The Finest

Wondrous epic mix project here from Selectabwoy. Four mixes + a bonus mix makes five, corralling almost everything Moving Shadow compatriots / allies Omni Trio and Foul Play touched during their extended '90s peak. Original tracks (A-sides, B-sides, tucked-away EP gems). Remixes they did of each other's tracks. Remixes they did of other artists's tracks. Remixes others artists did of their tracks. Pearls expertly strung together, brimming shimmering raptures intensified with artful transitions and overlays.

Simply put - the Finest Music of the '90s, all there for the downloading and delectation. 

Here's the tracklist (including a few things I'd somehow never heard)

 SIDE A 

Foul Play - Open Your Mind (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Feel Good (Original In Demand Mix)

Foul Play - Dubbing You

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Foul Play Remix)

Foul Play - Survival

Omni Trio - Original Soundtrack

Foul Play - Murder Most Foul

Haute Control - Future Stylin'

Foul Play - Screwface

Omni Trio - Stronger

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - We Are The Future

Omni Trio - Mainline

Foul Play - Feel The Vibe (Again)

Splice - Falling (In Dub)

Foul Play - Finest Illusion (Illegal Mix)

Omni Trio - Step Off (Gold Blend Mix)

SIDE B

Omni Trio - Nu Grooves '94

Foul Play - Strung Out

Omni Trio - Rollin' Heights

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - Drowning In Her (Phantasy & Aphrodite Remix)

Foul Play - Total Control (Origin Unknown Remix)

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Remix)

Omni Trio - Thru The Vibe (Bongo Mix)

Foul Play - Ignorance

Foul Play - Chrysalis

Omni Trio - Living For The Future (FBD Project Remix)

Omni Trio - Soul Promenade

Omni Trio - Feel Good '95

Foul Play - Being With You (E-Z Rollers Remix)

Foul Play - Cuttin' Loose

SIDE C

Haute Control - Dream Series (Volume 1)

Splice - Hold Me

Foul Play - The Alchemist

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - We Are The Future (Darren Jay Mix)

Omni Trio - Feel Better (Foul Play Remix)

Splice - Bus In (Strawberries)

Foul Play - Dub In U (Remix)

Foul Play - Ragatere

Foul Play - Open Your Mind (Nookie Remix)

Foul Play - Survival (Remix)

Foul Play - Ricochet (No Stopping The Remix)

Omni Trio - Future Frontier

Bug Kann & The Plastic Jam - Made In Two Minutes (Foul Play Remix)

Haute Control - Drum & Bass Collision

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Original Mix)

SIDE D

Nookie - The Sound Of Music (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Be There

The Terrorist - Sing Time (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Nu Grooves '94 (Deep Blue Remix)

Foul Play - Karma Pt. 2

Foul Play - Being With You (Foul Play Remix)

Foul Play - Being With You (Van Kleef Remix)

Omni Trio - Soul Freestyle

Omni Trio - Ghost Rider

E-Z Rollers - Believe (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Rob's Reconstruction Mix)

Omni Trio - Soul Of Darkness (Promenade '96 Rollout)

DJ Pulse - So Fine (Omni Trio Remix)

Foul Play - The Stepper (Remix)

Omni Trio - Torn

BONUS MIX

Foul Play - Artificial Intelligence

London Steppers - Nu Grooves

Omni Trio - London Step

Foul Play - Beats Track

DJ Pulse - Stay Calm (Foul Play Remix)

Hyper On Experience - Lord Of The Null Lines (Foul Play & Randall Remix)

Omni Trio - Shadowplay

Omni Trio - Rollin' Heights (More Strings Attached Mix)

Omni Trio - Soul Promenade (Nookie Remix)

Omni Trio - Living For The Future (FBD Project VIP Remix)

Foul Play - Being With You

Foul Play - Cuttin' Loose (Remix)

Foul Play - Re-Open Your Mind '95

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - We Are The Future (Two Dreads In A Dub Mix)

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - Drowning In Her (4 Horsemen Mix)

JMJ & Richie - Hall of Mirrors (Omni Trio Remix)

Love Energy

 More Manchester jungalistic pirate action from June '94 via Rob Chapman - DJ Direct and the Revolution Crew on Love Energy FM. First  side o' original tape includes "a Spin Inn Jungle Top 10" - the other side mixes ambient-j and ragga-y vibes. 

What's the first couple of tunes played in this? 

Check out the rest of his fab gear at Mixcloud

stop press Friday May 27: Rob just added another great tape with a bunch of different sets from July and August 1994, mostly DJ Direct but some other Revolution Crew deejays too

The Crystl Vision

Great post by CardrossManiac2  on the genius of DJ Crystl, celebrating him as a relatively undersung yet essential part of the ambient-jungle moment - the move toward musicality and finesse (said journey being better than the arrival, of course). 

 (The post is part of an ongoing series on the darkcore into jungle golden age, worth backtracking through - and keeping an eye for coming instalments) 

Here - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYrbm00SnK2aDMQbm52b_WgZUs77mMdu7 -  I've helpfully piled all the '93 Crystl gems the drossman's highlighted, plus a few others and then some earlier tunes and also some later tunes (including, at the end, the disappointing major-label swerve into hip hop / jungle hybrids, then followed by an even more disappointing silence).  It might be the entire corpus in fact. 

Of all of them, the monster that turned my head around at the time is "Warp Drive". So colossal - one of several tunes alongside "Terminator" that really convinced me this is the future. That smashing  crashing break with the final drum hit haloed with reverb....

Apparently with "Warp Drive" Crystl was inspired by hearing Nasty Habits "Here Come the Drums"  - the drone-hum running through the whole thing, the stark minimalism - but verily I think the student surpasseth the teacher in this case, as good and as seminal as Doc Scott's tune is. 

(Headz will recognise the Stevie Nicks quote in the blogpost title - and often I have, when listening to "Dreams", thought of DJ Crystl as opposed to whatever fairy-tale vagary Stevie means to evoke - that's just how my nuum-addled brain is wired)

The other gem of that  Crystl run is "Let It Roll" - those cut-glass snare sounds, the almost tabla-like ripples of hand-percussion - and apparently it will come in a follow-up post on Crystl's post-93 output. 

Now I thought the "let it roll" in "Let In Roll" came from this hip-house classic 

but according to online authorities it's from this 

"All tracks recorded in 3D-Sound"

 

Got an email a few years ago from Tone Def supremo DJ Yomi, pointing out that 4 Horsemen did not simply = Foul Play alter ego, but was a collaboration with him. He was going to give me the whole 4 Horsemen / Tone Def story but never happened....  Would be interested to know how they vibed that vibe. 

"Wake up, indie-kids" (Metalheads et al in MM )

 

January 30 1993 - and I made "Terminator" one of the singles of the week - the first time Metalheads / Goldie get single of the week, but not the last time... 

What leaps out now is that assessment "not especially innovative" which is of course dead wrong, but I was still getting to grips with the scene / sound, had yet to formulate the concept of rhythmic psychedelia (copyright me, yes that's right me) (Still I can't complain about "sampling" really can I now, since "chaste, hideous rapture" is stolen from Lautreamont and was probably the fourth - and far from last time -  I borrowed the phrase.)

Also notable about this singles column is the rave review for Satin Storm, which I believe I've mistitled (based on what was scrawled on the white label  I bought) and is better known now as "Think I'm Going Out of My Head"

I wish I had made Satin Storm single of the week instead of The Drum Club tune which is not that great - certainly not as good as their previous 'U Make Me Feel So Good".

And then Metalheads score again in August of '93 with "Angel" - and this time we have a picture of Goldie. It's even worse than the photo of me I think! That strange perpendicular finger... 

Also notable about this August '93 column - see below -  I make Foul Play "Open Your Mind (Foul Play Remix") Single of the Week (or rather, say I would have, but we didn't have a photo of the group. Not that this stopped us with "Terminator", mind) . 

Origin Unknown "Long Dark Tunnel" - better known as "Valley of Shadows" - is reviewed off of hearing it on pirate radio. (Or was it on a CD compilation? I don't think so). I'm not sure how I knew the name of the label, but I know I didn't own the vinyl at that point - bought it much, much later. Also worthy of Single of the Week status.

Aha - and then there's reviews for Omni Trio (yet another SOTW contender surely) while Goldie gets another review with the Rufige Cru "Ghosts". Well now I wish I had made that the second single of the week (or third, or fourth, or fifth)  and mentioned the remix of "Terminator" - "Terminator 2".

                                  The very tune that germinated the concept of rhythmic psychedelia in my brain? It has backwards                                                                      drums and phased breaks, see... 

Ray Keith is misattributed as the author of the Wot's My Code tune rather than remixer  - easy mistake to make as his name was massive on the front record sleeve.

Also this large claim on the label kinda invites confusion

Who's this Knookie chappie then? 

i'm not too surprised at the persistence and wide dispersal of the term "post-rock", it's sufficiently vague and elastic and evocative to lend itself to many purposes

i am a bit surprised at the half-lives of the term neurofunk, another of my creations (i did coin that one, as far as i can tell; post-rock as a term goes back as far as 1967, but it was me that affixed it to its 1993-onwards meaning, although that has since drifted some way from what I envisaged)

yeah but neurofunk -- that was always, well, if not quite a joke, then certainly there was an undercurrent of malice

i disliked that direction in drum and bass, it left me cold .. up to a point i could appreciate some of the production and the atmosphere-sculpting but it just didn't give me the rush i got from "Renegade Snares", "Terrorist", "Helicopter Tune", "Supersharp Shooter", "Shadowboxing", "Squadron", etc etc

it had turned into something else, something that required a name

so I tried to come up with as unappetising a name as possible

ArtCore and Ambient Jungle has become compilation titles, so I really hoped that some label would heist the term and (as with Artcore and Ambient Jungle) hasten the acceleration of the sound away from that direction, make it as short-lived as possible

or even kill it off

of course that didn't happen and as this shows, the style abides as basically the dominant strain in drum'n'bass

what i get from this video mix of landmark tracks in the genre's evolution from 1997 to round about now is not really "the evolution of neurofunk", but a sense of stasis -- not only does the style not appear to have made any giant leap forward, it often sounds like more or less the same bassline (certainly on a timbral level, but even the way the B-lines are patterned), and the same basic beat, in all these songs

the main evolutionary leap seems to have been from what I was talking about in that December 97 Wire piece (more clinical Optical/Jonny L) to the Bad Company sound at the end of the 90s. and then it doesn't seem to make any leaps as such

(BC who i briefly rated as the Motorhead of D&B but in retrospect seem more like the Judas Priest)