Archive for April, 2010

Strategy & DJ Freshtrax – The Dreammaster

Monday, April 26th, 2010

Here’s a record that’s been sitting in my crate for a while without me spinning it much… just put it on yesterday though and it’s pretty sick! Freshtrax was around from quite early on, in fact the earliest record I have by him is from 1990 He released and was involved in quite a few records on Little Giant, including the heavily-in-demand Boscaland EP, the Ten B&H EP (with the vocal breakdown “ten B&H and a packet of rizzla” which will probably pop in your head if you’ve ever heard that track), plus the Harmonik Distortion EP on Jumpin n Pumpin. Nothing too strange or out-there with this track, just noisy ravey 92 goodness.


Strategy and DJ Freshtrax – the Dreamaster (Paranoia Mix)

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Clarky & Dillinja – Dark Science

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

It’s been a while since I posted something proper rare, so here’s a hard-to-find one-sided EP by Dillinja and Clarky. Dillinja needs no introduction, Clarky is actually one member of Defender who I posted a track by a few days ago.. “Dark Science” does what it says on the label, and is a solid slice of 93 darkcore. The other track on this EP is absolutely mental rave stab madness with crazy beats that get off time in points and drop right on that thin line between glorious low fi hardcore craziness and outright poor poor production… normally given the choice between these 2 tracks I’d post the crazier one, but I figure I’ll give you the more palatable one and save the madness for anyone who bothers to track down this EP :)



Clarky & Dillinja – Dark Science

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Unknown Artist (Great Asset GAD32) – Untitled

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Not much to say about this one as I don’t know who the artist is… it’s a classy mashup track combining the beats from “never try the hippodrome”, the accapella from Baby D – Daydreaming (which I’m sure will pop up in a new house/dubstep track any day now if it hasn’t already) , and the synths from M-D-Emm “Get Down”, as used in Tribal Instincts “Coming On Strong”. Definitely a solid release that might have slipped through the cracks.


Unknown Artist – Untitled (GAD32) – Side A

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Defender – Feel It (Bass)

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Oh my gosh, what an anthem… can’t believe I’ve held out this long before posting this one. The title says it all really – nasty darkside with absolutely massive sinister bass omnipresent in the track, and with occasional vocal snippets and break layers dropping in and out to keep things interesting. Aside from this EP, Defender did a couple of other good EPs- a split picture disc on lucky spin, an appareance on a great in-demand obscurity that’s been on my wantlist for ages, and some circa 96 releases I haven’t heard. This is tune he’s best known for though, and the one which popped up in all the mixes back in the day. “Feel It” also appeared on Speed Limit 2, which I have packed away on CD somewhere, but I prefer ripping vinyl for this site so this is from the original 12″.


Defender – Feel It (Bass)

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Jack Horner EP

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Jack Horner is one of those great forgotten artists from the 92-95 period with only a handful of releases, but where every release is great. Aside from doing an EP with Bad Influence which is good and very in demand, he did the great Summer in the south EP which is For sale on Digital Tunes.net direct from the label. “After Midnight” is a great choppy 94 style track, with nicely chopped beats. Finally, “The Hoover / I got this feeling” is as solid of a 1995 EP as you’ll find, with crazy chopped amens and massive bass. Before any of those though you had his first EP on Face Records – a solid slab of 92 dark hardcore.


Jack Horner – Jack Horner EP track A1

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Oldskool Label/Record Shop Locations, part 1

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

This post is thanks to Mark N, aka the only crate digger I know serious enough to find an oldskool tune hiding in a local Boston record shop I’ve been going to for years and years but had never found. He mentioned to me a while back that he likes occasionally tracking down the original locations of record labels/record stores from BITD on google maps, especially ones he visited (eg Parliament Records)… here’s a a set of them which he sent me. Click the square with arrows in the top right of each to make any one full screen and have a look around. If any of you visited these locations and know the angles are wrong, let me know or send me an updated google map link.

Also, let me know if all this javascript screws up anyone’s browser, I might have to move this to a separate page if that’s the case.

Suburban Base/Boogie Times
Now: a real estate agency

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Kickin’ Records
Now: also a real estate agency

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Parliament Records/Candidate Recordings
Now: an off-license shop:

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Network Records

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Production House

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Deja Vu Recordings:

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Chill Records

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J4M


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Reincarnation Rave footage (6 parts)

Friday, April 9th, 2010

found this on B2VOS, some good footage here! 2 Bad Mice live PA around part 4

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Rave Related Movies, pt 1: Vibrations

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

I figure it’s about time I posted about some movies tangentially related to oldskool/rave… Here’s one of my favorites. No film quite nails the origins, sound and soul of techno quite like “Vibrations”. Watching this movie is like doing a vulcan mind meld with Jeff Mills AND Juan Atkins at the same time.

Here’s the trailer:

Movie Synposis: Suburban rock guitarist gets in an accident and has both hands amputated. Becomes homeless, moves to SF, passes out in a warehouse which is used for a rave later that night. Wakes up, befriends raver girl (Christina Applegate!!), gets cyborg hands made by a “hacker” and his rave mc friend, dresses up like Robocop and plays scales on a midi keyboard live which apparently is the “ultimate” rave music because it has more notes than normal rave music. Tours with fierce ruling diva, U96 and Utah Saints. The end.

here’s Fierce Ruling Diva performing in the film… there’s actually a semi decent sounding quasi-hardcore tune early on the origins of which I’m not sure about, but there’s no youtube clips of it. There’s also supposedly a Utah Saints performance which is cut from the US release of the film, but is on a region free Hong Kong DVD.

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Free Spirit – Optical Illusion

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

I’ve been kind of slow to upload lately since my main PC died, I can rip vinyl from my laptop but the software I wrote which auto-tags / labels /adds artwork to mp3s the way I like isn’t on this machine. So the ID3 tags are gonna be a bit weird for a while. Anyway, here’s a nice track I picked up not too long ago, I’d been meaning to get more on this label after tracking down the incredibly elusive and awesome 2 Track version of “Deeper”, which I play out all the time even in non-rave sets. This EP isn’t as good as that EP but is still pretty nice – the A side has a strong piano tune with heavily compressed/noisy amens and heavy 4beat underpinning. It’s a bit more anthem-y than these B side tracks, but this B1 track is nice too – solid beats, some piano, a bit of ragga, everything you’d expect from a 92-93 track.

Free Spirit – Optical Illusion download removed, now for sale on beatport!

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Shaka – 6 in the Morning

Sunday, April 4th, 2010

Sorry for the lack of updates, I was busy preparing for a DJ Set at an anime convention on Friday. Anyway, I’ve posted a couple of 92-93 tracks from Awesome so far, so here’s a later tune which is much more obscure but is a solid jam – jump up style hip hop samples with well mashed breaks. Shaka also did the excellent “Red like blood” single on Awesome which is worth nabbing as well.


Shaka – 6 In the Morning

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