“In complete Darkness” is such a classic track, it’s a bit deflating when you hear all the original samples and realize all the music is sampled wholesale (except for the bassline probably). I mean, we all know that most of those classic piano and synth parts in hardcore tunes were sampled from some marginally earlier piano house or techno track…. still, this track has got to take the cake amongst hardcore tracks for being a really straight ahead combination of a few component pieces! Regardless of this, it’s an absolute classic + really fun tune that ends up better than those source samples somehow.
Fat Controller – In Complete Darkness
As for those “ingredients”:
Melodies:
Breakbeat:
(I assume you all know where the amen is from 😛 )
Vocal:
First time I heard this track i loved it. I bought a box of vinyl off a friend a few years later and found the promo stuffed in there 🙂
Im supprised you didn’t mention anything about Doina De Jale, Its slightly overshadowed by In Complete Darkness but still holds its own as a decent tune.
Also as you posted samples for each part I just noticed that the pan pipes from the beginning of side b are sampled from Gheorghe Zamfir, Doina da jale.
Thought you might be interested to know 🙂
To be honest I’m not such a fan of the b side – normally I’m all about finding the less played tracks on EPs, but not in this case. The break looping is kind of ropey, as it is also on the a side (I forgot to mention above but if you listen closely to the breakbeat in ICD it’s not looped cleanly, it’s maybe 1/128th note off), but even more noticeable here for me. Also, the piano melody is more straight ahead happy, less “epic” sounding to me than the A side. Finally, not so into the zamfir flute action throughout.
hah yeah good catch on the zamfir sample. After your first post I tried looking for a copy of the b-side track on youtube because I was too lazy to walk downstairs and listen to it on vinyl, and a dozen copies of that zamfir track popped up.
lol.
it’s funny i know all the original songs it sampled..but i never really thought of In Complete Darkness as just a phrase sampling tune. ha thanks for pointing that out!
i love it when shit is worth more than the some of their parts.
p.s. i loved the nookie remix for ages…but i can never get it to sound good in a mix!
Epic tune, this style of breakbeat happy hardcore was only really around for a short while in the grand scheme of things but there are so many gems. And it’s 1994 BTW Discogs is wrong 😛
hands down my all time-time favorite tune ever, any genre, any time. between this & the Slipmatt ’95 remix (which is essentially the exact same but with choppier – i.e. more ’95-ish – drums) I’ve probably listened to it a couple hundred times. that ’93-95 happy hc rushing meets jungle ruffness is maybe my favorite of the all the sub-genre jungle sounds. not as much of a fan of the Nookie remix – I mean it’s quality work but (imo) it doesn’t have any of the magic the original does, but then I’m generally not a fan of Nookie past about ’94 or so (his earlier stuff is all classic of course)
the fact that it’s all straight lifted doesn’t faze me a bit, there are a million tunes I love like that (“Atlantis” immediately comes to mind). and he managed Janet Jackson to make sound profound, so there’s that. I seem to recall Luna-C claiming on the KF website
sorry somehow I posted that in mid-sentence
I seem to recall Luna-C claiming that he had something to do with this tune (which discogs etc doesn’t reflect), but I might be making that up, I dunno.
*LOVE* that you posted the ingredients.
Luna-C didn’t have anything to do with making it. I remember someone saying years back (i think DJ Destiny, who DJed with him at Milwaukees where the Fat Controller was a resident) that Jay Folly pretty much stopped music after this tune cos he couldn’t make anything that matched this.
Always loved this tune, and it was one of the few tunes that my non-rave loving mates liked. Also because it was out when i was just about able to get into raves and clubs 😀
He’s on Facebook if anyone wants to friend him or interview him 😀
For the record….. it was released in 1993…….
There were a few tracks after darkness, as part of Kreative force..
Turn Around/ Tear it up, on Uphoria…
The Stopmer Vol 1 & 2
then the whole sound of hardcore changed, the happy/jungle split..
Had the 95 remix, milwaukees closed and gave up djing to go into the film industry….