I’m guessing at this point that my affinity for non-UK (international) hardcore/jungle has been pretty well established on this blog. Along those lines, here’s a nice track by Peanut Planet, the Swedish hardcore/jungle group featuring a young Seba among others. Early Peanut Planet stuff is pretty underrated and well worth investigating, if a bit inconsistent. Some tunes are absolute gems, with great melodies and programming. Others sound quite a bit rougher. This track sort of straddles both of those – the drums sound pretty loose and chaotic, but the whole thing works out nicely in the end. Plus, it’s got its own music video from back in those days:
Apparently this was played on MTV in the 90’s? Shame it took them less than 2 decades to go from this tune to “15 and pregnant” or whatever reality show they’re featuring right now.
The tune itself is pretty varied and moody, taking no small influence from both “Timeless” and 94 era Reinforced. Drum-wise, there’s a LOT going on: classic roland drum machine percussion, Orange Krush – Action Break, the Funky Mule break (used heavily by Marc Mac, Dego + crew), and an amen all bundled together. As mentioned above, the breaks are kept quite loose, and are also at a significantly slower tempo than you’d assume by 95/96, making me wonder whether this was written before or just kept slow as a sort of downtempo nod (unlikely but you never know). Melody-wise, you get some more uplifting and dare-i-say jazzy elements popular at the time, but also plenty of sinister filtered reeses bubbling up from underneath the surface. Again, no small amount of influence from “Tha R” with respect to those!
Overall this is a quite nice track and, MTV video notwithstanding, I’m guessing it’s pretty overlooked in this day and age. I enjoy throwing it in mixes on occasion as a surprise not-easily-identifiable one, especially for UK heads who might not be familiar with tunes from Sweden.
Peanut Planet – Awakenings