blog to the oldskool

Here’s a definite classic which was on my wantlist for years. I finally just picked it up on vinyl as part of a big order I got in December (x-mas present to myself). I think hearing this over and over in a Doc Scott mix from 92 was what pushed me over the edge to finally nab it – “Rok A Bye” isn’t a tune I would have necessarily been all that excited hearing it on its own years ago, as it doesn’t have lots of immediately crazy sequencing or sounds. However, hearing it over and over in a mix made me really appreciate the subtlety and vibiness of it. As someone pointed out in a comment on discogs, it’s quite sparse and deep, dare I say almost “proto-intelligent” for a 92 track¹. Not too much going on, not tons of changes or crazy sequencing. But the drums are great (same break combo as Brother’s Grimm – “Sign of the Times”), and when the portamento bit come in later in the track, the melody is downright haunting.
Aside from this EP, the guys behind Utomica each did a number of other big EPS in other groups – the the Full Logic Control EP I posted back in 2009, plus all of the great Law & Auder EPs (a number of which are quite rare these days), plus a variety of non hardcore/jungle related music.

Utomica – Rok A Bye

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¹:Even though Discogs lists this as 1993, and the record could have come out in 93, it’s featured in some mixes which I think might have been towards the end of 92, so there’s a good chance it was written in 1992. I wasn’t sure which year to put it under so I listed it as both.

Back to the more serious hardcore… this tune is an absolute VIBEZ. No Noise was a label run by L Double that did a lot of underrated tunes, and as a whole the EP is kind of housey and the other tracks on it aren’t as successful in my opinion… but this track is a perfect low intensity, moody breakbeat hardcore track. No in your face rave stabs or pianos, it sounds much more in common with later “intelligent” jungle stuff. The initial breakbeat starts off sounding a bit weird and choppy, when the synths start coming on top it just gets too too good… definitely one I didn’t notice at first but got hooked on from mixes!

Escape – Escape (The Optical Mix)

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Here’s a great deep number by Graham Mew aka The Invisible Man aka Mysteron. Aside from producing some of the most memorable jungle tunes ever (“The Bell tune”, “The Beginning”, “The End”, etc), he also engineered tracks for Legend Records for quite a while, including a track called “Champion Sound” that some of you have probably heard of.
“You Don’t Know” is featured on multiple jungle CD comps, and in my opinion is perfect early intelligent jungle. It balances melodic atmospheric elements and female vocals with some eerie bell sounds, resulting in a track that even a most ardent “dolphin jungle”-hater would have difficulty finding issue with. As a test of this, I played the tune for a friend who is decidedly NOT a fan of even early Good Looking stuff (which I love), and he thought this track was great.

Recently, Sublogic has unearthed several of Graham’s unreleased gems and has been releasing them alongside represses of some of his rarest and best tracks – these can be bought direct from The Sublogic Records site here. Mega-props to Will Sublogic for doing such a great job on these represses, not to mention Graham for actually keeping track of the dats and doing a bang-up job remastering the tunes.

The Invisible Man – You Don’t Know

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Here’s another early proto-intelligent track. I like a lot of these Rhythm Section related singles, but there’s so many of them (including some mediocre ones) that they bleed together a bit for me now. So I was pleasantly surprised when I accidentally pulled this record from my wall yesterday, intending to grab Drumatix – Crank Dis. Not only does it sound pretty different to most other Rhythm Section stuff, but it’s way ahead of its time musically for a 92 track… with stripped down drums and a faster BPM, it could almost be an early Good Looking tune 93-95.

MK13 – Feel The Magic

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