RIP Randall

ardkore junglist legend

produced some tracks but primarily a deejay, that's where Randall McNeil's contribution lay

a detailed tribute from Carl Loben + Ben Murphy at DJ magazine

54 - way too early to go

an archive of his deejay sets and other stuff set up posthumously 

Revered for his ‘double impact’ style of mixing, aka 'double drop' mixing -  playing two tracks and aligning their drops so that they detonate simultaneously

Randall on schooling the young Andy C on how to do it:

“I remember telling him how I’d scope out tunes and how I’d count the bars and the maths of double drops. Basically knowing your tunes inside out. He knew it already and just took it another level. I merely showed him the blueprints.”

A regular at the AWOL night at the Paradise in Islington, the focus for the scene's innercore cabal (Goldie Grooverider Fabio Reinforced cru Kemistry & Storm et al) during that period between the closing of Rage and the start of Metalheadz at the Blue Note.  

I remember Goldie regaling me with a story of a one particular triumphant mix by Randall at AWOL that got the jungalistic equivalent of a standing ovation. Something about how he went in and out between the two tracks, back and forth, in some incredibly involuted but sustained way...  the rapid switchbacks so steal-your-breath astonishing, the duration so improbably extended, the precision so needlepoint, that a clamor of awestruck disbelief erupted.... the track was duly rewound - only for Randall to repeat the feat of mixological acrobatics exactly, same jump points -  this was a connoisseur performance 4 the connoisseurs, a tour de force showcase of the emerging artistry of a new kind of music

In the same interview Goldie spoke of how in response to deejays like Randall (and Grooverider at Rage) he made sure his own tracks were always "both music and mixable, with entrances and exits"

Here's some of Randall's own productions

 

and a remix (in collaboration with Foul Play)

Randall was the go-to mixer for Reinforced compilations, doing the fully mixed version of The Definition of Hardcore in '93 and more recently a 25th Anniversary comp