Bit of a mixed bag again today, starting tommorow I’ll go back to more concept-based posts… with this giant pile of random new records at my feet, it’s tempting to keep throwing random quality tracks up.
This first tune is on the After Dark sublabel Time Travel Records. Based on that fact, plus the heavy duty production and track structure, it’s pretty clear that it’s by Dave Charlesworth, aka After Dark, Edge of Darkness, 4th Dimension, and a slew of others. Charlesworth has made some of the best and most underrated hardcore tracks ever in my opinion… he really piles the beats on in some cases, while somehow keeping things from sounding sloppy. This track highlights said heavy drum production nicely:
High Octane – Roll The Drums
This second track is more well known than the stuff I usually post here, but has been stuck in my head quite a bit for the past few months, so… up it goes. It’s an essential old jam by Nookie, which was released in several different forms, including this later junglized version on Reinforced and this 2004 repress. One listen and you can see why it garnered so much attention: it’s perfectly designed to get stuck in your head. Simple song structure and parts, no extraneous elements to complicate things, just two über-catchy piano and synth lines alternating along with 2 classic samples (“give a little light, give a little love” from Lisa Stanfield & Coldcut “people hold on” and “I’m for real” as used on the Nightmares on Wax “Aftermath” EP)…. rave bliss.
The version I’m posting is from the 3 track version on Absolute 2. If this is a bit slow for your taste, head over to the reinforced digital store and pick up the 94 version on there.
There’re some backslashes in the links for the above mentioned tracks! Guessing there’s been some cross-platform cp’ing goodness going on judging by those artifacts…
Much gratitude for fueling my nostalgia on a daily basis!
weird, no idea why I did that, guess it was backwards-backwards-slash day?
Thanks for the heads up, switched them in case some browsers have issues with them reversed like that.