Archive for 2009

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Force Mass Motion – Jack of Diamonds

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

I can’t believe I’ve gone this long without posting anything on Rabbit City, as it’s a choice label run by Gordon Edge (of “Compnded” fame) and Colin Faver of Kiss FM. Aside from putting out a bunch of FMM EPs, Rabbit City also released the Digital Domain EP (that “I need relief” track, bound to be familiar to any oldskool fans), one of the first Aphex Twin records, and Blow “Cutter”. Unlike labels which transitioned towards jungle, after hardcore’s heyday Rabbit City moved more towards hard techno/trance, which makes sense since their early releases also had a strong techno vibe.

As for Force Mass Motion, their first 4 or so EPs on Rabbit City are all excellent and pretty essential, stompin technoey stuff jumping between serious hardcore and some great proto-happy hardcore bits. This track is exemplary of that, managing to (somewhat uncomfortably) position what is perhaps one of THE most extreme/”end-of-the-world” style rave riffs ever next to a much more melodic/happy section. I’ve definitely heard a different version of this track with an extended intro using the “jack of diamonds” sample, a sample which I can’t definitively place but which I think maybe be from either Scanners or Ghostbusters? Either way it’s some sort of ESP test scene using
playing cards.

Force Mass Motion – Jack of Diamonds

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Criminal Set – Time Lord

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Here’s a wicked single on One Nation Records. No idea about the artist or engineer, but One Nation also released a couple of tight Bizzy B Eps. The A-side of this is a solid amen track, but this B-side tune is the one that wins it for me – an insane glorious mess of a tune, countless layers of breaks, rave synths, bleeps etc. all mashed together, seemingly ready to fall apart at any moment. I realize this one won’t be up everyone’s alley, but, oh well… serious EP in my opinion!
Bonus points for the Dr. Who reference title.


Criminal Set – Time Lord

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Harmony & Xtreme – NRG Rush

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

Here’s a single I’ve been after for a while, which I finally nabbed recently. It’s one of the earlier singles on Lucky Spin, and is a lot more ravey than the deeper proto-jungle tracks they are better known for. Harmony & Xtreme also did the great Temple of Doom EP and red label “temple of doom” remix EP. Heavy compressed amens plus 92 style rave stab melodies = more great oldskool that not enough people have heard.

Harmony And Xtreme – NRG Rush

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DJ H – The Bass Project EP

Friday, December 25th, 2009

Merry chrimbo, ya raving lunatics!!! Here’s your present: a track from the megarare DJ H “Bass Project” EP. I’ve seen people offer 100 pounds for this EP, and discogs hasn’t sold a copy since they started tracking sales. A lot of the rarest singles end up leaving you underwhelmed when you finally hear them – not this one though! Perfectly grimey frantic beats, massive rave synths and so-wrong-but-so-right vocals. All 3 tracks are good but the A side (posted here) wins out for me.

DJ H – Petruccio

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Also, I guess I should give you some X-mas related hardcore:

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DJ Junk – Junk 05 B2

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Here’s one of the less-in-demand EPs by DJ Junk. Junk 3 and 4 seem to be most in demand, the others are good but rather easy to pick up. The other tracks on this EP aren’t that special in my opinion, but this is a proper tune – loads of scratching, piano from Sterling Void – Don’t Wanna Go, as used in Manix – “Feel Real Good”.

DJ Junk – Volume 5 B2

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Bass Boy – Let The Bass Be Louder

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Here’s an all-time classic Dutch track, from the all-time classic Dutch label Midtown (which is also still a store, for anybody visiting the Netherlands). “Let the Bass Be Louder” is one of the few classic tracks I’ve heard newer Boston DJs play a few times (including while opening for the Prodigy), and it always goes down a storm. That is, as much as any 17 year old rave tune can go down for a crowd where the vast majority did NOT grow up with much of a rave pedigree/electronic music influence beyond big beat and other crossover rock-electronic stuff…

This EP contains a few mixes of this tune, this is the “radio mix” which is short, sweet + to the point. The music here is definitely very prototypical of early Dutch/Belgian hardcore, with much more of an emphasis on the 4/4 beat and technoy synths rather than on the breakbeat element of the tune. The vocals are positively craptacular but totally memorable, and have been sampled in a bunch of newer Dutch & Belgian tunes.

Sick track, check it here + grab a copy of the vinyl for cheap.

Bass Boy – Let The Bass Be Louder (radio version)

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Hardcore D-Vision -???

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

I found this in a bargain bin in NYC this weekend. It’s one of those early hardcore/breakbeat techno singles that has 4 different mixes of the same track… not bad, not amazing, I can’t seem to find it on discogs though. If anyone has any info on who did it / where + when it’s from, please post it. I’m guessing this is release #2 on Positive, and the Positive Reaction on the label refers to Positive Reaction

Here’s the full info:

Catalog #: POSiT-2
Matrix: "PA6206" and "BLACK AND DECKER DRILLING IT 4 U"
Sticker: HARDCORE - D - VISION
contact: POSITIVE REACTION
081-675-2217
H-D-V


Hardcore D-Vision – A1

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Hardcore D-Vision – A2

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The Anixus – Feel Real Good

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

Respect to RenegadeGenius for posting this on Youtube, this is one of those obscurities that I think took people quite a while to figure out since it wasn’t a UK tune (The label and the producers are from Italy).

The Anixus – Feel Good (Love Mix)

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Oversky Records also put out another sick single in the form of
Stone Age’s “Paleolitic” EP, a housier EP which still borders on hardcore and samples the Captain Rapp “I can’t stand it” vocals as used in Manix – “I can’t stand it”

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DJ Red Alert + Pepsi – Don Gorgon Sound

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Here’s a great EP that’s not exactly rare, but still seems overlooked, especially given how popular Red Alert + Mike Slammer (aka Pepsi)’s subsequent releases on Slammin’ Vinyl were. This EP has a lot of the elements of those later singles in somewhat nascent form – tons of choice samples all in gloriously low fi goodness, absolutely packed into each tune. These two tunes from the A-side highlight that well – you’ve got bits from “success n effect” in the first tune plus mr monday “future” (one of my favorite house tracks) , “energy flash” (or wherever that reversed melody is from used in that tune) and the cuba gooding “happiness is around the bend” vocals in the second track.


DJ Red Alert + Pepsi – Don Gorgon Sound

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DJ Red Alert + Pepsi – Something Unreal

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Zero B – Lock Up (DJ Crystl Counterforce remix)

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Here’s a somewhat unexpected track… I originally got this as part of “The Ultimate Jungle Collection” comp LP, one of those “80 tracks per side” jungle comps from back when jungle was really kicking off and thus every evil shifty compilation company wanted a piece of the action…. Despite this, this comp in particular ended up with a pretty wicked lineup, with any number of sick tunes taken from a real variety of labels (from big labels like Moving Shadow and Sub Base, to obscurities like “Da Maytrix – Loverman” . However, the track that caught my attention most was a remix by DJ Crystl of the huge rave classic Zero B – Lock Up, which has been sampled and remixed countless times.

This remix was never released on a real record by DJ Crystl, instead it was previously exclusive to a compilation called “Counterforce: a collection of deep beats”. Thankfully, this compilation isn’t one of those “8000 tracks a side” comps, and instead features both a 100% great lineup of tracks (culled from Lucky Spin, Whitehouse and the like) with only 1-2 tracks per side on the vinyl – meaning that you can mix tunes on this comp without breaking the gain knob off on your mixer trying to get it to “14″. The Crystl track posted here is actually given a complete side of the record, so it’s just as good as if it had come out on one of those Lucky Spin whitelabels.

As for the remix itself, it’s a suprisingly restrained reworking of the track, which doesn’t even utilize the main “hands in the air” part which is most frequently sampled. This makes sense given the producer… Crystl was never one for hands-in-the-air super melodic stuff.

Zero B – Lock Up (Dj Crystl Counterforce Remix)

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Also, here’s two other favorite tunes which sample “Lock Up”:
JDS – Classified is a choice mashup of the melody from “Lock Up” with vocals from Baby D (the ones which were also used in Manix “Head in the Clouds”). I’ve never managed to nab this as it’s always a bit out of my price range, hoping to grab a copy sometime though.

Next, one of my favorite oldskool tracks:Release’s “Inner Dream”, which was reissued a few years ago by 92Retro records and needs to be owned by any serious oldskool heads:

To nab a copy of this one, head over to Sublogic Records

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