand It [Suburban Base]
More darkside riffage (complete with Beavis n Butthead sickly chuckles) from Tango in a remix of Hyper-On E’s ‘Disturbance’ next, offering some nice drumwork over some swampy low-end growling. And on, chopping in the ready-mixed scratching of Hype’s ‘I Can’t Understand It’. Hype was such a ruffneck producer in ‘93 and ’94, dishing up some prime slices of sublimely filthy hardcore with such attitude; his chunky in-yo-face hiphop influence powered up by rave’s freaky energy really produced some classics in a totally unique style... take Hype out of the Suburban Base back catalogue and it starts to feel like… I dunno – Moving Shadow without Omni Trio or something… in other words, Hype was essential and he defined the sound of the label.
7 Wax Doctor & Jack Smooth – Rock To the Groove [Basement]
8 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance [Moving Shadow]
9 Kev Bird & Wax Doctor – Airspace [Basement]
I‘ll never forgive Jack Smooth for giving out about ‘unmusical’ breakbeat hardcore in an interview in Melody Maker once he’d ascended to the throne of Bukem/Speed-inspired ‘intelligent’ musicality back in ‘95/’96 (he railed against producers playing the ‘wrong notes’). Nonetheless, he made a heap of great tracks in a much more straight-up hardcore functional sense (most released on Basement Recordings) before that, and this is just one of ‘em. Simple ideas laid down with cheeky directness, and the stompy 4-2-the-floor techno beat works a treat.
Now into the original mix of ‘Disturbance’, again from Hyper-On E. A weird pounding slo-mo groove keeps the pace under the frenetic hardcore inclinations… a pivotal track (I reckon) in Moving Shadow’s evolution into ‘drum n bass’ – by removing the kick-drums, playing up the half-speed effect and thus opening up more space for programmed percussion on top.
More Kev Bird and Wax Doctor next with another masterful lesson in straight-up minimal 4-2-the-floor hardcore. I absolutely love the short mini-breakdown in ‘Airspace’: a plateau of quietly shimmering electronics that no producer of such unapologetically-upfront dance music would dare to use today without blowing another 20 megatons of over-compressed noise up in yer face afterwards just to make sure that the dancefloor knows it’s been ‘destroyed’.
10 Delirium – Days Of Our Lives (Tek 9 Hour Glass Remix) [Reinforced]
11 Kev Bird – Sub Zero [Basement]
12 DJ Rap & Aston – Vertigo (Q Bass Dark Mix) [Suburban Base]
13 Kaotic Chemistry – Space Cakes [Moving Shadow]
Anyway… on to some evolving Jungle in Tek 9’s rolling re-rub of Delirium’s doom-rave anthem ‘Days of Our Lives’. Reinforced kinda wrote the blueprint for rocking the ragga with the rave in an early Jungle style and this less-known mix offers further evidence of that. And on to one more outing for Basement Records: this time from Kev Bird on a solo tip with ‘Sub Zero’… again what I’m digging here is what (to me) sounds essentially like techno made with early hiphop production values, which is what Basement specialised in.
Now thundering in with DJ Rap & Astons’ ‘Vertigo’ and a pounding remix from Sub Base supremo Dan Donnelly… the fairy-tale sickness of it is pure darkside; a bit of a bugger to do justice to in the mix (had both tunes hovering on the technics wobbly-light-of-death for this one…), but an absolute corker of a tune which had to be included. And onto Moving Shadow boss Rob Playford in his Kaotic Chemistry guise (alongside collaborators Simon Colbrooke and Sean O’Keeffe aka Deep Blue). Nothing more than wickedly sharp drum programming, cut-up vocal edits, and a bad attitude prove once again that simplicity can be absolutely devastating.
14 Rufige Kru – Terminator II [Reinforced]
15 Kaotic Chemistry – L.S.D. [Moving Shadow]
16 Omni Trio – Feel Good Original In Demand Mix) [Moving Shadow]
17 Sonz Of A Loop De Loop Era – What The…(Session Two) [Suburban Base]
Goldie’s ‘Terminator II’ is always hyped up in drum n bass lore, with few people ever bothering to actually play it out in order to illustrate its true demented genius in effect, but on re-listening and experiencing this untouchable masterpiece of darkside breakbeat, the term ‘operatic’ actually seems appropriate – just in terms of its sheer range of moods, and in the number of ideas it works through: each delivered like a musical body blow. Out of there and back once again with Kaotic Chemistry, inciting us to get out of our minds on ‘L.S.D.’, and to Do It Now… another cracker from the same EP on Moving Shadow (all four tracks are savagely good); again I’m struck by the P.E. flavours of the drums on this one. And from there into Omni Trio’s ‘Feel Good’. One of the first breakbeat tracks to really blow my mind: a roll-out of sweet hooks and drop-outs interspersed with gooey troughs of backwards-beats and off-beat rhythms; this weird joyous / melancholic anthem somehow maintains its insistent poppy mentality throughout. Rolling out now with ‘What The…’ from Danny Breaks aka Sonz Of A Loop De Loop Era on Sub Base. Much caned by me back in the day, this silvery-breaked roll-out from paints an almost classically beautiful picture in hardcore breakbeat, albeit one with no pretensions to anything other than an instinctive musicality.
18 New Decade – Rough [Out Of Romford Records]
Finishing up with another one of my first 12” breakbeat purchases: New Decade’s awesome ‘Rough’ on Out Of Romford – alongside proto-gabba, ambient Jungle and breakbeat rave on the ‘Statue Of Gold’ EP lurks this monster… the only record on this label that I have may well be one it’s finest moments (I believe Out Of Romford ‘evolved‘ into acid trance, but I could be wrong). Touching on an area operated in by The Prodigy at their stripped-down hardcore ruffest, this steam-powered stone-age sounding shit drops heavier and rawer than the last ten years of drum n bass combined…
Which is a perfect note on which to take leave of ’93 for now…. Hope the mix offers something to any interested listeners, whether old skool or new, and once again Big Up to Droid for all the work hosting and organising these mixes…
Peace
Often less sensible of dance music ‘norms’ in terms of its arrangement, hardcore and early Jungle does weird shit all the time – just when you’re getting comfortable, it drop-kicks your ass into some new position. A bastard to mix (as you’ll hear in one or two places), the tunes nonetheless kick like a mule - even by comparison with Jungle in a 94/95 style. The slower tempo (than Jungle and later drum n bass) allowed the pounding kick-drums to occupy more space in the mix (reminds me of early Public Enemy in that respect – by comparison with the later snare-dominated g-funk and RnB styles that became prevalent in hiphop…). Despite the added difficulty of trying to beat-match the sometimes er, hasty drum-splicing and editing deployed on so many of these tunes, the range of breaks deployed in them (from even the most innocuous of producers) is staggering, and thus offers the DJ some serious compensation. Overall, the slower tempo (maybe 140-150bpm? Droid can correct me here…) (goes from about 144 to 158+ - Droid) certainly accommodated a different range of samples in the music – and thus generated a different rhythmic response: somewhere between skating and jogging to my ears today.
You can download the mix below, and Droid has left ample instructions on how to subscribe to the cast over his last few posts, but just in case.
Naphta - Blogariddims 18/Rough (86mb.mp3)
1 Naughty Trax Volume 1 – The Dream [Rugged Vinyl]
2 Egyptian Empire – The Horn Track (Foghorn Mix) [Fffreedom]
3 Skanna – Heaven [Skanna]
4 Metalheads – Saint Angel [Synthetic Hardcore Phonography]
5 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance (Tango Remix) [Moving Shadow]
6 DJ Hype – I Can’t Understand It [Suburban Base]
7 Wax Doctor & Jack Smooth – Rock To the Groove [Basement]
8 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance [Moving Shadow]
9 Kev Bird & Wax Doctor – Airspace [Basement]
10 Delirium – Days Of Our Lives (Tek 9 Hour Glass Remix) [Reinforced]
11 Kev Bird – Sub Zero [Basement]
12 DJ Rap & Aston – Vertigo (Q Bass Dark Mix) [Suburban Base]
13 Kaotic Chemistry – Space Cakes [Moving Shadow]
14 Rufige Kru – Terminator II [Reinforced]
15 Kaotic Chemistry – L.S.D. [Moving Shadow]
16 Omni Trio – Feel Good Original In Demand Mix) [Moving Shadow]
17 Sonz Of A Loop De Loop Era – What The…(Session Two) [Suburban Base]
18 New Decade – Rough [Out Of Romford Records]
1 Naughty Trax Volume 1 – The Dream [Rugged Vinyl]
2 Egyptian Empire – The Horn Track (Foghorn Mix) [Fffreedom]
Naughty Naughty’s ‘The Dream’ sets the scene for a ’93 selection: ravers on a mission to burn out somewhere deep in the Jungle. It’s beautiful opening section darkens up pretty quick, offering an Apache workout and some mutant growling bass, each unexpected development carried through with rough swing; you can hear the music as a whole unfolding and opening out, developing from loop-based hardcore rave in this track. Next up, Egyptian Empire’s superbly militant ‘Horn Track’ (not too sure, but I think this is a Mickey Finn remix?), an absolute monster that spawned numerous mutant ‘remixes’ – most recently from Photek in his g-thug guise, but none of them – not even the jungle ones from the Back2Basics cru – came close to these first mixes. Sounds a bit like it was produced in a toilet, but hey! That’s hardcore.
3 Skanna – Heaven [Skanna]
4 Metalheads – Saint Angel [Synthetic Hardcore Phonography]
And into Skanna’s ‘Heaven’… Skanna had a unique sound that peaked with this EP I think.. although he went on to release some later (highly sought-after) anthems in the Bukem atmospheric mould, his combination of the rough with the smooth here really shines, while his heavy reverbs and techstep-style beats suggest Nico-engineered techstep before Ed Rush ever first knocked round to Nico’s with a bag of green. Metalheads aka Goldie next, on the mysterious Hardcore Synthetic Phonography label, with the original mix of ‘Saint Angel’ off the ‘Angel’ EP. A real bargain-bin find this next one – in a cardboard box on the floor of some second-hand goods shop somewhere in London in ’94 on a weekend raving… guy didn’t want me to take it either as I only had a £50 note for a £2 record and he figured I was trying to pass him a dud: a close call! Anyway, this variant on the ‘Angel’ theme really lays down the law with its relentless churning and with its legions of screaming ghouls. A shame really, that a generation of copyists in dnb have been inspired since only to imitate the sounds rather than the attitude and sentiment therein. By the way, I notice on the ever-useful rolldabeats that a remix twelve of these tracks surfaced back in der day, also on the same label and featuring an Internal Affairs remix of ‘Angel..? I’d love to hear it if anyone has it…
5 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance (Tango Remix) [Moving Shadow]
6 DJ Hype – I Can’t Understand It [Suburban Base]
More darkside riffage (complete with Beavis n Butthead sickly chuckles) from Tango in a remix of Hyper-On E’s ‘Disturbance’ next, offering some nice drumwork over some swampy low-end growling. And on, chopping in the ready-mixed scratching of Hype’s ‘I Can’t Understand It’. Hype was such a ruffneck producer in ‘93 and ’94, dishing up some prime slices of sublimely filthy hardcore with such attitude; his chunky in-yo-face hiphop influence powered up by rave’s freaky energy really produced some classics in a totally unique style... take Hype out of the Suburban Base back catalogue and it starts to feel like… I dunno – Moving Shadow without Omni Trio or something… in other words, Hype was essential and he defined the sound of the label.
7 Wax Doctor & Jack Smooth – Rock To the Groove [Basement]
8 Hyper-On Experience – Disturbance [Moving Shadow]
9 Kev Bird & Wax Doctor – Airspace [Basement]
I‘ll never forgive Jack Smooth for giving out about ‘unmusical’ breakbeat hardcore in an interview in Melody Maker once he’d ascended to the throne of Bukem/Speed-inspired ‘intelligent’ musicality back in ‘95/’96 (he railed against producers playing the ‘wrong notes’). Nonetheless, he made a heap of great tracks in a much more straight-up hardcore functional sense (most released on Basement Recordings) before that, and this is just one of ‘em. Simple ideas laid down with cheeky directness, and the stompy 4-2-the-floor techno beat works a treat.
Now into the original mix of ‘Disturbance’, again from Hyper-On E. A weird pounding slo-mo groove keeps the pace under the frenetic hardcore inclinations… a pivotal track (I reckon) in Moving Shadow’s evolution into ‘drum n bass’ – by removing the kick-drums, playing up the half-speed effect and thus opening up more space for programmed percussion on top.
More Kev Bird and Wax Doctor next with another masterful lesson in straight-up minimal 4-2-the-floor hardcore. I absolutely love the short mini-breakdown in ‘Airspace’: a plateau of quietly shimmering electronics that no producer of such unapologetically-upfront dance music would dare to use today without blowing another 20 megatons of over-compressed noise up in yer face afterwards just to make sure that the dancefloor knows it’s been ‘destroyed’.
10 Delirium – Days Of Our Lives (Tek 9 Hour Glass Remix) [Reinforced]
11 Kev Bird – Sub Zero [Basement]
12 DJ Rap & Aston – Vertigo (Q Bass Dark Mix) [Suburban Base]
13 Kaotic Chemistry – Space Cakes [Moving Shadow]
Anyway… on to some evolving Jungle in Tek 9’s rolling re-rub of Delirium’s doom-rave anthem ‘Days of Our Lives’. Reinforced kinda wrote the blueprint for rocking the ragga with the rave in an early Jungle style and this less-known mix offers further evidence of that. And on to one more outing for Basement Records: this time from Kev Bird on a solo tip with ‘Sub Zero’… again what I’m digging here is what (to me) sounds essentially like techno made with early hiphop production values, which is what Basement specialised in.
Now thundering in with DJ Rap & Astons’ ‘Vertigo’ and a pounding remix from Sub Base supremo Dan Donnelly… the fairy-tale sickness of it is pure darkside; a bit of a bugger to do justice to in the mix (had both tunes hovering on the technics wobbly-light-of-death for this one…), but an absolute corker of a tune which had to be included. And onto Moving Shadow boss Rob Playford in his Kaotic Chemistry guise (alongside collaborators Simon Colbrooke and Sean O’Keeffe aka Deep Blue). Nothing more than wickedly sharp drum programming, cut-up vocal edits, and a bad attitude prove once again that simplicity can be absolutely devastating.
14 Rufige Kru – Terminator II [Reinforced]
15 Kaotic Chemistry – L.S.D. [Moving Shadow]
16 Omni Trio – Feel Good Original In Demand Mix) [Moving Shadow]
17 Sonz Of A Loop De Loop Era – What The…(Session Two) [Suburban Base]
Goldie’s ‘Terminator II’ is always hyped up in drum n bass lore, with few people ever bothering to actually play it out in order to illustrate its true demented genius in effect, but on re-listening and experiencing this untouchable masterpiece of darkside breakbeat, the term ‘operatic’ actually seems appropriate – just in terms of its sheer range of moods, and in the number of ideas it works through: each delivered like a musical body blow. Out of there and back once again with Kaotic Chemistry, inciting us to get out of our minds on ‘L.S.D.’, and to Do It Now… another cracker from the same EP on Moving Shadow (all four tracks are savagely good); again I’m struck by the P.E. flavours of the drums on this one. And from there into Omni Trio’s ‘Feel Good’. One of the first breakbeat tracks to really blow my mind: a roll-out of sweet hooks and drop-outs interspersed with gooey troughs of backwards-beats and off-beat rhythms; this weird joyous / melancholic anthem somehow maintains its insistent poppy mentality throughout. Rolling out now with ‘What The…’ from Danny Breaks aka Sonz Of A Loop De Loop Era on Sub Base. Much caned by me back in the day, this silvery-breaked roll-out from paints an almost classically beautiful picture in hardcore breakbeat, albeit one with no pretensions to anything other than an instinctive musicality.
18 New Decade – Rough [Out Of Romford Records]
Finishing up with another one of my first 12” breakbeat purchases: New Decade’s awesome ‘Rough’ on Out Of Romford – alongside proto-gabba, ambient Jungle and breakbeat rave on the ‘Statue Of Gold’ EP lurks this monster… the only record on this label that I have may well be one it’s finest moments (I believe Out Of Romford ‘evolved‘ into acid trance, but I could be wrong). Touching on an area operated in by The Prodigy at their stripped-down hardcore ruffest, this steam-powered stone-age sounding shit drops heavier and rawer than the last ten years of drum n bass combined…
Which is a perfect note on which to take leave of ’93 for now…. Hope the mix offers something to any interested listeners, whether old skool or new, and once again Big Up to Droid for all the work hosting and organising these mixes…
Peace
posted by naphta at 8:41 PM
12 Comments:
Yay! classic tunes. thanks Naphta!
Dealy ruff neck bizniz Naphta. Downloading now, This is a new mix I take it. Nicccccce!!!
yes yes!
Sweet mix... I particularly like the fact hat it jumps all over the shop. Normally when I mix this stuff I tend to go roughly chronological and by style (jungle techno, happy, dark, whatever) ... good work!
Flashbacks...literally. All naff but rose tinted glasses help. Cheers.
What an awesome mix... 'Rough' is one of the best tracks I've heard in ages.
lovely stuff Naphta, thankyou very much indeed. best wishes, a>
brilliant, thanks.
amazing...now one can only hope that Mr. Naphta decides to give '92 and '94 similar treatments!
heh. Its kinda funny you should say that...
Thanks for this too. Need more, hope above comment does not take long to bear fruit.
Awesome. I've been trying to find a lot of these tracks for years. I'd kill for the other two Tek 9 remixes of Days of Our Lives, though!
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