I’ve been meaning to save this EP for an article on early US breakbeat hardcore/rave, but it’s been a while since I posted any domestic obscurities. Despite a number of DJs playing oldskool here, very little bonafide 92/93 style tunes got released in the US, with most of the hardcore being more of the rave/techno variety . Once 1995 hit things took off more, most notably with the well known Liquid Sky/Jungle Sky label and Dieselboy putting out a track on Tech Itch Recordings. However there wasn’t that much more before that in the states which actually made it to wax, with a few notable exceptions (Jamie Myerson, Josh Kay/Global).
Considering that, here’s a cool little 92 style EP released in Ohio of all places, way back in 1993. The tunes on this might not be super polished top uk label level anthems, but the sequencing is solid and there’s plenty of good samples/changeups, reminding me a bit of lesser known De Underground + related label stuff from 92. This EP is also definitely one for the obscurity hunters to consider, as only three people “have” it on discogs as I’m writing this. The guy behind this EP (Stephen Hindman) went on to do some tracks on Jungle Sky as well as Rawkus’ short lived dnb label Raw Kuts, and the executive producer (Mike Filly) is considered one of the most well respected veterans of the Ohio club scene. In general, it’s pretty cool to see how something like this could have been released thousands of miles from the UK with no involvement at all from the scene there..
Kingsize – Perfect Combination
Also, here’s a poor cameraphone shot of the promo sheet that came with the release…aside from the great graphics (Sub Zero wins!), the text shows how the smaller scene size in the US resulted in labels and producers at the time here producing across a wider variety of genres and not being able to focus in so much on the hardcore/jungle sound (since there wasn’t much of a scene for it in of itself here, at least not compared to the UK).
I thought it was Skorpion 🙂
so this sounds early 1993 ish in which case how did folks in ohio even get to hear the msuic coming out of the uk at the time. Was it like they were occasional out of town visitors to NASA or something? i would love to read some interviews with these really early US adopters.
hard to tell which since the picture is black + white and I’m not that diehard of a MK fan.
Trying to talk the executive producer into giving some info, he’s just been super busy w/ real life stuff so hasn’t had time to write a bunch about rave stuff in Ohio. Apparently there really was a scene there, 4 hero went out and played there back then and everything!
Also the producer is in some big NY indie band now, may hit him up soon for a brief interview or as part of my bigger feature on hardcore/jungle in the US